Hot Rods Lil' Deuce Coupe

I always thought that was weird too... maybe it does have to do with the surf nazi thing.

3. Surf Nazi 6 thumbs up
The term "surf nazi" has been in use since the fifties to describe someone who was unconditionally devoted to surfing.

As surfing became more mainstream, local surfers became more territorial, and the term is commonly used to describe an aggressively territorial surfer.
Steve dropped out of school and now he just surfs all day, he's become a real surf nazi

 

Back in the '50's and early '60's the symbol was considered badass..not political just shocking..like EC's Mad Comics. We did lots of stuff like that just to shock the Ozzy and Harriet bunch.

 

The Native American "swastika "is the reverse of the Nazi one that is the arms are bent in the opposite direction.the Native symbol meant that the owner had made long journeys in the 4 directions N.E.S.W.I'm told that the symbol would start ot as a simple cross + then as the wearer completed a journey in one of the directions he would add the second part of that arm the bend so to speak.I was tought this in the very early 60s by a 90+ year old Algonquin Indian friend of my fathers.

 

In Santa Maria Ca, there are some old light poles in some of the older shopping centers that have swastikas cast into the base of the poles.. I always thought it was strange.

 

"Surf Nazi's" is the answer you're looking for.

In the 30's there was "Swastika Surfboard Company" and their tag line was "Ride the Swastika". There was also a surfboard company in the 30's called Pacific System Homes that had a swastika as their first logo until Hitler took the swastika symbol and made it synonimous with evil in '37. In the late 50's & early 60's kids were nutso about surfing in California, and surfers were looked down upon just as the hot rodders were. So they became rebellious and brought back the swastika logo, and called themselves "Surf Nazis", meaning they were fierce about surfing and nothing else.

That car rules, and the iron cross that's on the latest incarnation can be just as insulting as a swastika if you compare the two logos and their WWII usage. I think it should have the swastika back on it, to make it complete again.

 

Its cause its a Rat Rod.

 

Capitol Records artfully avoided the swastika or had it removed before the album cover shoot.

 

I just play/paused my way through the video clip.

There doesn't seem to be anything at all on the pulley in the 'current' view of it in the video. It seems to be plain black.

In a closeup of the pulley on the cover of Hot Rod magazine, which is also shown in the video, the symbol appears to be more like a couple of crossed 'S' than a square cornered swastika (Do I make sense?) The corners on the arns are rounded rather than right angles, so it may not be a swastika at all, just some sort of symbol for the pulley manufacturer. You wouldn't see it at all anyway when the engine was turning over.

Maybe someone else with better eyes (or an original copy of the magazine) can have a closer look at the cover pic. People can do all sorts of things with photoshop these days.

Cheers, Glen.

 

Maybe Jay knows...

 

lmmfao...

Looks like those "thin Elvis / fat Elvis" comparison pics...

 

Back in those days it wasn't as offensive as it is today. It was very popular with the surfers and we hadn't invented "Political Correctness" yet. I remember when a friend of mine used to dress up in a Storm Troopers uniform and drive around in a Volkswagen, everybody thought it was cool. Sometimes I thinki we have just become overly sensitive. The Swastika has been used as a relegious symbol for over 3000 years, it wasn't until the Nazi's got hold of it that it became a symbol for hate.

 

you know, i have drooled over that car my whole life and never noticed that. I agree thatit was probably something harmless in meaning.

 

Funny shit Piero!!

Thats right Hotrod40coupe the swastika is often used in muslim religion meaning to spread in every direction. I had seen many of them when I visited Indonesia.

Also Greg Noll's buddies dressed in a Nazi uniforms and rode a skateboard through a drain pipe under santa monica in the late 50's. You can see it in the movie "riding Giants" it was a counterculture sign that they were all into.

 

I've never noticed it till a little while ago and even then never thought much of it. As someone else said Big Daddy Roth used them in some of his early art work and if I'm not totally mistaken Robert Williams did as well it was more of a rebel thing then anything at that time. BTW If you look closely swastikas are all over the Cable Car Museum in San Francisco as well.

 

While I agree that the Swastika has been used throughout history for many different interpretations, the fact remains that once any "symbol" or "icon" is associated with a major event in history, especially one with great emotional fallout, that "symbol" or "icon" can not ever shed the worst of those associations.
Before Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was just a peaceful harbor in Hawaii.
Now Pearl Harbor means much more.
The same can be said about "9-11". What were once just numbers or the phone number for emergency service is now forever emblazened in our minds as something much deeper.
The Swastika will now forever be saddled with the image of Nazi Germany.
There's no escaping it.

 

Thank you Shit does no one remember the 60's ????

