Jim Logue. The Fabulous X54, and our hunt for the world’s first hydraulic operated custom

Meet Jim Logue. Jim is a loner. A loner and a hard worker. A hard worker with a bright mind and a strong passion for engineering. You wouldn’t find Jim on Facebook.

Thanks to his friend and ex-coworker Juan Lopez, our and Jim’s paths crossed back in 2017. A Google search brought Juan to Kustomrama, and the brief article we had written about Jim and his mythological 1954 Ford custom. Thrilled about finding his good friend online, Juan reached out, telling us that we had to talk to Jim and get the full story directly from him.

Let’s step even further back in time for a minute. In 1955 Jim set out to build what we today know as one of the first-ever hydraulic lifted custom cars. Jim doesn’t like attention, so thanks to his supportive dad, his innovative and groundbreaking 1954 Ford custom made it into Custom Cars Magazine and the 1959 Oakland Roadster Show. “Not many knew about the build,” Jim recalled, “I was a loner kind of guy. Building the car myself. Learning as I went along.“

The prestigious Oakland Roadster Show was Jim’s end goal when he started the project. Unfortunately, things didn’t go his way, and he got drafted before he was able to complete the build fully. Luckily, his dad came to the rescue, hauling the Fab X54 up to Oakland so that his only son could show it off. “If it weren’t for him, nobody would never have known anything about it,” Jim told us in March of 2019.

Several late-night calls with Jim back in 2017 resulted in a lengthy and detailed story about his hydraulic lifted 1954 Ford custom. When did he actually build it? Was it before Ron Aguirre and his X-Sonic Corvette? Where did he get the inspiration from? The story, and the answers to all these questions, made it into the Kustomrama Korner in Gasoline in the spring of 2018. A great moment for Jim and us. This was the first time ever that the full story about Jim and his innovative build made it into print. Jim shared several never before published photos of the car with us, making the story even better.

In 2019 we finally made it out to Long Beach to meet Jim in person. We got to see the car in real life, and we spent the day with him, listening to stories about how he built it, while he was eagerly pointing, gesturing, and describing every detail and feature of his old build. We recorded and taped the entire session. Making sure his own story and all the details will be preserved and shared properly.

We made a promise to the current owner and caretaker Bryan Robinson that we would keep recent photos of the car secret for now, but we promise to return with these as soon as he gives us the green light. Until then, be sure to click here for the full, but still evolving story about Jim Logue’s 1954 Ford.

Printed stories and deals with magazines really help us cover some of the expenses we have on our research trips. If you want to see more stories like the one about Jim preserved and shared, we would like to ask you to consider signing up to become a monthly Kustomrama Supporter. For as little as 2.99 USD a month, you can help fund our research and work. With your help, we can take time off from our daytime jobs and family life and travel out in the field and do what we love the most:

Chase and preserve stories — Keeping history alive!