History Larry Watson's Personal Photo Collection

Another one of Larry's photos show this great low angle rear view of Larry's own "Vino Paisano" with its final panel paint job. The photo was taken in front of Larry's wonderful shop wall at his Rosecrans Blvd shop.

 

dont let this thread die please keep posting more i can look at pictures of squarebirds all day and i know larry did a few of them

 

Thanks for the update Rik!

 

I never realized he painted the rear bumper

 

The bumper is not painted, I remember (I delivered newspapers) collecting for papers, and Larry was laying under the car giving the tank a fresh coat of white. It wasn't his house though. Just some pretty girls.

 

it looks like he painted a purple panel on the rear bumper in that pic no?

 

The lower portion of the bumper is panel painted candy magenta.

You have to be a really cool guy like Larry was to make a pretty girl think a fun date is watching you paint your gas tank!

 

wonder how he roughed up the chrome on the bumper enought to get the paint to stick

did he just paint the tailight bezels on the 58 or did he make custom ones


i may have to paint my 60's fuel tank white as a homage to larry

 

I ( or rather my wife) owns that T-Bird now. I bought it and put it in Larry's photo museum for the last year of his life. Because I idolized Larry he left me his photo collection. You guys made me go lift the cover and check out the rear bumper. It now in the First paint version is not painted. Since he is gone I can't as him if it was painted in the first or second or both vervions. As to sticking, he was well versed on painting stainless hubcaps, from his early striping days. Roger

 

Roger,

Your wife is a lucky lady to own that car...it has given me an unhealty love for squarebirds. So much so I bought one and Im building a custom right now. I know the first version never had the bumper painted, but I beileve it wore 3 different panel paint jobs?

 

Wow, Roger, your wife is indeed lucky to own that car. And I can vouch for its ability, as ynottayblock said, to give one "an unhealthy love" for Squarebirds!

Personally, I'm glad it's been returned to the first version of the panel paint jobs. The later ones, while well done, were a little too busy. The first version is a true classic!

Thanks to you and your wife for preserving the car and the photo collection!

 

Another T-Bird that Larry Watson did - he did quite a few of those - was this really great looking mildly customized 1960 Purple and silver one. The deep purple candy main body and the silver top with a lot of lake for extra sparkle looks really spectacular in this birds eye view. Larry also added a chrome tape panels to the sail panel which brakes up this large vertical section of the body really nice. The car ran on thin white wall tires, wire wheels and had a black tuck & roll interior and of coarse a set of dummy spotlights. Another great photo from the Larry Watson Personal Collection.








One of the nicest cars to ever come from Larry Watson's shop - in my eyes - is this brilliant candy red and gold outlined 1958 Chevy Convertible (inset photo). There is only one photo of this car in his personal collection. And so far I have not been able to find out much more about this car than that the owner came in from Kansas city to have his mildly customized and painted by Larry Watson in 1959. The car was still very new then.
I think, not even 100% sure that the main photo here shows this same 1959 Chevy Convertible prior to Larry's paint work. All the body work done on the car matches the work done on the candy red Chevy. And even the interior has the vertical rolls on the door panels.
What the body work on this car done possibly by Larry's friend Bill DeCar before it was delivered at Larry's shop? Or had the owner done all the work back home in Kansas.

Somebody must recognize this beauty and knows something more about.

 

ahhhh yes! squarebirds are porn

and that 58 vert is gorgeous, hard to beat candy red and gold as a colour combo

 

NOBODY had a better eye for color than Larry. He had a real gift to know what the perfect color was for every car. The purple and silver T-Bird is an excellent example. Those two colors wouldn't work together on every car, but on that T-Bird, it's PERFECT.

The candy red and gold '58 is one of my favorites. That car is timeless, and again, the perfect color combo for a '58.

Thank You posting these pictures. I went to Larry's museum at his house and got the personal tour, and believe me, he photographed everything he worked on. Literally thousands of pictures, and he could rattle off even the most explicit details on every one of them. He was an amazing guy.

 

thanks again rik , keep em coming please

 

Another 1958 T-Bird panel paint job that Larry Watson did was this multi tone green one for George Texeria. This snapshot show George his car sitting in front of the old Ed Schelhaas shop on Artesia Blvd. Bill DeCarr was the owner of Ed's shop by now and Larry Watson who was very close friends with Bill rented the paint booth in the back of the property. Bill would keep Ed's name on the shop wall for some time. But eventually he repainted it with his own shop name. Bill and Larry would create some really stunning custom creations in this shop. I think the guy on the right with the black and white shirt on is Bill DeCarr, the other guy might be George Texeria. George his T-Bird was painted with a very similar design than Larry's own T-Bird. There are some details and lines that are different but overall Larry found out that these were the best lines to make the T-Bird panel paint work the best.
Another fantastic photo from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection.

 

Rik

Feel free to post all the Watson squarebird photos you got...I wont mind

 

Thanks Rik.

 

Thanks for keeping this going.

The '58 Convertible may be only mildly customized, but the overall effect is outstanding!

I really enjoyed your book. We need more.

Thanks again.

 

Another great colorful parking lot snapshot from the Larry Watson Collection shows this unidentified 1959 Pontiac Catalina with a very nice panel paint job in pearl white, and two tone green with fades parked in front of Larry’s Famous Rosecranse Blvd shop. Behind the Catalina we can see Jack Van Tassel’s Lime pearl 1957 Pontiac and Ron Dulin’s 1956 Plymouth with the pearl white and candy grape panels. Larry would add dark purple paneling to Ron’s Plymouth shortly after this photo was taken. On the bottom right we can see a small portion of the 1957 Ford in candy red and pale gold, another mystery Custom painted by Larry.

 

Here is a selection of what has been posted. There are photo captions on both the Facebook an my site.

 

That pic kicks ass Rik!

 

great example ! thanks for sharing Rik !

 

Does anyone have any additional information about this 58 T-Bird owned by George Texeria? If so, I'd love to hear more about it!

 

I lived behind his parents home, I remember the car. But not sure of what happened to it. (Larry dated his sister)

 

Hey Roger! Didnt know you were on here!

 

Rickster I came across your photo archive the other day and there are some gems in that archive. Loved them! I especially liked the snatch wagon sketch and the one with the muffler sign next door..."no muff too tuff" lol

 

Hey Roger-

Wow, that's really cool. Do you have any pics of it by chance or remember any details about it?

Thanks so much for posting a reply!!

-John

 

I have called a couple of the portugese dairymen from the Atresia,ca area so far no one knows where george, diane, barbie or bobby moved to. I'll find out something eventually. The only pictures are the ones that went to Rik.

 

Any way you can post a larger pic of the 58 convertible? It looks gorgeous, would love to see a large pic of it.