Slang auto terms don’t always mean what you might think they mean, and this is one of those cases. In Jeff Breitenstein’s Ultimate Hot Rod Dictionary: A-Bombs To Zoomies (2004, MBI Publishing), Breitenstein describes Gook Wagons as “Derogatory term for any principally stock vehicle adorned with an extreme excess of OEM or, especially inexpensive aftermarket accessories (trumpet horns, fox tails, bug deflectors, mud flaps, etc.).”
He goes on to explain; “The Gook Wagon expression and customizing style were most common from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s and usually applied to 1930s model year vehicles. The proliferation of modern 1950s-era automobiles upstaged the Gook Wagon, bringing about its general demise.”
Given that this term was used in the post war 1940s to mid-1950s, there were two primary aftermarket parts manufacturers that supplied enough parts to reach this level of ostentation. The first being Western Auto, through their mail order business, the parts company offered everything from batteries to firearms. Western Auto was sold to Beneficial Financial in the 1960s, then to Sears Roebuck and Company in the late 1980s. The company ceased operations in 2003.
The other supplier of parts that lead the way for the highly adorned Gook Wagon style was J.C. Whitney, the company that began life as a scrap metal yard in Chicago. Originally buying parts from failed auto manufacturers to add to their inventory, the company found great success once the mail order catalog business began to find favor with buyers. J.C. Whitney was acquired by The Riverside Company in 2002, and still does business today.
Summing up the Gook Wagon style, we go back to Jeff Breitenstein’s Ultimate Hot Rod Dictionary: A-Bombs To Zoomies (2004, MBI Publishing); “In conflict with prevailing tastes, the Gook Wagon’s appearance was by then often considered tacky, gaudy, or pretentious by contemporary Hot Rodders and Customizers, for whom common aesthetics suggested that a vehicle’s appearance was improved by the removal, rather than the addition, of accessories and trim.”
We hardily agree. Less is more in most cases.
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