Nor-Way Custom

Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen's membership card from Nor-Way Custom. Gunnar was 13 years old when he became member #1 in the biggest hot rod club of Norway. Photo courtesy of Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen.

An under progress photo of Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford convertible taken outside the Nor-Way Custom club garage at Alnabru. When this photo was taken Per Arne had just installed the newly bobbed right rear fender. Photo from the Per Arne Knudsen Photo Collection.

The Nowegian Ford dealer magazine "Ford-nytt" was present at the first Nor-Way Custom club meeting. After the meeting they did this story on the club.

Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford Cabriolet. Per Arne was a founding member of Viking Custom in the early 1960s. In 1967 he started Nor-Way Custom, and he became the first President of the club.

Leif "Basse" Hveem's 1933 Ford 5-window coupe. Nor-Way Custom member Jan Erik "Smørbukk" Kvernes bought the car from Basse's widow in the mid 1960s, and it was one of the project cars being worked on in the Nor-Way Custom club garage at Alnabru.

John Erik Baalerud's 1935 Ford Cabriolet of Oslo, Norway. The build was started in 1963 and completed in 1966. In 1968 John Erik became a member of the Nor-Way Custom car club.

Per Erik Olsen's 1933 Ford Tudor of Kongsvinger, Norway. The Danish-assembled Ford, originally powered by a four-cylinder engine, was found abandoned by the roadside in 1968 and became one of the early Norwegian hot rod projects inspired by American car culture. Per Erik joined Nor-Way Custom soon after and became part of the pioneering group of builders working to bring hot rodding to Norway in the late 1960s.

In an effort to get Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford approved for road use, the car was in 1969 temporarily “sold” to fellow Nor-Way Customs member Per Erik Olsen, who lived in the countryside outside Oslo. Hoping that rural inspectors might be more lenient than the infamous Mr. Neslein in the city, Per Erik brought the car to Kongsvinger for inspection. “Here I was just trying to impress my future father-in-law as we took the real Hot Rod made by a friend of mine in Oslo for a spin,” he recalled. “This one really could spin!” Photo courtesy of Per Erik Olsen, from www.olsens.no.

Claus Jørgensen of Trondheim, Norway joined Nor-Way Custom in 1967, after seeing the movie Hot Rod Gang at the cinema. Two years later, he purchased his own project, a 1932 Ford Tudor Sedan. Completed in 1974, the car became known as the first hot rod of Trondheim. Photo courtesy of Amcar Magazine.

This photo from The Per Arne Knudsen Photo Collection shows a 1960 Ford station wagon driving on to a ferry somewhere in Norway. The car has the Nor-Way Custom logo painted on to the side of the car. Photo courtesy of Per Arne Knudsen.

Nor-Way Custom was a hot rod and custom club founded in Oslo, Norway in 1967. The club was formed by members of an earlier Oslo club called Viking Custom. Per Arne Knudsen was a founding member of both Viking Custom and Nor-Way Custom, and he became the first President of the newly established club. The Norwegian Ford-dealer magazine Ford Nytt was present at the first club meeting, and they wrote an article on the club in one of their issues. By then, the club consisted of about 100 members from all over Norway. They had advertised the club's existence in magazines, searching for new members. Some members worked on their own cars, while others dreamed of owning a hot rod or a custom one day. Per Arne Knudsen owned a 1934 Ford Cabriolet at the time that according to Ford Nytt had been approved by the vehicle licensing department for usage on the streets. Other club cars in the works at the time included a 1936 Ford delivery that was powered by a 1956 Ford V8 engine fed through carburetors, producing 229 horsepower. A Ford flathead-powered 1932 Ford Cabriolet featuring three carburetors, and a 1935 Ford Cabriolet that was powered by a 292-horsepower 1956 Ford V-8 engine. When Ford-nytt did the story on the club, they had no clubhouse or garage to work out of, and most of the work was done on sidewalks or in alleys.

According to early member Per Erik Olsen, Nor-Way Custom began as a small but tight-knit group of enthusiasts who met in and around Oslo, often gathering at Per Arne’s apartment in Alnafetgata or in borrowed kindergartens near Ekeberg in the evenings. “Some of the guys had girlfriends who worked there,” Per Erik told Sondre Kvipt of Kustomrama in 2024, “so there we were — grown men sitting on tiny toddler chairs, talking about V8s and horsepower.”