 

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That’s The Swastikas, a Canadian girls’ hockey team from Edmonton circa 1916. Before it became associated with the Nazis, swastikas had been used for hundreds of years as a symbol of good luck and prosperity:

For many millenia, before it was appropriated by the Nazis, the swastika was a symbol of good luck and prosperity. Almost every race, religion and continent honored the swastika — a perfect example of the universal spread of a symbol thru the collective unconscious used by American Indians, Hindus, Buddhists, Vikings, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Mayans, Aztecs, Persians, Christians, and neolithic tribes. There are even Jewish swastikas found in ancient synagogues side-by-side with the star of David!
The swastika was associated with the hammer of Thor which returned to him like a boomerang, the footprints of Buddha, the emblem of Shiva, Apollo, Jupiter, and even Jesus Christ! The swastika was the first Christian symbol and is found in the catacombs in Rome. Hindus and Buddhists to this day still revere the swastika as their sacred sign. Jains make the sign of the swastika similar to the Christian sign of the cross.
In the early part of the twentieth century Rudyard Kipling used the swastika as his coat-of-arms, Coca Cola made a swastika-shaped lucky watch fob,American pilots used it on their planes when they fought for the French in World War One, it was the symbol for the Ladies Home Journal sponsored Girls’ Club and the Boy Scouts. A town in Ontario was named Swastika in 1911 because of a lucky gold strike.

Traditional takes on different forms?
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Nads, watch out, i feel a lynch mobs gonna come for you.....

 

If you go back through the post war history of 1% bike clubs you'll see the boy's adopted it back then too. It my understanding they did it to confront "stiff" society with a relatively anti-society symbol not because of any white supremeist tendancies.

The rebelling against "stiff society" sounds a little like building a hot rod, especially one a "restorer" has owned... LOL

Surfers too, especially before the current level of corporate "culture" have always been somewhat rebelous too as touched on by previous posts. That's why the term "Surf Nazi" has never been offensive.

So we have a car that was built in a surf culture and rebelling against what normal people were driving, so for my mind I'm not surprised its there nor do I feel its out of place, really its a pity its still not there if that's the case.

Gee even Sienfeld had a "Soup Nazi" episode...

 

I'm with everyone else here...don't think any harm meant...swastika was Finnish national emblem before WWII, they had it on their planes which kicked Soviet ass in the Winter War.....lots of other uses, as others indicate, and heavy use by surfers, it was on surfboards, woodies (the car type) ...just trying to be cool....things have changed...got a hangman's noose tattooed on my arm during Navy times in '60s...now have to keep it covered, never meant racism...but times are different now.

 

I read the shop Jessie James was inspired by to use the Iron Cross was Genes Muffler in Paramount. That was their logo back in the day. When I was a kid it was owned by Keith Christensen who grew up with my dad. It was a local hang out for us little gearheads and I still have a few water decals and these little decals that you'd put in the center of your caps on mag wheels. Had them since '72, the year I started to drive.

 

There are some industrial plants in the US that are old enough that a few of the valves bought from Germany in the '30's have the reichmark cast on them. (eagle over the swastika). History isn't nearly as clear cut as we would like for it to be. IG Farben was a huge company that was the mother ship to a lot of today's companies.

 

i believe the spirit of st louis (lindbergs plane) had a swastika on it, but it was the native american type

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spirit_of_St._Louis_Nose_Cone_1.jpg

dunno what he was thinking, but the car is killer anyways.

i love it in its early build when it was unchopped with scallops.

JEFF

 

Well you know there were Nazi's on Route 66.......

 

Yes, this is true. And about 90% of the rest of the world's "swastikas" (put in quotes, even though it is not a swastika) use the reverse symbol. As someone said, the nazis were in to the occult and they reversed it. If you notice the "SS" logo is a swastika broken in two. They couldn't do that with a traditional symbol unless they reversed it.

True, but the other symbols are mostly not swastikas.

A lot of mis-info. there. See my comments above. Most of those things cited did not use the swastika, but the reverse symbol.

Yep and not a swastika!

Todays lesson, if you can break it apart without reversing it and the "twisted cross" (as it was sometimes referred to) forms two "S's" then you have a swastika. Otherwise, it's not a swastika.

As for the Catallo coupe, I agree with the surf nazi meaning. Swastikas just didn't have the taboo they do today. In addition to PC-ness, I think the skin heads helped create the taboo-ness of today.

 

was Chili a WWII vet ?????? I understood that the vets came home from war with souvenirs, german helmets,swastikas,ironcross,ect. some displayed thes as proud americans...I herd one say one day.." I took it off the S.O.B. its mine" and i think there is no one to tell a vet different..PC is out of hand!!!!!!!Rebel flag is racist???semes all is thes days...GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!

 

That was my first thought exactly ... I remember stuff like that from when I was a kid. I can remember kids (guys) putting that sign on their school notebooks thinkin' it was cool, with no consideration for it's association with the Nazis. Now days, it would definetly be shocking to see kids, or anyone, using that symbol so freely.

I feel certain that there were no sinister intentions regarding that swastika on the blower pulley.

 

You don't know what i got...

 

In central Asia (Ie, Pakistan, India through to China, Vietnam etc.) the Swastika, was and still is a symbol for luck and they are the same as the 'Nazi' style too with one major difference, they were not canted over, the 'Legs' are horizontal and vertical. You still see them more in villages etc where world history is as important to them as the price of Avocados are to me.

Doc.

 

That's bugged me before -- but I wonder if it's like he's implying the blower drive is a piece of war booty.