Jim Vasquez
Southern California hot rod and custom car builder with roots in the traditional kustom kulture scene.
Jim Vasquez grew up around hot rods in the Los Angeles area, spending his formative years learning the trade from older builders — chopping tops, channeling frames, laying paint, sourcing period hardware. He eventually settled in Long Beach, where he has spent the last two decades building traditional customs and hot rods and staying close to the West Coast show circuit.
His work sits firmly in the traditional kustom kulture camp: chopped 1949-1951 Mercurys, channeled 1932 Ford coupes, and flathead-powered street rods built from late-1920s and early-1930s American iron. He writes about these cars from a builder's perspective — what makes a correct period build, where the compromises are, and how to tell a well-executed traditional custom from one that just looks the part.
Jim's daily driver is a chopped, channeled 1933 Ford three-window coupe with a built Mercury flathead — exactly the kind of car he's been building and driving his whole adult life.
Magazine Articles by Jim Vasquez
Wheels and Tires That Make a Pro-Touring Camaro
Restoring a First-Gen Camaro Interior
Four-Link and Coilover Conversions for a First-Gen Camaro
Restomod Interiors: Modern Comfort, Classic Look
Paint Codes and Bodywork on a Classic Camaro
Camaro restomods and pro-touring builds
Pro-Touring Camaro: Suspension, Brakes and Handling
The LT-1 Corvette: The Small-Block That Outran the Big-Blocks
The Grand Sport: Duntov's Five Corvette Racing Cars That Shook Le Mans
Big Block vs. Small Block: The C3 Corvette's Engine Divide
The 1965 Corvette and Four-Wheel Disc Brakes: The End of the Drum Era
The Pony Emblem and the Mustang Logo Story
The LS6 454 Corvette: 1971's Last Hurrah of American Horsepower
The 1963 Corvette Z06: The First Big Performance Package
Classic Mustang Restomods: The Culture, Not the How-To
The Men Who Drew the Mustang: Gale Halderman and the Studio Fight
