Left to right: Pinball Wizard, Beer Wagon and Peanut Machine Photo: Street Rodder
While George Barris and Ed “Big Daddy” Roth are household names, the comparatively unknown Carl Casper is my favorite designer of outrageous custom hot rods of the 1960s and 1970s. Such incongruous hot rod themes as mail truck and barbershop were common, but I prefer the straightforward corner tavern, hot peanut and pinball sensibility of Carl Casper. These no-go showboats were decked out with chrome superchargers and fuel injection but never hit the pavement as they were rolled out of trailers to the pink shag fake fur of the hot rod show floor. Carl is still slogging it with an annual Louisville car show and, since he has never sold a car he built, there is still an opportunity to see these beasts in their natural environment under the florescent lights. Naturally, I like cars that go, but these candy flake monsters were the stuff of my dreams when I was kid; I bought all the model kits and dutifully assembled plastic chrome engines in a Testors glue fog.
Street Rodder Magazine on the 1970’s Show Rods
Carl Casper on the interdoodles
(Mister Jalopy is a guest blogger!)