PROBLEM CHILD KUSTOMS

Back when I was in the planning stages of building our Houseospeed shop truck, I invested some cash where I never had before. Into my vision. I reached out to a talented artist and described what I had in my head and asked him to he capture it on paper. 
That talented artist was none other than Brian Stupski of Problem Child Kustoms, and the concept drawings above are what he sent me. To say I was blown away is an understatement. Simply put, Brian flat out gets it. The concept drawing Brian did of my Suburban actually propelled my dream forward. While commissioning it wasn't inexpensive, it was some of the best money I ever spent. In fact, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see their dream visualized before they spend untold thousands making it happen. I'm going to be reaching out to Brian to discuss my concept for the '29 roadster, and see if he's up for doing a little magic for me again. I'll post an update.

 

TBD

TBD

TBD

Let it Slide!

Ratiki, the HouseOspeed tiki wagon

1. Meet "Ratiki", the HOS shop truck, aired down and ready for its close-up. The idea was to  build a sixties custom beach wagon, using design touches that borrowed liberally from woodies, nomads, with a definite West Coast surf wagon vibe. 

2. Built in Austin, Texas, our 1965 Chevrolet Suburban received a full-frame up restoration. Among its many custom touches are the numerous tiki and bamboo details painted by Austin artist, "CRASH!"

3. The tiki grill was a collaboration between myself and Crash. I made the figures and Crash did the painting. Each individual piece is unique. The tikit also adorn the roof rack. More on that later.

4. The engine is a 383 stroker block, built for torque. The tranny is a 700/R4 4-Speed automatic.

5. Even the lettering has been painted in a bamboo motif.

6. The roof rack is a one-off design by EB Effect Lab of Austin Texas. Everett Byron built the rack from scratch using mild steel tubing. A particularly nice touch is the integrated fold down rack.

7. The door panels use a vintage style barkcloth, which I sourced from Hawaii.

8. The seats use a pearl white vinyl. The goal was to make the seats look like vintage lowbacks. We chopped a pair of 90's Honda buckets, adding bolsters to shape the seat more like a sixties chevy.

9. The headliner consists of bamboo which I installed a single split shoot piece at a time.

10. The dash is faced with a seagrass material I found at Pier One. The gauges are from Mooneyes and the tilt steering column is from Ididit, painted by Crash.  The skull hangs from the rear view mirror and keeps an eye on things.

11. Sea grass mats were made by Fat Lucky's and finish off the truck nicely. Thanks for reading.

One of my favorite tiki inspired rides

As I was doing research for the HouseOspeed/HotRodShiftKnob 29 Model A roadster, I came acroos a car I've always loved and in looking at the shots fell back in love all over again. I first saw it at a Mooneyes X-Mas party in '94.  The car was called LB Tiki and was built by a guy named Ivan with an assist on the interior by Tiki Diablo.

John Cooper's El Tiki

Here's a cool car that has a lot of neat details. I've been spending some quality time admiring this build and you may want to as well. The link will take you to an entire article with even more pics. Enjoy!