I'm going to tell some of Jon Tedesco's early history, here, because it relates so much to the story of the Custom Cloud.

     Jon's father had a printing company in Pennsylvania where Jon (pictured above) worked doing graphic design as a teenager.  After graduating high school, he joined the National Guard and relocated to San Jose, California to chase his dream of building custom cars.  Jon began working for a few custom car builders where he learned more about true metal finishing, painting, and building drag cars.  He was part of the team that is credited with building one of the first funny cars, which was a B Altered Anglia that was modified to accept a Ford Mustang body.

     After a few years, Jon was getting married and thought he should get a real job.  He received an offer to be the art director for a religious publisher in Miami, Florida.  So Jon and his new wife packed their things into their new 1964 1/2 Mustang convertible, and were off to Miami.  After about ten months, the desire to be his own boss empowered Jon to make a deal with the publisher.  He would continue doing their work, but as an outside contractor with his own marketing, design, and advertising agency.  This gave Jon the security of a steady income while allowing him to obtain clients of his own.

     While talking with some South Florida Chevrolet dealers, Jon was told that what they needed to bring in more sales was a way to entice people into their showrooms.  Jon was very fond of cars and had experience building street rods.  He had an idea to create an exotic kit car that could be placed at Chevrolet dealerships to draw people into the showrooms.  Tedesco found the Chevy Monte Carlo was the best target for an add-on fiberglass kit.  He claimed he could have made his new creation look any way he wanted, but concluded that a Rolls Royce style would be the most exciting and appealing traffic maker. He went back to his drawing board, drew up the plans, and named this new car the Custom Cloud.

     This whole project began to get very expensive.  Fortunately, one of Jon's customers, who owned some Miami hotels, asked him what he was working on.  The group liked the idea so much they decided to invest in it.  Custom Cloud Motors, Inc. was born the next day.  With this financing, Jon purchased a new 1975 Monte Carlo, hired three body men, and began to build a mockup of his dream.  He and his crew removed all the front sheet metal, purchased an authentic Rolls Royce grill, mounted it on the front of the Monte Carlo, and built new fenders and a hood out of sheet steel and Bondo.  The new design complemented, enhanced, and took full advantage of the Rolls Royce grill.

     Jon was so happy with the result that he then realized they also needed to rework the back of the car.  So, they restyled new rear quarters and a deck lid to cover the back.  Unfortunately, this made the kits they were going to make a lot more complicated, because the fiberglass rear quarter panels would have to be blended in to the rest of the body and finished with filler.  The front fenders of the conversion would be easier to install, because those replacement parts were designed to just bolt on.

     After the mockup was complete, a release agent was spread onto the new body parts, and fiberglass molds were cast of them.  Wood and steel  frames were made to support the newly cast molds.  Then, the molds were used to make the kit parts.  Virtual copies of the Rolls Royce grill and flying lady hood ornament were drawn up and jobbed out to different companies.  The new grills were chrome-plated stainless steel.  Jon searched and found the best existing front bumper for the new car was the one from a 1973 Buick LeSabre.

     The very first kit was mounted onto a new 1976 Monte Carlo only six months after the project began.  Soon Custom Clouds became available across the country from Chevrolet outlets.  The price of the kit was set at $2,395, but the installation was extra, as was the preferred Buick front bumper.

     Jon and his team found out that Rolls Royce never bothered to patent their unique grill in the USA, so Jon got a US design patent (D242,912) on his new car, thinking, how could Rolls Royce stop him if he owned the patent.  If you follow the above link, you'll see the patent misspelled Jon's name "John."  That first newly created kit car (behind Jon in the picture above) was displayed at a New York car show that just happened to be visited by several Rolls Royce executives.  When they heard about Jon's patent they became outraged.  So, Rolls Royce soon started lawsuit proceedings against Custom Cloud Motors.

     News of the pending lawsuit only made the Custom Cloud more popular.  But, the curing time of the fiberglass parts was so slow that only two parts could be made each day from each mold.  So, a boat making company was commissioned to build more molds and make the parts.  New orders were coming in by the hundreds.

