This last Sunday afternoon I was resting on my bed, just about to drift off to sleep when my wife gasped. She had been scrolling through her Instagram account (a favorite past-time of hers) when her vocal reaction to a post jolted me from my midday nap (a favorite past-time of mine).
“Huh?” I slurred. She swung her phone around showing me a recent image of Hollywood starlet Olivia Wilde looking ghastly thin, the outline of her skull protruding through her checks and around her eye sockets. Her eyelids had been cosmetically altered wider and loops artificially plumped.
Another full-length image showed her skeletal frame seemingly swaying on the red carpet, seconds from toppling over. In my mind, I quipped to myself that “for only $5 dollars a day, I too could keep starving actresses like Olivia here, alive and fed.” My wife hates it when I joke like that out loud.
She like so, so many others, had fallen for the ruse that “gaunt is sexy”; a lie perpetrated by Hollywood stylist community (ie. homosexuals) convincing insecure heterosexual women that men are really turned-on by visible clavicles.
During the days of Twiggy and later, throughout the 1970’s, super skinny models achieved such looks through inhaling copious amounts cocaine. Today, higher grade – and far more toxic – pharmaceuticals are employed such as Ozempic whose primary ingredient is derived from a hormone called exendin-4 found in the venom of the Gila monster. No, I’m not kidding.
Simultaneously, fans of the hyper-violent, all-too-patronizing show “The Boys” have been vocally critical of actress Erin Moriarty (above) for destroying popular her girl-next-door-looks with a bout of rhinoplasty and possible use of Botox and dermal fillers, radically changing her face into something unrecognizable.
But again insane diet treatments, radical plastic surgeries and unfettered drug use are literally par for the course for Hollywood. Not even “Six Pack” star Kenny Rogers made it out without looking like permanently-surprised Florshiem shoe. So why even talk about it – especially in a car magazine?
I’ve mused that most men just want women to leave their faces alone. If a woman so chooses to shed a few pounds or go under the knife so to look a few decades younger, that’s their prerogative. But just leave the face alone. In that same vein, I feel a certain revulsion for car customizers who alter the lines of a classic beyond recognition.
Growing up in Southern California, I had been witness to countless over-the-top custom jobs – mainly hot rods pouring out of shops like Hot Rods by Boyd; SoCal Speed Shop; Foose Design and more. We had all of the Rod & Custom shows too, so again, seeing wild one-of-kind builds wasn’t anything new.
Yet, seeing yet another stretched, slammed and shaved ’33 Ford didn’t bristle me like the day I walked up on what BBT Fabrications did to a 1969 Dodge Charger at the 2018 Nashville Goodguys Show. Troy Gudgel’s shop meticulously removed every bit of Coke-bottle styling, every voluptuous curve that then-28-year-old Richard Sias put to paper in early 1967.
Gone were the smooth, arching shoulders pinching into a narrow waist, forming a faux scallop in the door skin. Removed was the upward arc mirroring the shoulders and meeting at the door. Instead, BBT shaved the doors smooth, forcibly straightening the large B-body’s sensuous curvature. Slab-sided, Gudgel’s stylistic hit job took out nearly all of the Charger’s original appeal.
Event coordinators had asked me to park “Brazen”, my all-too-normal ’69 Charger R/T near BBT’s monstrosity. It’s chrome import tuner-inspired spoiler and knock-off C2 Corvette 19-inch rims looking antithetical to my mid-1980’s 15-inch Weld Drag Lites and Mickey Thompson ET Streets. Certainly, the white custom drew a crowd – exorbitant amounts of money is easy to recognize. My Charger got a few looky-loos, which was fine.
And that was nearly 8 years ago. The “green light” to continue drastically modifying classic muscle cars has only continued to wave – and no iconic machine has been kept safe. Fastback 2+2 Mustangs, Hemi ‘Cudas, first gen F-bodies (Dave Kindig’s abhorrent widebody ’69 Camaro is particularly offensive), Challengers and more have been stretched, shrank, widened, flattened and otherwise abused by would-be designer always failing to improve upon the original design.
Heaven knows that I am no purist, but I return to the original premise: do not alter the original look that brought you to love the car in the first place. You cannot say to me with a straight face, “Oh, I love the look of a 1970 Dodge Charger” and then retch out something like Pro Comp Custom’s “Solo” ’70 Charger – a cartoonishly low, 3-inch chopped and channeled B-body that looks to have compacted in “Looney Tunes” Wile E. Coyote-fashion.
Upgrading powertrains, changing out wheel-and-tire combinations, swapping up colorations, and even eliminating a few bits of excess trim here and there can be all it takes to change a staid factory-original classic into a modern custom. But when the end result is borderline unrecognizable from the original, the question becomes, “Why not just design an original car to begin with?”
Of course, it’s your car and you can do with it whatever you wish. That’s entirely your right. But if you’ve always wanted a ’68 Super Bee, why graft on a Superbird wing, a ’63 Max Wedge hood scoop and a pair of T/A side-exit exhaust tips? Yes, I wholly understand that taste is subjective. Heck, many of you might find the sample images provided here appealing.
It’s just the idea that what drew you towards one car was its original look – so why change it so radically? There’s an old phrase that “you should dance with the one that brung you” that seems appropriate here. But then again, you’re also welcome to find emaciated, fish-faced starlets attractive as well.
–Kevin
