Like a cultural anthropologist, photographer and writer Michael McCabes explores the outrageous style of the Kustom Kulture movement in Japan (the adaptation and assimilation of a California-style hot-rod culture)documenting the dynamic relationship between tradition and change.
McCabe explains: During the postwar period into the 1950s and 60s, Southern California youth embraced hot rods and custom cars as iconic representations that expressed the nuanced but raw power of youth. . . There is an interesting preoccupation among young urban Japanese about postwar American culture. It is not so much reproduction, but more creative re-invention . . . and cultural stylization is part of a nostalgic mystique that is being adopted.
McCabes photographs document Japans Kustom Kulture, from car shows such as the Mooneyes Tokyo Street Nationals, to custom car shops, to pin-stripers studios, to completely stylized car or bike aficionados in their period garb, and his text provides both history and context.
Forward by Don Ed Hardy
