‘Custom Illustrated’ was one of the pocket-sized road and custom magazines that were highly popular in the late 50s and early 60s.
These magazines were cheap and offered up solid tech advice in a small package, so they were like paper gold to car guys in the golden era of custom cars.
‘Custom Illustrated’ had a section called Custom Studio—its mandate was to give design advice to would-be builders from world class designers.
Jerry Sutherland
The July 1961 edition featured the 1942-48 Chevy fastback as the platform, so I was sold immediately because my brother owned a ’48 Chevy fastback back when I was young and impressionable. I always thought the fastback Chevys were among the coolest and underrated cars ever built, so this was a very interesting topic.
The writer was Robert Eidschun–he was the face of Reedan Design. Robert is still active in automotive design today, but he had some interesting thoughts on the classic Chevy fastback.
He offered up two versions of the custom—mild and wild. The mild version looked wild enough to me.
Eidschun believed in working with what the car had to offer rather than add the usual array of 50s custom gadgets: “I believe it is definitely wrong to start putting on Moon discs, skirts, antennas and other unnecessary paraphernalia without deciding whether the car in question is in need of the same”.
He had a very distinct vision of what a mild custom on a ’48 Chevy should look like–it definitely wasn’t mild. He started by lowering it, plus he removed the center post and squared-out the rear windows to create what he called a “highly desirable two-door hardtop”.
Eidschun focused on the front of the Chevy and gave it a very prominent grille. He called it continental—as in European, but to me it was an Edsel feature on a post-war Chevy. The nose was the center piece for two horizontal custom tube grilles.
He didn’t want quad headlights on this custom—or canted quad headlights because he thought they would make the front-end look “too heavy”. He added inset Corvair taillights and bumpers front and back because they were “simple, clean and easy to mount”.
The wild or “all-out” (as he called it) version of Eidschun’s design lived up to its name. He envisioned a roadster with a fiberglass removable roof and a much slimmer hood with a custom horizontal grille. In my opinion, the front end of the mild version of the post-war Chevy fastback was a lot wilder.
He envisioned Corvair bumpers on this version too, but the taillights were pure ’59 Pontiac Catalina set inside a custom horizontal grille. I really liked this look.
These were both exceptional versions of a 40s-era Chevy custom, but they weren’t something a backyard warrior could easily build. Hopefully, someone did build real-life versions because this were rolling art just waiting to happen.
For the record, I still like the stock ’42-48 Chevy fastbacks too.
Jerry Sutherland
By: Jerry Sutherland
Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post, Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.
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