Accenting the lines

At age 39, Chris Carlson is an old-school customizer. The cars he builds, he builds in his head, not in a computer.

"I'm not very good at drawing," he concedes. On occasion, he will describe a design to an artist friend and have him sketch it out. But as often as not, the design emerges out of fabricated pieces of sheet metal, artfully welded together, and it often involves parts sourced from salvage yards, not from 1-800 online aftermarket vendors.

"I have a lot of cool designs on cars... what can I do to change and improve something that will fit the stance of a car and complement it," he said. "The best compliment you can have is when someone says, 'I'm not sure what you did to it, but I like it.' "

His low-slung 1960 Pontiac Ventura is a case in point. Painted in both suede and high-gloss candy apple orange, with classic Larry Watson-style beige scallops, the car is awash with subtle changes.

He bought the Ventura a little over three years ago, intending to use it as a cool daily driver.

"I had it about six months and then I started on it. I frenched in the taillights and filled in the side trim and shaved the door handles and shot it orange," he said.

He did resist the temptation to chop the top on the car and is now glad he kept the smooth factory roof line intact. "I just love that roof line," he said.

Carlson said he got the customizing bug from his dad and went to work for a custom shop in Missouri two days after graduating from high school.

He learned to mix paint when he first began working in a body shop at age 12. For the Pontiac, Carlson developed a process that allowed him to apply a suede finish that will not buff up to a shine even if it is rubbed on extensively.

He later peaked the hood of the Pontiac and recontoured the trailing edge of the deck lid. "I repainted the whole car orange again and that's when I did the candy flake top. I didn't want a silver, in-your-face roof. I thought that would be too much... but I wanted something that had a lot of pop to it," Carlson said.

"A lot of people who don't understand that era, that style (of show car) are confused by it," he said, noting they think the suede body needs to be finished off in shiny clear coat.

Carlson, who owns Chaotic Customs in Mulvane, enlisted co-worker Wess Lewis to help him lay out the intricate scallops that flow from stem to stern on the Pontiac. Chad Ward applied pinstriping for added accent to the sweeping body lines.

Inside, Carlson retained the stock bench seats but had Walt Curry of Mulvane design a new upholstery pattern using supple Italian leather to cover them. The same hides were used to cover redesigned door panels and to craft a new headliner.

Carlson modified the dashboard, changing the shape of the glove box and molding in Ford pickup air conditioning vents, along with a stereo and Vintage Air air conditioning controls. He painstakingly repainted the horizontal speedometer's dial to a striking black-on-white look.

The original Pontiac 389-cubic-inch V-8 with a 4-speed Hydramatic has been replaced by a warmed-up 383 Chevy stroker motor, much to the chagrin of some of Carlson's Pontiac purist buddies. But the suspension has been left basically stock, right down to the 4-wheel drum brakes.

A set of 17-inch American Racing TorqThrust II wheels was added, along with wide, low-profile Raptor tires that are set off nicely by a pair of dummy full-length lakes pipes.

The previous two owners of the Ventura put less than 2,500 miles on the car. "I said when I got it that I'm going to drive this car. We put 20,000 to 30,000 miles a year on it," Carlson said.

His wife, Karma, and their four kids are always ready to pile into the full-size custom cruiser. "We probably make it to 35 car shows a year and the kids always say, 'Can we take the '60?' and that excites me," Carlson said.

This story was originally published March 12, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Accenting the lines ."