History Larry Watson's Personal Photo Collection

does the busonic still exist?

 

Yes... and fully restored

I took this photo of the restored Busonic at the 2011 GNRS Customs Then & Now show.

 

wow! it looks great and i'm glad to see they went back to the original darker color. thanks for posting it.

 

I had the pleasure of seeing the Busonic up close and personal in Paso back in '03. Pictures do not do this car justice. It is awesome!

I'd say the coolest thing about seeing it was watching it cruise around town, and up and down Spring Street..........E

 

Larry's shop was on the main thoroughfare, in an area (at that time) surrounded by dairies, and most dairies were owned/operated by families of Dutch ancestry. With the explosion of baby-boomers being born (millions of kids) at this time in Southern California, lots and lots of milk was being sold. The dairy businesses were flush with cash, and so too were the owner's kids. What better way to stand out from your peers, than to drop your ride off at Watson's for a custom paint job?

 

Jim Griepsma still owns his 41 ford custon & his 34 with 32 grille shell pretty famous pic of it will William Bendix "Life of Riley" I think was the tv show. Anyway he as kept the cars all these years. He was the neighborhood mech by Watson's parents home. And his ex wife Artie was a good friend of my wife

 

I think this photo came from a magazine photo shoot, although I have never seen this or any others from this shoot in any publication. But this photo from Ed Moberg's 1950 Cadillac is so much different from anything else in the Larry Watson Personal Collection. The dressed up model, and the nice location do look like it was directed by a pro. The car was mildly customized with some trim removal, and hydraulic suspension. Wire wheels and thin white wall tires (not visible in this photo) and Larry painted it a wonderful pearl ice mint green with a metalflake green top. The model's hair and cloth are just fantastic.







Next up are two Drag cars that Larry painted.
I don't know anything about drag racing or drag cars... so if there is anybody on here that knows these cars... pleas add the info.

 

Jerry Preston had two cars painted by Larry Watson. His first one was a wild panel painted 1954 Ford, and his second one was this 1959 Chevy El Camino with body work by Bill deCarr. Larry would end up painting this car at least three times. This two tone pearl and metallic gold version is the first version Larry Watson painted. In this photo we can see the great looking interior. I'm not sure if Jerry Preston had this interior done in Tijuana just as he did on his 1954 Ford. But I know it looks pretty good in his 1959 El Camino. Also not how scary the car is parked with the frame rails almost sitting on the ground.








Another photo of the Jerry Preston 1959 El Camino from the Larry Watson Personal Collection. The car is now painted in a solid pearl lime green with a silver and cob webbing in several different colors. The dash is still painted the pale gold in which Larry painted the car earlier. Bill DeCarr removed the door handles, and did a number more nice and subtile body trick, including a 1960 Mercury grille.








We all know that Larry Watson had a magic touch when it came to picking the perfect color for a car. Well this 1954 Chevy two door Sedan is a perfect sample of that.
Nothing really has been done to the body of this car. Just the right set of wheels/tires and the perfect stance. And Larry painted it a light platinum pearl which completely changes the car into something incredibly slick. The color works so well with the stock chrome, and the slightly tinted windows...








You don't see to many 1959 Chevy sedan custom cars. Most of them are hard top, or convertibles. But this "fact" did not stand in the way for Ted Terry to have his sedan customized by Bill deCarr and have himself a nice scalloped Larry Watson paint job. In this snapshot by Larry Watson we can see Ted's Chevy with fresh body work by Bill, getting ready for Larry's pearl white and lavender paint job. Bill added a roof scoop just above the rear window, and created some extended taillight pods to house 4 1959 Cadillac taillights. A similar taillight was also created for the 1959 Chevy of Larry Kubota, although he used the chrome base of the taillights while Ted uses only the red lens mounted on a red base.







Snapshot of Ted Terry's 1959 Chevy Sedan with Larry's finished paint job in pearl white and lavender outline/scallops. Interesting about the lay-out of this paint job is that usually a contrasting color is used to outline the body lines. But in this case the contrasting color color - lavender - is used as a second outline. The actual outline is the body color. Four bar lancer hubcaps on wide whites, lake pipes and a nice low stance look very good on this sedan. The photo was taken at the Bill deCarr/Watson Artesia blvd shop. Behind the open door in front of the car was Larry's paint booth.

 

Larry Watson painted show boat. Great looking Tuck&Roll interior and fantastic engine. Larry added the candy blue over pearl white paint on this boat...









Dick "Peep" Jackson did the body work on Jim Parker's 1957 T-Bird. Nothing wild here, just enough to make the car look really good, he smoothed the body, and lowered the car to sit at the perfect ride height. He added a set of his own developed Dummy Spotlights and Satellite taillights, as well as a set of lake pipes and custom hubcaps on medium wide white wall tires. Larry Watson added the dramatic pearl white with candy fogged in panels, and metallic light blue scallops.









Low angle snapshot of Larry's own 1958 Thunderbird "Vino Paisano" in its third paint version. This photo was taken at Larry's most famous 9012 Rosecrans blvd. Bellflower shop and shows how low the car is. Larry first painted his car in Platinum pearl only, but that color only lasted one day. The car was just to big for such a bright color. He then did his second panel paint job in Candy Burgundy. The results where stunning. But the materials back then where not as good as they are now and after about half a year the Candy Burgundy started to fade and even crack at some spots. So Larry decided to do some additional paneling and fading in silver and candy grape.

 

Man! What a lot of crazy cool pics of crazy cool cars. These are old school customs the way they looked back in the day. Larry's work is very inspiring. Gallons of fun to check out! Thanks a million!