Later on the club was able to get a club garage at Alnabru in Oslo, where they could work on their hot rods. The garage was located at the site were the city of Oslo parked their retired city-buses. Around the site there were parked several American cars that nobody wanted, such as an old Studebaker and a 1946 Ford business coupe that had been used as Raggarbil. These cars were used as parts cars for the hot rods. Several hot rods were under construction in the club garage in the late 1960s, such as Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford Cabriolet, Jan Erik Kværnes' 1933 Ford 5-Window coupe and Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen's 1924 Ford Model-T Bucket. Other cars included a burgundy 1932 Ford 3-Window Coupe and a couple of huge 1950s cars. Amongst the daily drivers in the club was a very nice 1956 Chevrolet sedan, a primered 1937 Ford roadster and a gold-metallic Shelby-Mustang.

About the same time that Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford Cabriolet was ready for its first test run, the city of Oslo decided to build a freeway through Nor-Way Custom's club garage, and all of the members had to move out on a short notice. Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen was on a summer vacation when all this happened, and as nobody bothered to save the parts he had saved for a 1924 Ford Model T Bucket, his car was lost with the garage. The club got a new garage that they could work on their cars in. Gunnar stopped by from time to time to see if his parts had surfaced, but they were gone without a trace.

In 1969 the vehicle licensing department refused to approve the club's first hot rod, Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford cabriolet. Kalle Brøderud, another Nor-Way Custom member, remembers the infamous Mr. Neslein of the vehicle licensing department climbing down into Per Arne's 34, taking the car for a spin down Mosseveien in Oslo. As Neslein meant it would be a big provocation against the authorities to show up at the vehicle licensing department with such a radical altered car, he suggested he should come down to Knudsen's garage to take a look at the car instead. When Neslein returned with the '34, he told Per Arne that he would never get Norwegian license plates on the '34. The club held several meetings discussing the case, and some of the members wanted to hire an attorney and take the vehicle licensing department to court.

Per Erik Olsen remembered that after the failed Oslo attempt, the club tried once more by “selling” the 1934 Ford on paper to him, as he lived in Kongsvinger. The hope was that rural inspectors might be more lenient. “We worked on it for a week trying to make it pass,” he told Kustomrama, “but when the inspection sheet came back, every single box was marked negative. They wanted to make sure I wouldn’t bother to try again.” The car was then returned to Oslo, marking the end of the club’s dream of getting a home-built hot rod legally approved for Norwegian roads.

Per Arne ended up trading the '34 to Ludvig Bjørnstad for a rather stock 1956 Chevrolet two-door hardtop in 1970. At the time, organized drag racing gained traction in Sweden, and as the Swedish magazine Start & Speed started to pop up in newsstands all over Norway, Norwegian teenagers began to travel across the border to get a glimpse of the growing sport. As members of Nor-Way Custom realized that they would have a hard time getting their hot rods approved by the infamous Neslein, many of them they decided to turn their under progress hot rods into dragsters instead. Per Erik recalled that this was the moment the club began to split in different directions. “Some of us went racing, some went into bikes, and others kept the dream alive in other ways,” he said. “But it all started with Per Arne’s Ford.”

This was the beginning of the end for Nor-Way Custom. Glorified dreams about owning a street driven hot rod, and the previous energy for common club operations were slowly fading away. The drag racing oriented part of the club evetually left Nor-Way Custom, and established a new club called American Cars of Southern Norway. From day one, ACSN's mission was to bring drag racing to Norway. A goal they worked hard to achieve

Members

Claus Jørgensen
Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen
Jan Erik "Smørbukk" Kvernes
Jan-Odd Jakobsen
John Erik Baalerud
Kalle Brøderud
Kjell Trellevik
Lasse Anundsen
Ole Jørgen Jørgensen
Per Arne Knudsen
Per Erik Olsen

Club Cars

Gunnar Berg-Kristoffersen's 1924 Ford Model-T Bucket
Claus and Stig Jørgensen's 1932 Ford Tudor Sedan
Leif "Basse" Hveem's 1933 Ford 5-Window Coupe
Per Erik Olsen's 1933 Ford Tudor
Per Arne Knudsen's 1934 Ford Cabriolet
John Erik Baalerud's 1935 Ford Cabriolet
Jan-Odd Jakobsen's 1956 Buick Riviera