Intrigued by the builder of this car, I looked for some info and came up with
"Nudie Cohn". It turns out his creations were the precursor to custom car and fashion bling,
A taylor by trade, Cohn was the ultimate self-promoter. However, he ended up designing costumes for the likes of Rogers, Elvis, John Lennon, Hank Williams, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and many other celebrities. If you're in So Cal, there are photos and costumes on display at the Gene Autry Museum in Griffith Park.
INMO, in that GM commissioned Cohn to customize some of their cars may have been an early symbol that they valued
PR and marketing more than manufacturing serious products. Imagine Porsche or MB-commisioned show cars with beer mugs festooned on the hood. With a clear majority on car sales at the time, GM took full advantage.
It wasn't a total waste of time since the search words, "nudie" resulted in a lot of interesting websites to "review" and "study".
Nudie Cohn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google images:
Nudie Cohn, custom car - Google Search
Sherwood