 

This thread is full of win. These photos are great. I just finished looking through all 28 pages, and I still want more! There's a lot of inspiration in these pages.

 

Rikster, thanks for the recent posts - I was starting to get the shakes!!

 

Rik, I just can't get enough of these classic images...Thank you

 

I am going to go out on a limb here and make decleration as to the owners of these two rail jobs are. I say the purple Chrysler dragster was Don Moody's car, while the Chevy fueler was Zane Schubert and Chet Herbert. Though I never knew the Herbert/Schubert car to feature such an ornate paint and lettering scheme.

 

Fantastic ! great pics ,,

 

Howards Boat shop was across the street and slightly to the right of Larrys Rosecrans shop. And J&D corvette was on lakewood around the corner.

 

Just spent the last two days on this thread ,,Awesome . That '50 Cad is just to cool !

 

Another photo of Jim Parker's 1957 Thunderbird. Unfortunately this photo as well as a few others in the collection of this car are a bit blurry. But still its really great to see the car in color. We can take a bit better look at the Dick "Peep" Jackson "invented" Satel-Lite taillights. This taillight system was sold to the Cal Custom company and would be a big hit on many home and prof built custom cars in the late 1950's and early 1960. We can also see the great shape of the metallic blue scallops on the back of this car.







Larry Watson's very first scallop paint job was on Bob Schremp's 1954 Chevy.
James Potter took some really nice black and white photos of this car that Larry painted with scallops in 1956. Below is one of those photos scanned from the test sheets from Larry's personal Collection. And below is a link to more photos and more info on this car.

Click HERE to see my blog on Bob's 1954 Chevy with the first Larry Watson scallops.








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Great close up photo of one of Larry's first Lace paint jobs. The one he did on Doug Carney's 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix was first. And I believe this 1968 Buick Riviera of Armando Salazar came second. The two tone pearl lavenders with hints of blue are working really well together. And so is the very interesting lace pattern. Imagine how the crowds at cars shows must have stared at this car wondering how Larry Watson created this amazing effect..

 

I can't comment on the Chrysler rail, but this is not Zane Schubert's car. You are correct that it never sported a fancy paint job. It also never had a rear body section outside the frame tubes. The seat was painted orange like the rest of the body, and was inside the frame. Also the steering on Schubert's car was mounted lower. No bubble on the cowel. I don't know who's car this is, but it's not the Schubert-Herbert car.

 

Here is an blow up of the sign on the back of the car... I cannot read who did the body, but perhaps somebody who is familiar with drag cars can identify the name of the body shop.

 

Some more drag cars from the Larry Watson Collection...

Since I don't know much about Drag Racing and the Drag Cars in these photos and the photos came basically with no description, there is nothing more I can tell than what I can see in the photos. Please feel free to ad any info you have on these cars.
Some of the photos where taken by Larry Watson, but I think the action shots where done by other - pro - photographers. Unfortunately I do not know their names to give them proper credit.
















The Busonic in its last Watson painjob inside the shop...

 

And for those who expect to see a bit more elegant Watson painted cars....


Larry Watson painted the 1959 Cadillac in super black with a fine metallic silver top for his friend Bill Striker. Supper straight body with a perfect black paint job make this car extremely elegant.

 

the fiat altered shown last is the Dunn-Merritt-Velasco 48 fiat. They ran a blown small block. They ran the AA/A class on the nhra national circuit an ran nitro in the AA/FA class around so cal. They won the 63 winter natls at 10.82et join 147.05 mph! Yowza! Watson also painted this car in a tangerine color with similar fogging along the edges later on.

N the gold flake 41 willy's is "Fantasia" the famous willy's altered, yep, it was an altered..not a gasser. It was owned by Bill Henderson and Dave Griffiths. It ran a blown 392 chrysler. Kool thing is that Bill an Dave decided to lower the front end to solve handling problems...an everyone else had those willy's sitting sky high.pretty far ahead of the times if ya ask me. Tom Lee drove the car. I dunno if Watson did the gold, but I remember him telling me he did the flames.

this thread just gets better n' better!!

 

When Henderson sold the Willy's, he replaced it with one of the last modified fuel roadsters to be built. We are talking 1968. Nice green hued paint. Unknown if Watson applied it.

 

I think the body was pounded out by Ron Ellis. I was cautious in declaring the Chevy to be the Herbert/Schubert car. But I cant recall another Chevy of the era that ran Herbert Cams, except the Bill Martin car. Same one that appeared in the Munsters TV episode. I think Herbert built massivley sized (for the era) Chevies on straight alky, while Isky promoted Warren, Coburn and Miller ( Herberts biggest SBC nemesis) baring just a mild bore/stroke job, but lots of nitro. Mind you, these were 283's, not 327's, as the latter engines werent comercially available or to be found in junk yards.

 

It appeared that Dunn and Reath were long time customers commencing with the Fiat and the lil orange colored rail that followed. That motor in the dragster came out of the Fiat. They were running a Harmon Collins Cam-what a weird choice. Blue dragster was the Orange County Metal Processing Spl. The Corvair was the first one that Doug Thorley ran to victory in 67 indy. 68 model was a one piece body shell not partioned. Red, white and blue Javelin is another Doug Thorley car. The Mach I looks like the Doheny/Fullerton Trojan Horse. I alway thought Kirby applied the paint.

 

Absolutely fantastic thread ! amazing examples of Watsons work

 

This is Bill Henderson's 1940 Willys fuel coupe - "Fantasia".

 

thanks for sharing these photos, i really enjoy the education to be had around these parts.