Take a look at Mike's Impala and then Jimmie's '51 Chevy Fleetline and '63 Riviera. You see three completely different custom cars that seem to have a common thread. lI think it's that they all look like they have jumped out of that custom car era from the early and mid '60s. As Gary Howard puts it, "These cars come from that time right before car shows really went to hell" in a sea of angel hair and overmodification that resulted in cars with eight headlights and 16 exhaust pipes with a chrome antennae coming out of each one. The consensus among this group is that custom cars died when they began to be modified for the sake of car show points instead of in an earnest effort to improve the design and style of and automobile.

The World According to Jimmie Vaughan

If these cars look like they were frozen in time back somewhere in the early '60s, then, well, so does Jimmie Vaughan. In fact, he reminds me of some of the older kids when I was in elementary school. He looks like one of those kids that just never made the transition to Beatle boots or the "dry look." America in the early '60s was full of guys with DA haircuts, pompadors with the sides slicked back and leather jackets who looked like they just stepped out of West Side Story...and, well, they look pretty much like Jimmie does today.

Jimmie Vaughan ain't Joe College, but he does look exactly like the guy who you would want to see driving the Impala, the Riv or the '51 Fleetline. None of it looks dated; the whole combination of the three cars just looks cool, and after some thought you realize they are from and era that ended just about 30 years ago, while at the same time looking very up-to-date and hip...and Jimmie fits the whole scene.

I seemed to have momentarily lost sight of the fact that the sub-head for this little section if "The World According to Jimmie Vaughan." Here are some of his insights gleaned from several days of conversation while shooting these photographs.

"I think that a lot of people would feel that riding around in a metalflaked 1960 Chevy with pearl white naugahyde upholstery and taillights that look for all the world like chrome-plated refugees from some marital aid catalogue is no way to go through life...or so it would seem to people outside the custom car world. But for us it's magic, we wouldn't have it any other way. And this is a large part of the appeal of cars like the Impala as well as my '51 Fleetline Riviera. the Impala is just a little more over the top. I think we like the fact that a good portion of adult America would simply be too self conscious to enjoy owning let alone being seen in an outrageous looking custom.

"The cars are, for me, pure fantasy. They have nothing at all to do with reality. It's like living a dream. After all, they don't make very good transportation. I mean, what I am trying to do is just live out the dreams of my youth. These are the cars I wanted when I was a 1-year-old kid back in Dallas.

"I have literally been fascinated with cars as long as I can remember. A couple of years back my mother ran across some drawings of cars I did back in '55 and '56. I would have been four or five, I guess. Recently, she had them framed and gave them to me. One looks like a '56 Chevy drawn by a four-year-old with some kind of roof rack. I guess this stuff has always been with me.