Open Saturday, February 1, 2025 - April 27, 2025
The first exhibition to showcase the diverse history, artistry and mechanics of American custom cars with nationally recognized vehicles from the Midwest, BUILT: American Custom Car Culture explores the innovation that changed the landscape of our nation’s history. Each vehicle is the only one of its kind, featuring unique combinations of inventive engineering, polished chrome and striking paint jobs. A custom car is as unique as its builder, resulting in a mobile sculpture that is an expression of the creator’s identity and imagination.
Each custom build in BUILT: American Custom Car Culture pushes the bounds of form and function, creating a vehicle that is stylistically and functionally superlative. All cars, trucks, and motorcycles in the exhibition can be driven, demonstrating the utilitarian ideals so ingrained in American culture, wherein an object is not only beautiful but works exceptionally in its purpose.
The practice of customizing vehicles perfectly encapsulates important tenets of American culture: self-reliance, individuality, and hard work. The builds in this exhibition span the history of car customization, from featuring car body styles from the 1930s that survived the metal scrapping of World War II to exploring the rise of the lowrider in popular culture due to their prominence in West Coast rap culture of the 1990s.
More than half of the vehicles on display come from central Illinois builders, but have been winners at national custom car shows. This region has a rich tradition of cruising and celebrating car customization as Peoria, Illinois hosted the inaugural Street Rod Nationals in 1970, the first national gathering for custom car builders from coast to coast that continues to annually convene today.
Continuing the tradition of custom car culture in central Illinois, guest curators for
BUILT: American Custom Car Culture, Darius Donaldson and Farai Kasambira, are bringing decades of experience within the community to their first ever exhibition with the Peoria Riverfront Museum. Donaldson and Kasambira worked closely with assistant curator and community engagement coordinator Everley Davis to fully realize this exhibition.
Sponsored by SJ and Tammy Boyd, Visionary Society and Illinois Arts Council
