I have always loved that Roth creation, you did a hell of a job. Now heres my funny line, Does it turn back into a pumpkin at midnight ?
Brings back fond memories of when I was a kid,hanging at Roth's house. Hope to see it again in person. Always loved that car.
Lookin' good Fritz! Sorry I missed you guys at Bloomington;maybe next year.Have you got any close-ups of the veiling? How did the gun work out for you?
I'm craving cake, I do every time I see this car. It's not my favorite Roth car, but I do like it, not just because it's purple.
I've seen it up close... the pictures don't do it justice. This was a purpose built rod back then. There is alot of insight to the creativity that was Ed Roth. Having the chance to work on it was a real learning experience. I gained a lot of knowledge about the person as we pondered... "What would Ed do?" Add to all this- I learned to weld on this car. That's f#@king cool. Happy Birthday, Fritz! Artist, madman, friend and mentor Bil
Fritz, it's yer birthday? I just knew you were a Leo. Happy Birthday to you. I guess I gotta reason to go to Nevada now, besides the Mustang Ranch.
Good to see it brought back. It would be a shame for ANY of Roth's creations to fall in disrepair or even worse disappear. He was truly one of a kind and a national treasure IMO. Not many of us will have our work live on in more than a select few close friends after we're gone, only the truely great have that honor on a large scale. Frank
It should have been returned to the last roth paint job on it, with the stick people. maybe not. it is nice to see it again
Oh my God ,what a creation.How did his mind conjure this up,and then bring it to life.My favorite Roth by a bunch!It always reminds me of "The Lord Mayors Coach"in London.Thats a good thing!
I love Roth AND the Druid Princess, but some credit should also be given to Newt for designing it, and Jim "Jake" Jacobs and Dan Woods, who built it at Roth Studios. Nice to see it back in the original colors, too.
Newt, Tom Daniel definitely refined the concepts as we know them... But the original concept for the car was based on a monster shirt design Roth did himself as far back as 1962.... Newt & Tom gave it the showcar features appropriate for mid-60's tastes.... I have a scan of the image somewhere around here.... Ace
Hey Franco! How the hell you been man! Yes, yes it is true, Dan woods built the rolling frame . Dirty Doug had the body built before Dan started welding. The engine & trans were brand new outta the box items, the car does run & drive ( go figure) Larry Watson did the first paint job (what we call the wedding cake paint job) that stick figure job was not the original it was the second, it sucked! I have spent many many houres on the phone with Larry Watson, Dan Woods, Darryl Roth, Darryl Starbird etc. to fill in the blanks. nothing better than chatting with the people that built something or were around it when you need a bit of help in a restoration project Perez and his Mother did the interior and there were still pencil marks and notes written on the inside of the body, were using them as a guide Howz dat! FRITZ
The way I heard it is the guy that owns the Island Princess worked for Roth and wanted to buy the Druid Princess but Roth said no, go build your own, so he did. I also seen the Island Princess at Macungie. I think it came from Long Island, N.Y.
if you listen to what people say then every Tom , Dick & Harry worked for Roth at one time or another...........The car your talking about comes from Staten Island FRITZ
I didn't work for Roth. I worked with him at shows for years. In fact ,I paid him to appear at my show on Staten Island in November of 1982 when he was still working at Knotts Berry Farm. Within a year of that show on Staten Island he quit Knotts and went back on the show circuit and took me with him for getting back him back in the swing of things. I did buy the Druid Princess from him and he went to Harrahs or Jimmy Bruckner's warehouse and got it for me. He told me that Harrah's would not display it because of the child's coffin that it had. They claimed they had too many complaints from women about it. When he got it back to LaMirada he realized he had sold it to me too cheap and returned my money. He did offer it to me for alot more money but I declined. It was then that he told me to build my own which I did. I don't think he thought I would do it but when I finished it he wasn't happy. He felt that I had ripped him off. All the times he was here at my place here on Staten Island between back to back shows and saw it under construction and never said one word about it. I think he felt I would never finish it. He wasn't a real fun guy to be around and I stopped doing shows with him with an ever increasing number of rules & regulations that he had at the shows. If he saw me selling something too good,he told me to put it away. He didn't like to see anybody making more money than him at a show.Many shows I did and he didn't like it. Part of the deal that I had with him was that I had to give him ten percent of my take for the weekend which he referred to as a tighe, a Morman thing. On Sunday night he told me how much I had made and was very close to the amount. I didn't even know what my take was for the show but he did. We were too much alike when it came to hustling a buck. He did teach me alot about doing shows ,work ethics,( we worked 24 hours straight together one time lettering tow trucks in Peoria,Illinois )...striping & lettering and alot of things that still repeat in my mind almost every day.Ultimately though, I had to do my own thing. I still cherish the image that Revell created of him in the early sixties,and the Beatnik Bandit will always be a very special car to me, but it taught me that things are never how they appear to be. I told Ed all the time..."You're not the guy that was on those model kit boxes" .That's how it was,Regards,George.
Fitz : it takes a lot of balls to build a car from are history that most people today will not understand . a lot of people say that Ed Roth was a difficult person to deal with like his cars it seems to me he may have been misunderstood by a lot people <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o> </o> What the hell do I know It’s a Sweet Car I think the one on the east coast has 2 V8s in the front
Great job! It would've been nice if you had some the gals standing alongside it in their "work outfits?!" He he he Thanks for posting!
Nice to see you getting back into the M/C thing FRITZ. Man I sure remember when you were a regular in Iron Horse magazine. Building bobbers and choppers before it was deemed the new flavour. Are you at all associated with the new Horse Backstreet chopper?
This is interesting.. its interesting enuff that some people seemed to just ignore your post here... I read it and im really interested in what you have to say ... Give us or me anyway more.. I want more info on this.. Roth was a creator but he sure as hell wasnt god.. Dave
Amen to that and JohnnyAce's comments. Roth was a genius in his own way, but he had great help along the path. Great restoration. Looks just like the old photos in my Roth book. Love it!!
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