The Word 'Custom' Has Become the Worst Kind of Oxymoron Feb 26, 2021 In the beginning, there was only custom. Shape your own stone ax. Weave your own basket. Everything was engineered to hazy eyeball standards and built out of whatever was lying around. That changed around 1450 in Hungary when the “carriage trade” was born, and all the rich people started trying to one-up each other with superfancy horse-drawn coaches. Mere carts and wagons were for farmers and tradesmen. The elite commissioned fine coaches. That’s when “custom” was born—for the first time. This story originally appeared in Volume 3 of Road & Track.