1948-1960, 12 years Valley Custom Shop Creators of the most stylish custom cars around.

Neil Emory had been doing general body work for quite some time and after getting his own place in 1947 he named it Valley Customs in 1948. Neil having learned the body work from attending wood and metal shops at school and watching the “pro” at various coachbuilder shop like Coachcraft and Darrin doing their magic on cars for movie stars etc.

His brother-in-law Clayton Jensen was looking for work and had some experience in mechanical work which suited Neil perfectly since he like the body and design work much better. So in late 1948 The Valley Custom shop started to create the first custom cars out of a former service station in Burbanks California.

Clayton learned the trade very fast and soon was able to do the same work as Neil, and together they created some of the best styled custom cars of which a lot are still around today. The Collaboration ended in 1960 when Niel left and Valley Customs was closed at we all know it.

Factory styling study

What really made the Valley Customs cars stand out much over other customizers work was the design element of it. Many of there custom cars had much more the feel of an “factory styling study” than a custom car. Sometimes it looks like Valley Customs where able to create the factory design studies in rear automobiles. The sketches of the designers always had that low and long look. Something, which always seems to disappear once the cars went into production. Chopping the roofs brought back some of these design element but what really made the difference what sectioning the cars. Especially that custom trick made the cars look like those drawn by the factory designers. Long sleek lines. At least three of Valley Customs most popular customs have those “factory styling study” elements. Ron Dunn’s ’50 Ford, Jack Stewart’s ’50 Oldsmobile and Ralph Jilek’s ’40 Ford convertible. All three cars where sectioned thru the middle of the body. All three cars did get totally different proportions after the customizing was performed, but all three cars also remained much of theire original lines, overall looks, only with different proportions. Designing there custom’s in detail on paper has a lot to do with this. Neil And Clayton discussed a custom project with the customer thoroughly before they went to work. And usually the next step was making some detailed sketches to show the customer how the discussed plans would turn out once the team went to work on the car. Then when everything was approved on work could start. Neil had always showed much more interest in the design element of customizing and therefore it was him who did most of the bodywork. Clayton was a technical genius responsible for that end of the job. But basically both could handle every job needed to create the wonderful custom cars.

Clayton Jensen

Niel Emory

Niel Emory in the middle working on Glen Hooker’s 1939 Mercury (with ’40 Front) Clayton is working on the “Polynesian” on the right. The other two are coworkers hired to relieve the workload.

Sharp lines

Another element that made the Valley Custom Cars so much different than all the other customs cars was that on many of their cars fenders and other element where indeed molded to the body but this was done with a rather sharp lines compared to the much more rounded molded effect seen by most of the other customizers. The molded look worked very well to create a body made to look like it was shaped out of one piece, made them look like molded over a buck. A good example of this molded into one piece is the Valley Customs built (and Barris finished) Jack Stewart ’41 Ford. (The Jack Stewart of this ’41 Ford is a different Jack Stewart than Jack Stewart from the Valley Customs built Polynesian, that Jack came from Ohio, while this Jack came from California) The Jack Stewart For can be seen in the Ayala chapter of this book. A lot of the Valley custom cars did have sharp lines defining the fenders from the body etc. Lines that where needed in the eyes of Neil and Clayton to make the customs look sharp and elegant, make the body look light which enhanced the effect of what they wanted to do when sectioning the body. 

Valley Customs customized the body not to make it different, like some customizers might tend to do, or perhaps more correct, like some customers asked the customizers to do when having there cars customized. No Valley Customs wanted to improve on the lines when customizing, not to make it look different from the rest.

Valley Customs also marketed products for the home builder. The produced several lowering kits which they also advertised with rather funny ads in the early ’50 custom car magazines.

On the right is one sample of the ads they ran in the mid 50’s Rod & Custom magazine.

The Valley custom was also subject of several magazine article. In those articles they showed how certain customizing techniques where used. This Motor trend cover from 1957 Shows a Valley Custom  Shop scene in a Paint special. On the left the nose of the Ina May Overman 52 Lincoln can be seen.