Goodguys 2023 FuelCurve.com Custom of the Year!
Congratulations to Cody Walls for winning the Goodguys 2023 FuelCurve.com Custom of the Year title with your 1949 Buick you built at your Traditional Metalcraft shop! We’ll see you and your vehicle in Scottsdale, Arizona November 17-19, 2023 at the 26th Speedway Motors Southwest Nationals as part of our 2023 Top 12 display!
Automotive customizers have long borrowed styling cues from concept cars. Cody Walls took that idea to the next level by building what he calls a concept custom.
“I built this Buick as a ‘what if GM built a fastback version of the Y-Job concept,’” Cody says. “That was the game plan. I was just lucky my wife was OK with letting me cut up her car.”
Built in 1938, Buick’s Y-Job concept car was a two-seat roadster designed by the famed Harley Earl that tested styling ideas like hidden headlights and wraparound bumpers. Some features, like its distinctive waterfall grille, became future Buick design elements.
Cody, who runs the Delaware-based shop Traditional Metalcraft, says he came up with his Y-Job-based fastback design ideas when he was in high school. He and his wife Erin found the ’49 Buick Sedanette seven years ago and he was able to start shaping those ideas in metal.
Body modifications to achieve Cody’s vision included chopping the top 1-inch, pancaking the roof crown an inch, sectioning the body 2-inches, and reshaping the quarter panels. The front fenders are reshaped where the headlights once resided, with contemporary Audi projector lights hidden behind the grille. Taillights from a ’59 Corvette are integrated into the quarter panels, while both bumpers are tucked tighter to the body. A ’49 Cadillac hinge assembly opens the hood to reveal custom engine compartment panels. All that custom metal work is bathed in shimmering House of Kolor Goldmine paint applied by Richard and Brandon Glymph.
The chassis has also had some surgery and now sports a ’68 Camaro front subframe with tubular A-arms, Wilwood disc brakes, a custom trailing arm suspension, and a C-notch for rearend clearance. Wheel Vintiques wheels are topped with ’53 Buick covers and wrapped in Diamondback wide whitewalls.
It’s nice to find vintage Buick power under the hood in the form of a 401c.i. Nailhead built by Emory’s Chassisworks that’s detailed with chrome-plated finned valve covers from Centerville Auto, a chrome air cleaner atop the Edelbrock carb, and coated Sanderson headers. A 4L60E transmission is controlled by a ’60 DeSoto push-button shifter integrated into the dash.
That modified dashboard houses updated original gauges, a Vintage Air system, and a modified steering wheel and column. Eric Black designed the interior, which Mikey Seats upholstered using custom-dyed metallic gold and black Relicate leather and vintage Cadillac cloth over cut-down stock seats.
Cody is understandably proud of the way his Buick “E-Job” (named for Erin) turned out and has been received. He says he hopes to build more custom concept cars in the future. We hope so, too.
Photos by John Jackson
