Hi, my name is Ron Smith and I own and run Kustom Bitz with my family. I have been involved in hot rodding since I was a kid (roughly 5 decades) largely influenced by my dad who through the 1970s ran a tank Fairlane with a mildly worked 351 Cleveland and top loader. There were always hot rod magazines on our kitchen table, I never liked reading books much but you could not get me to put these magazines down.
When I was roughly 9 years old dad brought the 46 Ford Deluxe pictured here. While dad worked in the shed I would sit in the driver’s seat pretending to drive and change the gears, not just for a few minutes it was quite often all afternoon.
At 14 years old I had a sketch I did of a 36 Coupe printed in Custom Rodder, I was stoked, I used to sit there for hours on end drawing hot rods, always hot rods and as you may be able to tell from the photo I was largely influenced by the American magazines hot rod cartoonists of those times.
I frequented the swap meets with dad from an early age, and brought my first car at 17 years, a ’58 Mainline ute running a 302 Windsor, C4 auto and Borg Warner diff. Pictured here from the Bendigo Swap meet in 1987 is my Mainline and dad’s ’37 Ford Sedan that runs a 350, 350 Chevy combo.
At 21 I needed a sedan and fell for a ’66 Galaxie of which I still own. Shown here is a photo at the ’91 Melbourne Vic Hot Rod Show after it’s first budget rebuild, from after driving it around for a few years as it was. Then it got another more thorough rebuild later on and now sports different graphics.
At 26 I built up a ’67 Mustang for the missus which we still get around in, I also messed about a lot with various XA/XB and XW/XY falcons as daily drivers, modified of course.
At 30 a hot rod was in order but money was tight so it had to be cheap, boy I sometimes wish I had just saved up. Shown here is the A model bucket I dragged home one weekend a long time ago and have spent countless years resurrecting it. It’s character building I’m told. ![](//static.shop033.com/UserFiles/2024-Files/Image/icon_confused.gif)
Here is my baby don’t she look great? ![](//static.shop033.com/UserFiles/2024-Files/Image/icon_cool.gif)
The ‘A’ model at one of her various early stages, another baby in the making.
The model A as she currently sits, nearly ready for rego in 2020.
![Hot Rod Chassis model bucket chassis fabrication](//static.shop033.com/resources/E8/2024/Image/ModelAbucket_HotRod.jpg)
Kustom Bitz started in 2007 but the idea had been in my head for a decade or so before that, and some of the bits have been on my cars for a long time. So as of 2020 we have been trading for 13 years and the business has become quite diverse in what I take on, the background of Kustom Bitz goes back a long way.
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