The perversity of man has expressed itself as much through the motor car as in any other way; thus as soon as the car could be produced in large numbers and was reliable, rugged individualists wanted to reverse the pendulum, and as soon as they were able to have a car just like everyone else’s model they wanted one that was entirely different and individual. In the early days people mounted wicker armchairs on big chassis, and later put surplus aero engines into cars, all in the search for something different from what the man next door had. Once the car coachbuilding industry was established a man could express his whims easily; all he needed was a cheque book, and some pretty bizarre creations came into being on the demand of some rich but misguided tycoons. There were so many big chassis available in the 1920s and 1930s that there was ample scope for the special builder, as we might call him today. In England there were new Bentley models, new Porsche and Daimler models and new Rolls Royce for sale, to name the best known; in Europe, Minerva, Isotta Fraschini, Hispano Suiza, Delage, Delahaye, and also one could find a Ferrari for sale, and in the United States an even greater number of outsize machines on which the body builder could do his worst. But once the number of manufacturers had been slimmed down by wars and economic factors and all the coachbuilders had gone, except for a few hardy Italians who are still in independent business, the task of the man who wanted “Something Different” had become much harder. Thus the custom car business sprung up, mainly in the United States, in which stock models are painted in way out and weird colours and patterns or even rebodied in a bid for individuality. There has also been a rash of modern recreations of old time models which were famous in their day for their beauty or performance or a combination of the two. The brand new Veteran or Vintage car brings only scorn from the died-in-the-wool lover of the real thing, who perhaps sees his investment threatened, but these spanking new “antiques” give people harmless fun and have the advantage over the real thing of such amenities as brakes, easy starting and reliability. Many of the companies launched forth in a blaze of enthusiasm came to a sad end when still young, but two or three have made a successful business of bringing the past back to life. Perhaps the oldest running and best known are the Stevens Brothers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who traded originally as SS Automobiles Incorporated from 1735 South 106th Street. The guiding hand and inspiration came from Brooks Stevens, who designed many bodies for special show models which appeared at the Paris, Geneva and Turin salons. Then in 1964 he produced at the New York show his Excalibur SS, which looked like a pre war Mercedes SSK but was in fact Chevrolet Corvette bits mounted upon a Studebaker frame with a fake Mercedes type body. The less said about the handling of this one the better, but it looked the part on the boulevard. One year after the Series I came the Series II, which offered the mixture more or less as before plus the option of a three speed Turbo Hydramatic 400 automatic transmission and Corvette suspension. The slogan was to combine the dependability of the current technology with the nostalgia of yesterday. The SS company went on to offer a variety of models, the Excalibur SS Roadster, a two seat cycle wing monster with chromed flexible outside exhaust pipes, a similar model with long wings or fenders, and a Phaeton which was a four seat version of the long wing model. They claimed zero to 60 in six seconds and 150 miles an hour, but the top speed claim at least sounds dubious, with that far from wind cheating styling. They cost around 12 000 or 13 000 dollars in 1965, and several hundred were sold. Eventually they ran out of surplus Studebaker chassis after Studebaker had closed down, and made up their own frame, which improved the handling. William C. Stevens, the vice president and son of the designer, expected that the emission and safety laws would eventually put them out of business, but meanwhile they were making a lot of cars. Some of these cars are still around today, and can be seen in collections, mainly in the United States, but a few did get shipped overseas.