The Art of Kustom

Andy Saunders is one of the best-known customised car builders this side of the Atlantic, and many of his creations can be seen in The Art of Kustom exhibition at Beaulieu.

In the national home of motoring, you will find a riot of outrageous styling cues, awesome colour schemes and off-the-wall ideas, all engineeered from Andy’s imagination.

The Art of Kustom has gathered Andy’s creations from private collections across Europe. It also includes the 1930s splendour of Andy’s immaculate Cord, a Citroen that looks like a spaceship, a Reliant Rialto race car, a road-going speedboat, the world’s shortest Mini, enchantingly called the Mini Ha Ha, and a 1939 Peugeot 202 pick-up, called Metropolis.

You’ll be able to see just how Andy works his magic, with this last mentioned commercial vehicle, which looked not too disimilar to Sir Tow Mater from the cartoon Cars movie, when he rescued it from a French field three years ago. Now, Metropolis looks like a sleek retro
delivery vehicle.

Tetanus is one of Andy’s most widely acclaimed projects, taking 14 years to complete. This 1937 Cord 812 Westchester was in an appalling condition when Andy found it, having spent more than half a century decaying in a Yorkshire field. Andy’s friend accidentally christened this crusty car with its moniker when he declared: “I’m not touching that car without a tetanus shot!”

Tetanus was inspired by a stylish car illustration that Andy saw on a birthday card. To produce the streamlined two-door coupé the wings were widened and reworked, the roof was lowered and shortened, doors were lengthened and the rear-end built from scratch using sections from a Jaguar MKII and VW Beetle. With a sumptuously trimmed red cockpit and Chevrolet V8 engine under the bonnet, this beauty is a real crowd-pleaser, as you can tell from the picture above.

The Art of Kustom can be seen as part of standard admission to Beaulieu, which includes entrance to the National Motor Museum, World of Top Gear, On Screen Cars, the ancestral Montagu family home of Palace House, 13th-century Beaulieu Abbey and the stunning grounds and gardens.

To buy tickets in advance online or for more information visit www.beaulieu.co.uk or call 01590 612345. Entry is also included with a Hot Rod & Custom Drive-In Day event ticket. For online tickets or more details please visit www.beaulieu.co.uk