Gary Meyers' Handmade Bubbletop Show Car - Bubble or Nothin'

Once upon a time in the '60s, as the story goes, just before kustoms went into their big sleep, there was an all-too-brief-but-glorious moment when show rods ruled. Such far-out glam vehicles gave us pause to speculate with virtually unlimited expatiation on what our supposedly atomic-fueled, space-age future had to offer. One thing we as young men, filled with imagination, knew for sure: Automobiles too would be unlimited, or at least our view of the sky from their cockpits would be, because they'd all have bubbletops.

Revell apparently agreed, supplying us with mini-bubbles in a handy custom car-parts kit (note, there were 36 such kits available from Revell, circa '63 or thereabouts, with 953 separate pieces if you bought them all-you did, didn't you?) to upgrade and enhance our creativity in model building. I still have a vivid memory of my pearl yellow, bubbletopped version of AMT's '49 Ford. The point being that we were all budding Starbirds and Roths, as local hobby shop model car contests across the nation were to attest week after week. But, like most all good things, it didn't take long for the bubble to burst. This pinprick to all things futuristic was fostered by many things: factory musclecars; the fact that most any new-car offering already sported acres of glass (hence the now-popular but incorrect term "bubbletop" when referring to certain two-door hardtop models, especially from Chevy); and let's not forget that old Asian war-now that was a bubble-burster if ever there was one!

Yes, our attention was indeed diverted, to say the least, as we cruised brand-new, radically styled stockers, living life to the fullest, unsure of what tomorrow might hold. Instead of wide-eyed wonderment through the distortion of blown plexi, we dwelled on much more serious matters, such as girlfriends-turned-fiances and the possibility of being drafted. Someone flip the page, please!

Well, the world, it does go on, and those boys who once anticipated a bright future viewed through a bubbletop are now men fully grown, and then some-men who, in retrospect, realize that the Walt Disney World of Tomorrow didn't exactly turn out as advertised. To get a taste of what they missed out on, they knew they'd have to build it for themselves.

This brings us to the 'burbs of Wichita, Kansas, and two friends with a common interest who've been into kustoms and helping each other build cars for years-Elden Titus and Gary Meyers (Elden being the younger brother of Jerry Titus, the man who was just a little more than instrumental in reviving the kustom movement in the first place). Seems Elden and big bro Jerry had a history of building model cars together, usually combining their ideas into a single kustom kreation. This is how Elden's famed Voodoo Spyder show car was conceived, though it took a few decades to go from shelf to reality. Fast forward to today, where he's still building models as styling studies to test ideas before jumping headlong into building the real deal in one-to-one scale-something more builders should consider. (Note: Elden puts on the International Model Kemp Spectacular, a show within a show, at the annual Kustom Kemps of America Leadsled Spectacular held the last weekend of July in Salina, Kansas.)

Elden has built a slew of models since the days when he collaborated with brother Jerry, but when he crafted the Vampyre and showed it to his friend, that was it-Gary just had to have the real thing. The boys were off and running on a new project that would consume the next three years. (Note that a vampyre is a female vampire, which is only fitting, as cars are "shes," right?)

An early ('87) Chevy S-10 pickup was the platform of choice to begin fabrication of the retro-modern vehicle our dynamic building duo had in mind. Picked for its simplistic body-on-frame construction and minimal inner body structure, S-10s have a proven track record as chassis donors. When the dust of deconstruction had settled, the boys were left with little more than a rolling chassis mounting topless and heavily channeled (8 inches) cab innards-the perfect starting point. Elden then scaled up his plastic model to adult size, creating the Vampyre's sensuous night-stalking profile in half- and 3/8-inch steel rod before fleshing her out in 20-gauge sheetmetal.

Every bubbletop has one thing in common-a "ring" to define its footprint; this was created in steel as well, then delivered by Gary to Plastic Fab Inc. of Tulsa, Oklahoma, to be used as a parameter mold for free-blowing the bubble from a sheet of quarter-inch-thick Plexiglas. The finished bubble raises and lowers with Hotronics lift cylinders at the touch of a key fob.

With a thousand-and-one detail items attended to, the now Air Ride Technologies-bagged and stretched chassis (it was determined during layout that the car needed 8 inches more between wheel centers for the desired profile)-powered by a Chevy 350 crate and rolling on chromed Foose Nitrous wheels wrapped in Diamond Back Classics 1-inch walls-was brought to reality through Elden's metal magic and Gary's meticulous finish work. An interior designed by M.K. John was also fabricated in sheetmetal. With everything smoothed to the nth-degree, the "Juice" (Justin Cline) laid down House of Kolor Passion Pearl Purple on all surfaces both inside and out, after which Richard Kirkendall made it habitable by stitching up white pearl vinyl in a hammered metal finish.

After all this, it was time to let the completed Vampyre take flight. And fly she did, directly to the bright lights of the show floor, where she found her prey-trophies this time around, as it ain't the Dark Ages anymore. Darryl Starbird's 50th annual Wichita show brought first prize, the Rod d'Elegance; Starbird's Tulsa show saw the big Go For The Gold 20-grand to prize in her fangs; and the 27th annual Leadsled Spectacular in Salina, Kansas, bestowed on her its highest honor as America's Top Custom, the 777 Custom Crown Award.

So, do people like '60s-inspired show rods? I guess so! And far from being burst this time around, young men's ambitions can once again be focused on a once-and-future past where bubbletops ruled the shows and the future was whatever they dreamed it to be. Never lose that dream. Elden hasn't, as he's already got the model finished for his next Titus Kustom Kar Kreation. And you just know Gary will be right there, sleeves rolled up, giving his friend a hand with his next expression of '60s Wichita-style for the 21st century.