Did the Americans invent the combination of cars and ladies? Quite probably – and from America also hails the custom-craze. So here is a custom Corvette and the greatest sex symbol of the Seventies – together. We recommend to look only at her!
There is no more American car than the Chevrolet Corvette. And there is no more American thing than overdoing it. Many custom cars are the exact result of that. But what happens when you overdo doubtful taste? Bad things, as this Corvette shows.
When you just happen to love discreet elegance as I do custom cars are obviously not the first thing to look for. And to be honest I wasn’t: I was looking for Farrah Fawcett that day on the great Internet. You could argue that she does not exactly stand for discreet elegance either, but that is an entirely different discussion again. Anyway, I stumbled across this green monster.
And a monster it is – even though the first photo above starts outs showing its strongest point: The interior is an acquired taste, but apparantly well (over)done and the car came fully equipped, telephone and all. In fact I can see several positive things there – including quite a good match with its eventual owner, stylewise: Fawcett had big hair too. And suede boots? Yes, rarely have such items of style been better suited anywhere.
But then there is the rest (of the car, that is):
It leaves me quite speechless. The Corvette itself is not the problem, of course – I like the C3-shape, even recognizing that it is not a car for me: Too flashy. But then Barris the customizer put flashy on top of that. In my most tolerable mood I could live with – or ignore – the sidepipes. The striping. The wheels. The hairy interior. Well, I actually quite like that last bit. But then there are those fenders, widened to accomodate the wheels.
They are not only widened, they are deformed. And I wonder: That were they thinking? Was this really a masterful example of the work of one of America’s most renowned customizers? Apparantly yes. It makes me wonder how this nation got anyone to the Moon. Or whether they actually did at all or this thing was made by skyhigh NASA-technicians smoking outside the mission control?
As I said: I wonder. I have not been able to find that many good photos of the car and I believe that is a good thing. It was sold on Ebay some years ago and the top photos in the gallery below are lifted from there. But quickly go on, please, as there is beauty coming later on: Farrah Fawcett.
Yes, I remember her. No, I wasn’t very old. But is has been said that she was one of the greatest American (unofficial!) ambassadors in the mid-Seventies, purely based on her status as worldwide beauty queen. She and her husband Lee Majors were perhaps the most celebrated couple in showbusiness at the time. Just how beautiful was she? Well, Lee Majors and Steve McQueen were good friends and McQueen had himself found a lady not exactly missing anything in the looks department. That was Barbara Minty, of course, and I had the privilige of meeting her at the vernissage of The Last Mile: Barbara told me how she and other Hollywoodbeauties at the time almost feared being in the same room as Farrah Fawcett – because her beauty trumped them all.
And as I said even I remember her: The poster with Farrah in a red swimsuit is well known all over the world. I wasn’t old enough to have that one on my wall and had to just watch Charlie’s Angels on Fridays along with my family. Which wasn’t bad either. She was my favourite of those angels, just as she was millions of other’s favourite. She was on the top of the world then – Mattel even made a prototype-Barbie based on the red-swimsuit pose. You cannot get any higher than that regarding female beauty.
Therefore an ordinary Corvette was too ordinary for Farrah Fawcett. She needed one on acid and that she got. Had it only been fractionally as beautiful as she was.
