1961 Ranchero from the Olde Kustom Kollection

[Tom Geiger]

Since I got good response from my last Olde Kustom rebuild, here's a '61 Ranchero custom that a friend gave me. Note that both a pillars are shattered as was the body as you can see over the rear wheel. Someone stripped the paint down and made a mess of it, scraping the body in places, leaving a lot of clean up work.

Again, the goal of the Old Kustom Kollection is to bring 'em back to their glory, and make them look like they were in the day. So we don't use any modern parts or techniques. I hand sanded the body because there was no way I was going to chance destroying the putty in this body. There is enough and it weighs a ton!

This one may have lived several lives since it had several colors on it. Bottom was light blue paint and the gold underlay for the candy purple. I did change the color of the car because I feared the dark purple would hide the body lines.

The original interior was complete and in good enough condition to simply dust and put back in the body. Gotta love the fur!

And here she is complete. The custom nose was off either the Ranchero customizing kit or a Falcon of the era. It's just priceless. All the original parts, including the tires and wheels were cleaned up and reused.

Top view - I cut down a bed cover from a new kit since I imagined that it had one back in the day. A new kit body was sacrificed to replace the A pillars. The two concessions I made on this one were cleaning up the putty on the nose to flow better and I scribed the front hood edge.

Rear view- The original builder shortened the bed and added on one of the customizing rear ends. The back flow is compromised as it suddenly tilts backward, but it is what it is. I wasn't going to fix it.

Side view - Imagine this one on a contest table in 1962. This one was fun and it was rewarding to bring her back from the dead. Now she's ready for the next 50 years on my shelf.

[Greg Pugh]

That's cool! I can really appreciate your methods and what you're doing. Awesome!

[cobraman]

Tom, you did an outstanding job on saving the old piece of history. Good work !

[cobra98]

Lol, what a funky looking little truck, I like it!

I also really like that you restore these old builds instead of complete overhauls or just parting them out.

Please Keep'em coming!

[Ramfins59]

Great job Tom. I started work on a Falcon Ranchero kit about 12 years ago using some old styline custom front and rear pieces which remind me of your model.... Maybe I should dig it out of obscurity and finish it up... I'm pretty sure that the squadron putty that I used on it way back then has fully dried and won't shrink anymore......LOL.

[realgone58]

That is awesome! Congrats to you for restoring them as they were. Great choice of color on this one though.

[Austin T]

Very cool,I like your builds they stand out.Do you have a page with pictures of all of your rebuilds?

[Danno]

Yep. The contest tables in the 60's were packed with customs like this one! Great job on saving it for all time, Tom!

[george 53]

I gotta agree, that's a funky lil truck! an you did a slam bang job of savein it too! GREAT save!!! It's nice to bring them back to life, isn't it?

[PistonDog]

I love the fact that you restored it to original...just like we do with 1:1 cars.