Old timers like me when do you first remember seeing striping on hot rods and customs

The first striping I remember was watching my older brother striping cars under the Elm tree in the front yard....mid 50's. I learned to stripe from him by '58 at age 9. He earned his living.as a striper from the time he got out of the service in '63 till he closed his shop in the 90's. I've been striping off and on all my life...pretty steady for the last 25 years.

 

The first example of striping on a car I saw was in high school.A girl named Lavon got drunk and striped on the hood of shoebox Ford.1965

 

thanks much for showing the card

 

Sign guys all over the country were striping in the fifties, but Von Dutch lived in L.A. where Hotrod was published. He was no better or worse than a lot of stripers, but he was the one in L.A. who stuck a brush in his ear and got his picture in Hotrod and other publications.
Striping is no different than other art, in that the choice of color is critical. Yellow stripes on a black car and you can see it for miles. All you see is the striping. Maroon on Black and it is very stylish and muted. It doesn't distract from the car.
Striping is more than pulling a brush, it requires some taste and knowledge of colors and style.

 

yeah, he lived in L.A., does any one knows where or what streets he grew up. the actual address? south central L.A was way different in the 30's-40's then now. Correct me if i'm wrong , but did move to Compton later on.

 

Here is a couple photos of my dad's 1940 Standard tudor from 1952. The hood, headlites and trunk lid were striped. Not only is it striped and from the early 50's but it was also in Iowa. Not exactly the hot bed of hot rodding. He said he never saw a flamed car in Iowa until his.

 

You're welcome Barefoot. Happy to share the memories here.

 

rich, do you know bob beam in vegas that stripes, his brother ron beam does all my striping here in bakersfield, bos son jason does nascar helmets.

 

If I remember correctly in about 1955 Von Dutch and striping were so popular the water transfer decals of his striping were available from Pep Boys.

 

When I was leaning on John Teed's fender laying down a few lines and lettering "Moondoggie" (his idea, not mine) around his antenna. That would have been about 1960. We used to go to car shows in Spokane and see pinstriping on cars in 57/58 - still in Jr High.

dj

 

When my Folks took us to So Cal for a vacation & visit relatives & go to the Rose Bowl ,( Iowa vs So Cal,,Iowa Won ) , ,,X-Mas of '57 ,,my aint & cousin lived a block up the street from Roths shop,,i hung out there as much as i could for that month ,,got my first set a brushes from Roth ,,every car -hot rod-kustom i saw had a car name and/or pinstriping ,,BUT ,,i think pinstriping hot rods went clear back to the '40's after the WW II Vets came home ,,they had seen it all,,all over the World and brought back a lot of kool hot rod ideas ,,

 

Rikster: i know this might be alittle off topic ,,but since you ARE the resident expert on the subject ,,Question; wasn't there a Hirochata Twin Merc built ??
the other being Pearl White over Choc Brown ??? otherwise identical ,? or am i thinking of a lookalike or clone ,,but built in the late '50's ,??

 

ollin im learning alot myself, and enjoying the hell out of it, like to see some more pictures of old skool striping

 

Check out the youtube video of Ed Roth interviewing Von Dutch about pinstriping cars. Von Dutch explains that the custom painters of time wanted imperfections covered up on the hood or truck that may have been a result of removing a handle or factory chrome. One line led to matching the other side and then one thing led to another. Pretty soon guys saw those cars at shows or the local driv-in, and wanted those designs on their car too, with no inperfections to cover-up.
Pinstriping first ended up on Safe's,Sewing Machine's, Carriege's, and Fire trucks early-on as a form of decorating.
The story about "Tommy the Greek" is great, but keep in mind Tommy wasn't an "Old Guy" in '55!

 

sanford thanks for the input send me a pm let me know how you are doing, did you sell the buick

 

Beam Bros. did some outstanding work in LV during the 70's. I'm sure I met Bob, but that was long ago. He did a lot of striping for the local Caddy dealer, if I remember right.

I didn't know he was still in LV.... The name of my brothers shop was Bob's Stripe Shop... on Westwood in a mini wharehouse complex.

 

The Hirohata Merc was built in 1951,I think,and it has pinstriping on the glovebox.

 

I think that the pics rikster posted were great,but i dont think that the striping was over the top in fact it was mild to modest and sort of enhanced the ride.I have seen some terrible striping that detracted from the cars lines but i didnt see that in the photos posted.i am a believer in less is more..any other thoughts?

 

sure did have striping on the glove box by von dutch

 

I took this pic of the Schneider Merc sittin' in front of Roths Shop when i was out there x-mas of '57 ,i thought ALL the striping on it was very tastefully done
But then I'm a little biased ,,i did the striping on the roof and some on the trunk ,,with Roths coaching ,,he gave me my first set of striping brushes ,,plus all his Weirdo Catalogs ,,i set up my own striping / car name /weirdo shop in Iowa when i got back home ,,went out there again x-mas of '59 ,,hung out at Roths again ,,i was just a kid from the farm country ,,

 

Great photo and very nice merc any more pics on this?

 

YES; yhis photo came from Rikster; thanks to him ,,i have a couple more that i took ,,but theyre in B & W,,not very many pics ,,as i understand ,,of it in color ,,
bill

 

Here's another one I took that day ,,wish Someone would find this GREAT Merc and bring it back to life ,,

 

A Rikster pic of the front ,,thanks again Rik;

 

Awesome shots Bill! You should scan more photos and post them on the HAMB...

 

nice..that merc is kool. damn. i'm following this thread closely. so much go into building a car the painting and the stories. Especially the cars that made or influence the rest of their lives or others.

 

the fella that got me into hotrods and motorcycles got kicked out of the second grade because he was skipping school to work on his 41 ford coupe his dad gave him, he pinstriped the car with crayons, this was back in 1958

finished his first hotrod at age 14 in 1962, his son still has the car, not the first examples I'm sure but still a neat true story, he continues to build cars to this day

 

I don't have many more ,,you can see more on Riksters Web Site tho ,,here's another Rikster Pic ,,Thanks Rik;;; but this one is kinda strange ,,notice the scallops ain't finished here ,,but ,,when i did the striping on the roof and a little on the trunk ,,the scallops were all done ,,as in the other pics ,,only thing i can think of is the scallops didn't come out right and were re done ,,???don't really knoe fer sure ,,

 

Yep, I remember the water slide pinstripe decals from Western Auto. It was hard to get the big one slid off and transferred around the frame of my bike!

 

Summer of '59 ,,i werked at Darryl Creese's Kustom Body Shop in Marshalltown ,Iowa ,,nuthing hard ,,just removing bumpers ,,chrome trim and help get a car ready for paint ,,Darryl did all the Kustom werk on my '51 Vickie ,,nosed n decked ,frenched headlites ,,shaved the door handle ,,all with real lead ,,BUT in'60 ,,Darryl closed up shop and moved to California ,,said he wanted to go to werk for the Barris Bros ,,Any body out there in So calif Kustom Scene ever heard of Darryl Creese ??? i got a x-mas card from him ,x-mas of '60 and he said he was werking for the Barris Shop ,,never heard from him again after that ,,but then,,i left for the Air Force in '61 ,,