     Eventually, there were over one hundred people involved with making the Custom Cloud kits.  Jon told me that between 2600 and 2700 Custom Cloud kits were made and sent to Chevrolet dealerships.  Even Jon doesn't know how many of those kits became cars.  But, we know it has to be a lot more than 14, as the ad below says (picture supplied by Joaquin Rivera).  So, don't believe everything you read in the paper.  You will see more than 14 Custom Clouds, including the Classic Coach versions (which I'll explain later), right here.

     The dealerships then discovered that putting the kits on the cars got quite laborious, and so they didn't trust their own body shops to do the job.  That left Jon to hunt for a factory to build completed cars in California.  What he found was more companies interested in buying the completed cars.

     While waiting to see how an impending lawsuit from Rolls Royce left his company, Jon was planning on building a second knockoff kit car.  That was to be a Mercedes 450 SLC replica, made from a Chevy Monza Town Coupe.  He was hoping to involve other GM outlets, and then possibly, even other manufacturers with even more cars to be designed.

     Also, the plaintiffs claimed that the name "Custom Cloud" was taken from the name "Silver Cloud" which was a model of a Rolls Royce.

     District Judge Griesa found "without hesitation" that there was trademark infringement, and the motion of the plaintiffs for a preliminary injunction was granted, to be settled in one day's notice.

     After Car and Driver had their magazine article, Jon didn't have to worry about the big problem of what to do with the car in England.  Fortunately, an English woman who had seen the car, fell in love with it, and bought it.  Jon was glad he didn't have to freight the car back to the USA.

     After Rolls Royce won the lawsuit, Jon Tedesco planned to continue making the cars by doing some very subtle changes to the Custom Cloud.  First he renamed the car a Classic Coach.  The flying lady hood ornament was replaced with a standing disc ornament, and the CC insignias were replaced with crest insignias that had no similarity to any Rolls Royce insignias.  Some owners were sent the new hardware and told to return the offending emblems.

     Here you can see a letter dated in March of 1978 when the kit-car project was sold to the Classic Coach Motors division of United Auto Sales.  Both Jim and Jon supplied me with some original Custom Cloud/Classic Coach ads.  Here you can see the new emblems.  Also, you will notice that the taillights had been changed on the Classic Coach version, and the top of the grill sloped down to the front and protruded in the center.  Jim said that to further differentiate the Classic Coach from a Rolls Royce, the parking/turn signal lamps were moved up onto the fenders, outside of the headlights  You can see that right here.

     I'll take a little time to tell you more about Jon's life, here, because that might be of interest to you visitors.

     After all the publicity of the Custom Cloud, Cadillac executives asked Jon if he could help design a uniquely modified Cadillac for them.  The result of this effort became the Pierre Cardin Cadillac.  This was the origin of Standard Motors, Inc., the company from which United Auto Sales bought the Classic Coach operation.

     In 1979 Jon moved to California.  All his family's possessions were loaded onto a large moving truck, and he and his family flew there in a plane.  After a week went by, Jon called to find out where his truck full of stuff was.  The truck never made it out of Florida.  While crossing a bridge, a car struck it at the fuel tank, starting a big fire.  On board the truck was another custom car that Jon had built just for himself.  When the fire reached the fuel tank of that car, the fire grew even bigger.  All of the Tedescos' possessions burned up in that fire.  The fire even burned a hole right through the bridge, and the driver of the car that caused the accident perished.  A lot of pictures and other memorabilia of the Custom Cloud burned in the fire.  That event ended Jon's working on car projects.

     Jon spent about ten years working with Art Linkletter, and he also partnered with the creators of the George Foreman Grill.  With them, he invented and patented a cooking appliance that produces nonfat crunchy snacks.  It is a process of cooking with hot air, similar to popping popcorn, but providing more tastes, ingredients, shapes, and textures.  That started a new company called Munchables Inc.

     After Jon got a little more gray hair on his head, he turned his attention to the needs of baby boomers.  In 2007, and as of this writing in the Spring of 2008, Jon has been working on new medical delivery systems, prevention, wellness, and anti-aging projects, in a new public company.  Jon sent me some pictures of some adventures he had after the Custom Cloud.