They say that imitation that is the sincerest for of flattery, and as well that flattery will get you nowhere. If those homilies are both true then today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Custom Cloud ain't going anywhere.
Yesterday's porn star ‘Vette climaxed in a 76.95% Nice Price explosion, and all without a fluffer. That little red Corvette was a rolling ladies night back in the day, but what if your proclivities were a little more, oh lets just say, aspirationally upscale? If you happened to be - back when Michael Jackson was both alive and black, - either a suburban pimp, mobster, or patron of fine velvet paintings, then you might have gravitated to a car such as today's 1976 Custom Cloud homage-mobile.
This Georgia Peach has been resting in a museum for an undisclosed number of years, where apparently its engine became a non-performance art and was summarily replaced with a Jasper remanufactured SBC. Details on that motivator are also lacking, but suffice to say, the car is probably no longer a static display. The rumor is that at least some of the 41,000 miles on this car were put there by none other than the porcelain throne-reigning king himself- Elvis Aaron Presley. That's unsubstantiated, and shouldn't be taken into consideration in your deliberations, however I thought I'd just throw that out there, should the possability float your scrote.
If you're unfamiliar with the Custom Cloud, here's the Reader's Digest condensed version of the car's history- In the early ‘70s ad guy Jon Tedesco and a friend, Dean Giliard, founded the South Florida Street Rods club. A client of Tedesco's agency had been importing fiberglass VW kit cars from South America, and the three went into business building the Nash and Alfa kits, selling the completed cars to folks with more money than taste. At the same time, Tedesco was doing some ad work for the South Florida Chevrolet Dealer Association, in an attempt to increase dealership traffic. His idea wasn't a sassy ad campaign, but a custom version of Chevy's Raphaelesque Monte Carlo. The kit car company became Custom Cloud Motors, Inc., and their eponymous product became available as either a fiberglass and stainless steel kit, or a rag-tag factory-built complete car. Tedesco realized that Rolls Royce could potentially put them out of business due to patent infringement, but soon discovered that the British maker never patented their iconic grille in the U.S., so he took out a patent for it as a safeguard. That was sort of like closing the barn door after the horse has already split through the window as Rolls Royce did eventually sue, only not for patent but trademark infringement, claiming that Custom Cloud's overlocking CC badge was too close to that of the venerated maker of Victorian Wardrobes luxury conveyances.
Rolls Royce easily won the suit (hell, CC was using knock-off flying lady hood ornaments on their cars!) and the company fell apart, but that wasn't before a bunch of cars and kits made it out of the south Florida factory, including this silver example. A Rolls-aping grille is bookended by owlish round headlamps and presides over a substantial chrome blade of a bumper off of a '73 Buick LeSabre. The Monte Carlo's neo-classic rolling fender lines are exaggerated even further here, while out back, the rear end sports the same Lucas tail and license plate lamps as a real Roller. Tucked under the baroque fenders are a set of what look like bolt-on wire wheels, and the Monte's second light in the landau roof has been vinyled over, allowing only the queen's royal wave to be seen, should she happen to be rolling with you. Inside, it's all mid-seventies Monte, which means acres of red velour upholstery and a steering wheel thin as a corgi's peen. Behind that is a dash that's not a Roller's burled walnut, but Chevy's petroleum-based faux wood. That rolling bordello easily matches the fiberglass exterior enhancements for garishness, however the package as a whole is not without its appeal.
There's probably more than the 50 known to exist that the seller claims, but still, these things come up for sale less frequently than nude pictures of Rosie O'Donnell. If you've always wanted a faux-rolls, this could be your chance. The seller wants $10,500, which is a laughable amount for a '76 Monte, no matter what the shape, but for a prime example of historic American kitsch, maybe that price isn't so crazy. What do you think, is ten-five a fair price for this rare faker? Or, would you only pay that much if it were in counterfeit money?
You decide!
Savannah Smiles Craigslist or go here if Rolls makes them take the ad down.
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