Earl Scheib out of business???

When I first starting building models as a kid, my older brother used to call my thick, runny painted cars "Earl Scheib Specials"

 

It's still sad to see a company go out after 80 years in the business.

 

Had my dragster body (what little there was of it) on my avatar, along with my '55 Chev push car, painted at Earl Sheib's in Pasadena CA for $35 bucks...

 

They just painted the deck lid on the 29 last week..Drove by today and they were very much open..?

 

in high school a buddy of mine must of had 6 49-51 merc,s painted there in the one in eliz.nj when they had the 19.99 sale he would nose and deck them sand it then had them paint the merc white mongo would paint white rat on it with a drunk rat bobby would sell it and due another the always looked good

 

the 19.99 was for a "choice of one of six fabulous colors." ... 29.99 was for any color.

 

I remember when it was $99.99

 

My dad had a couple of cars painted there. Always believed you had to find out who was actually painting the car. Then he gave him a few bucks as a TIP for a better paint job. He believed that it worked. I know he had to pay extra for the wheels when my brother painted them with house paint.

 

Its a shame they were the only company that could get 100 different color reds out of one 55 gallon just by never stirring it. First cars out of the drum were maroon last ones were orange!!

 

$29.95... any color including costly reds and metallics...

Several years ago there was an Earl Scheib (riiiiight!) at GoodGuys Indy with a couple street rods painted by them... they had a spot on the manufacturers midway trolling for bidness...

 

I had my 1956 Plymouth painted there in the early 1960's. I was just out of high school and $29.95 was a lot of money

 

quality of work aside, the company was an icon. always sad to see an old organization go out of business.

 

All over the nation paint is sliding off of cars with no warranty to back it up.

 

Naw, it was "any car, any color, twennynine ninedyfive"

Definitely the icon of crappy paint, but it was a whole lot easier to have Earl do it when you were a 17 year old and had no place to paint and only made $1.60 an hour...

 

Yeah, a true old school company, sad to see it go. I had a neighbor over 15 years ago that worked there and I remember he had a cool shirt, I think It was for Earl Scheibs 50th anniversary or something, I wish I would have asked him to get me one. It had the old logo.

ahahahahaha.

Thats what I always did and it came out ok, Plus I would pay the extra to do the door jambs and remove the chrome myself. I had a bug painted there, and my last hotrod. It was a pretty lowbuck solution to spruce up a car for a broke ass like me. Once I had an ex girlfriend's 52 JC Higgins Color Flow Bicycle painted there and it came out sweet!

I guess now, being the thrifty guy I am, I will have to finally try spraying with Rustoleum!

That's some funny shit right there.

 

29.99
i painted for 2 Weeks there we never used reducer (thinner) in the paint
the paint was heater and the car was heated also 1 coat
i could get paint lay ed on good you never cleaned the paint gun just change the color & spray some pot and go
i was let go not for good work because i was not fast enough
i had several work trucks done there that came out good

 

in mid 70's had a '63 Ford painted metallic gold. took it in for the $29.95 price and ended up getting the $39.95 upgrade by mistake. they apologized, and did not charge more. I gave the painter a 6 pack of beer for the mistake. came out real nice. of course, all of the prep in the world does not help if the painter dosen't do his job right.

 

Used the one in Green Bay WI to paint a lot of big trucks.( 1/12 to 2 1/2 ton) We'd mask off and do all the body work ourselves and let them just shoot it. Usually pretty good. Had one truck done with some terrible runs on the hood. We sanded it done and they re-shot the hood for free. Can't beat that.

Michael

 

My dad told me stories of doing weeks of prep on a car (including priming and masking), driving it to Scheib early and being the first car of the day painted, tipping (in advance) the prep and paint people, and getting an excellent paint job - better than the one his buddy paid 10 times as much for. No one believed him when he told where he got it painted. But of course most of a paint job is in the prep.

 

Gavin in England now owns my Earl Scheib painted Dark Green 32 Hiboy truck (now with black wires) still looks great. My Gold Chevy Van was done this year (now on it's way to Germany)Sad to hear Earl's gone , there is room for back to basics, you do the graft, let them shoot the paint, kind of job.IMHO

 

Had my 60 Ranchero done at the Earl Scheib in Ventura,Ca in 1971--it needed body work:anybody remember The ESTO-METER? It looked like one of those Bugler stripping wheel-things--rolled it up and down,then across the dented area,had some numbers on it,then "converted" it to $$$$. Body work-top-dollar paint :something like $99.00. Car looked good for about a week,untill I hit a speed bump--the "body work" patch came off complete--a perfect 12x12 bondo circle painted purple/blue.Bitched about it ,so the Ventura store had me take it to the Oxnard store for repair--found out later the Ventura store guys were all drunks/druggies,so the Oxnard store redid tons of their work. The Oxnard paint looked good and lasted for years---good days!!!

 

WOW! Who wouldn't? That's a beautiful car!

 

I remember doing the same thing with my friend on his 57 Ford around 1965...Hey, for the money they did a pretty bitchen job.

After he got his car back we spray painted his upholstery. We double dated the following weekend and the poor girls (and us) had black so called upholstery paint all over our clothes.

We went to the Drive-In Movie in Costa Mesa...I never will forget what's her name.

Forgive me while I reminisce

 

HA HA I use to bodywork there..here's the shirt they gave me

 

The sky is almost the same colors

 

Crap, there goes my back up painting plan.

 

I bought a new 85 GMC 4X4 that the paint peeled off of in sheets. But not before the warranty expired. I wouldn't have minded so much if it had been a $99.99 E.S. paint job.

 

I got my 56 chevy painted there in 1998. The manager told me he would have it hand sanded and upgrade to the best paint for free if he could pick the color. I agreed and got it back 3 days later baby blue. I was upset, but for the money I couldn't complain. There was some overspray on the tires but that was all. That paint did not have a wrinkle or a run or one single orange peel. It didn't chip or flake or anything for the 5 years I owned the car after that. Probably to taunt me because it was friggin baby blue.

 

I think you guys are gay (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

fixt.....Thanks for the plug, sweetie

Sad that the original is going away(I thought maybe they were "too big to fail" )....wonder what the stockholders will get? Yeah, they were on the NYSE.... I bet LOTS of fast hot rods got their final coat of color from an Earl shop, cause it was cheeep....and all the rodders' money was spent on go-fast parts.
Earl was the Colonel Sanders of body shop owners. More money in selling franchises than fixing cars riiiiight!

 

I had a car painted by them and for the cost (under $300 out the door) I was more than pleased.