The Howard Gribble Photo Collection

A custom painted GMC Lowrider Pick Up at a So Cal indoor car show in the 1970s featuring Cragars, narrow whites and shag carpets in the bed. Photo from the Howard Gribble collection.

A 1963 Pontiac Catalina at an So Cal indoor car show in the 1970s. Pontiacs were popular to "fix up" according to Howard, though most people preferred the cleaner Grand Prix model. Photo from the Howard Gribble collection

The King Orchid at an indoor car show. The King Orchid was a 1969 Chevrolet Impala owned by Imperials car club member Art Valadez. Art was the brother of Jesse Valadez, who owned the Gypsy Rose Impala. Both the King Orchid and the Gypsy Rose were painted by Walt Prey. Photo from the Howard Gribble collection.

Another photo of the King Orchid at the same indoor show. Photo from the Howard Gribble collection .

Another 1970s indoor show photo from the archive of Howard. Anyone recognize the car or show? Photo from the Howard Gribble collection

Another so-far unpublished photo from the Howard Gribble collection. This photo from the 1970s shows an Impala at an indoor show. According to Howard the trophies were LARGE back then. "In fact every car got a "participation" trophy for just entering. And these participation awards could be 2 feet or more tall." Photo from the Howard Gribble collection

This photo, showing a 1966 Chevrolet Impala at one of the R.G. Canning car shows in Long Beach or at the LA Convention Center was taken by Howard in the 1970s. The car, belonging to a member of the Imperials car club features a tiny welded chain steering wheel, and a wild paint job by an unknown artist.Photo from the Howard Gribble collection

Howard Gribble is a photographer and a lowrider and custom car historian from Torrance, California. Howard was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, but moved with his family to the South Bay area at age 8. While in junior hight school, Howard started to notice customized cars in the area featuring scallop paint jobs, pinstriping and flames. He started drawing pictures of the cars he saw cruising the streets. By the time he was in high school, custom cars dominated his interests, and he started collecting car magazines. At age 15 Howard got his first car, a 1950 Ford sedan that he wanted to give a "George Barris" style, but due to a limited budget the project never really took off. In 1965 Howard bought a 1961 Ford Starliner that he and his friend Carl Darling turned into a customized boulevard cruiser. After the Starliner followed a range of nice custom cars with a lowrider touch.

In the mid 1960s Howard purchased a Polaroid camera to take photos of his different interests. He upgraded to a 35 mm camera, and started attending Southern California car shows on a regular basis. Since there were no magazines covering the Lowriders or the custom car scene, Howard took his camera to the shows and photographed the cars for his own personal enjoyment.

In 2006 Howard signed up for a Flickr account so he could share his photos with the world. He started uploading photos of his various interests, including custom cars and lowriders. So far millions of people all over the world have seen Howard's amazing and continuously growing collection of photos. Howard has contributed some good looking photos and stories to Kustomrama the last year, and now we are expanding the cooperation with this gallery featuring some selected photos from Howard's collection. Some have been published before, and some are making their debut here.