Most of the well-known customs of the '50s and '60s were just plain ugly.
Somehow, we lost our ability to ascertain good design, and a lot of those cars and their builders became automotive icons for some reason. But why?
Ed Roth comes to mind. Yeah, he was a character... "larger than life," as they say... but many (most?) of his creations were just ugly! The Mysterion... Road Agent... Outlaw... I mean, come on! They were hideous! They were cartoons, not styling successes. Come on... does anyone out there actually think this is an example of a successful design? Really?
It's a train wreck!
And not to pick on Roth... there were many other well-known customs of the era that were equally bad. Yet somehow these automotive monstrosities became legendary, along with their creators. I'll never understand why.