History Larry Watson's Personal Photo Collection

Hey Roger - wow, thanks so much! That's really cool of you to do that. I'll keep digging too - if I learn anything I'll pass on the info as well.

 

Which '58 convertible are you referring to?

 

This photo from the Larry Watson Collection shows the really fantastic interior of George Texeria his T-Bird. Wonderful thin pleats on the sculptured tuck & roll upholstery with gold painted accents inlcuding a gold painted phone mounted on the center console. Not that the door jambs are painted gold, and that the panels are not extended into the door jambs.

 

Post 1034 the 58 Chevy. Large picture is before, the small one is after. Would like to see the finished picture larger .... thanks!

 

Love the interior

 

Still one of my favorite threads on here.

 

Geez, Larry was a prolific painter. The sheer quantity of beautiful work leaves me amazed. Rickster, do you have any idea how many employees he had in his heyday?

 

the most striking thin about this pic is they chromed the center console and painted the brushed alum panels under the dash gold

 

Hello Roger O'Dell
Having been raised in Clearwater and Compton I remember Larry Watson and his great work.
You mentioned that you would try to contact some of the old Dairy folks. Do you happen to remember the name of the family that own the Cash and Carry Drive-in Dairy that was located on Rosecrans next to the LA river.
As I recall there were three brothers that ran the dairy. The youngest had a 56 chev painted a Choc. Brn that I believe Larry Painted.
The reason I've asked about the name is the youngest brother used to have some great "Pasture Partys" behind the dairy.
Have any memories of this family?

Thank You,
Bob R.

 

Bob, do any of the names in this article ring a bell?

http://www.kustomrama.com/index.php?title=Dutchmen_of_Paramount

Unfortunately the largest text in this article is about a murder that involved one of these boys, but it does list a small group of members as well.

 

Another photo from the Larry Watson Collection showing George Texeria's T-Bird was taken in front of the Bill DeCarr / Larry Watson Artesia Blvd. shop in Bellflower. This photo gives us a good look at the paneling on the side of George his car. The car has a very similar lay-out as the 1958 T-Bird Larry did for himself. But the use of colors, and especially for using a darker gold makes it looks quite different than Larry's "Vino Paisano. This photo also shows us a little bit of the wonderful upholstery in the rear seat as well as the chromed reverse wheels and no hubcaps.
Looks like some heavy building activity is going on across the street from the former Ed Schelhaas shop.

 

Simply awesome. What great panel work. Thanks Rik.

 

Larry Watson Rainbow colors on a Porsche in front of his Firestone Blvd shop. I came across a bill from Larry that in 1971 he charged $650.- for a paint job like this. 16 coats of acrylic lacquer over a pearl base...

 

Great pic for today Rik

 

Wow, the Texeira Squarebird is beautiful. Even though a lot of the panel work is the same as Watson's own car, I prefer the color combinations on the Texeira bird.

 

Rik,there are not enuff words to describe your impressive efforts here...it's just out of this world how the great Larry pulled out so many perfectly thought paint jobs...and make look a number of these cars full customs without touching em on body mods...just wow!!
Huge thanks for your infinite hard work ,keep it up bud

 

Might be Rockview Amos Degroot, or maybe Vanderham. My wife's parents had dairys. She's dutch

 

First fail for me. I know given the time period this was probably pretty cool but man that is UGLY.

 

Good question...that rainbow Porsche is probably not my favorite, but did you ever try to do so many fades on one job? Very hard. It's really nice that so many of these photos exist,,,thanks again for putting them up.

 

Tastes change. There is nothing so ugly as a recently outmoded fashion. I remember a time when you couldn't give away a custom, no matter how well executed in paint or body work.

When I first saw this car, I wondered if it had survived. If so, it had probably been lovingly restored to Porsche White (BORING!). But how much more interesting it would be to have the Larry Watson paint job, even chipped and faded.

I'd buy it just to tick-off the Porsche purists!

 

Whether you like the paint job, or not, it is great to have a feel for Larry's pricing. $650 in 1n 1971 is approximately $3,750 in today's money. Even if you add in the additional costs that environmental-protection rules have added since those days, you're probably still shy of $10,000.

Just try to get a top-notch, well known painter of today to even come close to 10-grand for a quality, labor-intensive paint job of that type.

Keep 'em coming, Rik!

 

Couldn't have said it better myself

 

Larry Watson painted several Squire-birds in similar paint styles. All bases, or inspired by his own "Vino Pisano". Here is another one that so far has only been identified as owned by a guy named Red. This one looks to be a little less refined than the others we have seen. This photo was with one more taken at the Bill DeCarr / Larry Watson Artesia Blvd shop and were among the last taken of this car with this paint on it. Soon after this photo was taken Bill DeCarr would start working on the car and adding all kinds of subtile body modifications...

 

^^^
It would be interesting to know how they chose to re-paint this one, after the new bodywork.



The gold Texiera car looks impossibly low. One can only assume it was juiced?
The narrow pleated interior appears to have certainly been the handiwork of the legendary Eddy Martinez,
the best upholsterer ever.

Thanks for posting!

 

Two more photos of Red's T-Bird

Notice that the door handles already have been removed for Bill to fill the holes.




And here Bill has most of the hard work done on the car. Reshaped fins, taillight buckets, shaved door handles and lock, modified hood scoop, and modified front fenders/headlight buckets...

 

Here are some close ups from the work Bill DeCarr performed on this T-Bird.

He reshaped the fins at the back shortening them and reshaped and molded the taillight buckets to the body and reshape the trunk opening.

 

thanks for the construction pictures i like seeing that!!!...Dave

 

Those shots of the body mods to Red's T-bird are really interesting, Rik! Hope there are some more pix coming of the car repainted after the custom work.

To my eye neither this 'Bird, the Texiera car, or the later version of the Vino Paisano with the fogged inner panels, is as masterful as the first version of Larry's own car. Just shows that sometimes the first, simplest solution is the most elegant and refined one.

 

frog hawk , i aggree with everything you said

 

This snapshot of the Larry Watson Personal Collection shows the restyling work Bill DeCarr did on the front fenders of Red's T-Bird. It also shows the stylish reshaped hood scoop that he did. And that already had been sprayed with some red oxide primer.









Another snapshot shows Red's T-Bird a little further along in the process. Most of the paint has been sanded off and the fresh body worked sectioned have been applied with dark gray primer. It not to compare the stock front of the T-Bird sitting next to it...








And here is Red's T-bird in a fresh coat of primer getting ready for Larry Watson to apply one of his fantastic paint jobs... Subtile body work by Bill DeCarr really looks great on this T-Bird.