History Larry Watson's Personal Photo Collection

Right on, man! Keep a journal of your work, for story.

 

I'd be interested to hear more about this, 'cause as far as I know, Ed Cholakian has taken his stratospheric prices out to Las Vegas, which is where I reached him about a year ago.

Is he back in L.A.?

 

Perhaps he is doing business in both locations? I found him on a recent online Manta small business directory listing, showing Ed Cholakian Enterprises, located in Sylmar (Los Angeles), CA. Today, I went back and looked at his website ... shows a Las Vegas address.

Check out his website ... shows some of his old magazine advertisements.

 

awesome

 

In progress photo from the Larry Watson Collection of Yonny Koyama's 1959 Pontiac at Bill DeCarr's Custom shop. Larry would not end up painting this car - as was the case with many cars that where built in Bill's shop. Yonny took the car to Barris for some more body work and had Junior Conway eventually painted the car in a wonderful pinkish Champagne pearl at the Barris shop. According the Big Barris book it was Frank Sonzogni who performed most of the body work on this car when he worked at Bill DeCarr's shop. On the left in the shop we can see the taillights of Larry Kubota's 1959 Chevrolet.







Here is another great and rare black & white photo from the Larry Watson Collection. Developed in April 1959, there are plenty of color photos from this collection dated from 1959, so I have no idea why this one is a black & white photo. But I really like it, perhaps because it is black & white, its gives it a more dramatic look to this 1952 Oldsmobile. The car appears to be bone stock except for some lowering and the Watson scallops, most likely done over the original factory paint. The curly and crossing scallops are wonderfully done and show how creative Larry was in the late 1950's. This is the only photo of this car in his collection. So I have no idea about the colors... or even the owners name.

 

that Olds is nice! It just goes to show, they don't take much to clean up and make a really bitchen ride.

 

Nicely customized T-Bird in front of the Larry Watson Shop. This very well done mild custom was just in for an update. Larry had just finished cob-webbing the top in different colors over a gold base. Previously Larry had already painted the whole car in this wonderful bronze, or root-beer pearl. The car has some nice mild custom touches like the frenched head and taillights. The lip on the rear wheel opening to match the front wheel opening... nice!






Dick Jorgensen's 1956 Buick with a great set of scallops in a lighter shade of blue than the body with dark blue fogging and white outline striping... all done by Larry Watson.

 

Hi ya George, good to see you on the HAMB. I spoke to Joe Barnett on Friday afternoon, he'll be driving down from Midpines to the LA Roadster Show in his Model A mail truck with '27 T front sheet metal. I'll be driving the T touring out also. Will you be here on the main land for LARS? If so, it'd be great to meet up with you there.

Later, Mike

 

Another snapshot of this pink and silver 1959 Buick at the DeCarr/Watson Artesia Blvd, Bellflower shop. Freshly painted by Larry in a very vibrant pearl pink with a platinum silver top...







Great black & white photo of John Fraser's 1961 Ford. The car had some shaved emblems and put on a nice forward rake before Larry painted it in Candy Burgundy Rose. Chrome reverse rims on medium white wall tires, and the grille was made using the horizontal bars of a 1955 Chevy!







An very early flame paint job done by Larry Watson. This one for "Buzzy" was done with crab-clam style flames in Larry's parents drive way, before he had a shop to work from. This flame job on Buzzy's shoebox sedan goes down into history as Larry's very first flame paint-job. The car was off white (not painted by Larry) and the flames...

 

anyone have pics of what the shops are like today ?

 

Seriously digging the '55 Plymouth side trim on that shoebox Ford!...

 

Reminds me of Grabowski's red/white top T tourer used on the "My Mother the Car" TV show.

 

Buick wire wheelcovers, c1963 Riviera, same as on Pinky Richards' Corvette.

 

I have a folder on my site with some of his shops. Some have some recent photos of the shops. This is a work in process... and in time I will have much more info on the shops collected in these folder.

Larry Watson Shops

 

Thanks

 

Close up of a wild paint job Larry Watson created on this 1966 Ford Fairlane. Heavy flake in two colors, cob-webbing and veiling paint gun effects... all on one car...







In my first article for Kustoms Illustrated about the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection I showed this snapshot very small. I have no information on this car, and this is the only photo of it I have showing it with this paint job. There are two more, but then this wonderful outline paint job is sanded away... really sad, because I think its one of the best ever outline paint jobs I have ever seen on a Shoebox Ford.

 

Thanks for posting Rik!

 

Another photo of the Shoebox Coupe I posted in the post above. This time the great looking paint-job has been sanded. The strange things is they left all the chrome on the body?!?! Unfortunately there are no other photos of this car with a new paint job.. so I have no idea what happened to it after these photos where taken. Still a great looking car, and if you try hard you can still see how good it must have looked in the old outlined paint job.






Here is the last photo that I have of the outlined shoebox Ford I have been posting the last couple of days. In this photo you can see how the outlines where sanded harder than the surrounding paint. To get ride of the thickness of the paint of the outline and the pinstripe. It makes me really wonder what was next. I don't recall ever seeing another photo of this car with this side trim anywhere...

 

Out with the old, in with the new I guess. I'm curious to find out what became of the car. What paint job did Larry put overtop of the panel job?

 

Awesome thread! Love that purple '54 Chevy sitting in front of the building!!

 

I wonder what those six yellow decal emblems on the windshield of that '50 coupe were? They remind me of bomb mission symbols on WWII planes!

 

I'm sure it would have been nitro laq for both colors

 

I did an article on my blog about the wonderful signs Larry used on his many shops, and used some great and some never before seen photos for that. Check it out... click the banner...

 

that was fantastic! thanks rik..

 

Larry Watson painted this mild customized 1956 Chevy in a very deep purple candy over pearl. Unfortunately the colors of this early 1960's photo has faded a bit. So its hard to tell the real color of the car. But it is looking great no matter what. Only some mild customizing as shaved trunk and hood, some mild lowering, white walls on chrome reverse wheels, bellflower pipes, and a wonderful white tuck&roll interior where enough for this unidentified owner to be one happy cruiser.








Larry Watson's 1957 Cadillac Brougham in its second version with the silver and chrome tape at the lower panel. The photo was taken at "The fabulous Queens Arms Medieval Inn" restaurant on Ventura Blvd. The Medieval design of the restaurant made a great background for the last photo shoot Larry had with this car before he sold it.







Al Lazarus 1955 Chevy before it was flamed photo from the Larry Watson Collection. The 1955 Chevy with a great looking, and rather unusual outline paint job. Yellow-olive green over a silver base, and especially the connection between the top and lower side trim pieces makes it unusual. I think this is a really great photo, with the kids toys in thee front. The owner cleaning his car. There are several more photos of this car - black and white - with the custom hubcaps in place, but without the small dent right next to the owners left knee. Another strange thing is that the car has shaved door handles and hood, but the Bel Air script on the rear quarters has been left in place and outlined.... to give it some more contrast!

 

I pulled some of the color out. Nice dark purple color for sure! Looks great with the white interior.

 

I cleaned it up and added color, the purple is stronger. Hop that was cool w/ the OP!

 

really nice looking panel job ! and pretty rare ! shoebox weren't usual matter for that kind of paint ... even if i know panel would look good on everything !

 

your article is a pure delight Rik ! please keep on teaching us !

 

very strange color , you're right !