History Jesse Lopez - Lo! & Behold

That was awesome, Michelley!!

Thanks for that fantastic history lesson, the awesome photographs, and especially for you taking the time to post it up here for us.
Keith

 

I have enjoyed the way you have told it all straight up!
Looking forward for more, Thank You!!

 

Absolutely killer thread....thank you.

 

Very nice, thanks

 

AMAZING!!! So many new details and untold stories!
Thanks a lot of sharing all these....I really hope you've already started a similar project with another old legend

 

I did a copy and paste, then just went thru and a likely spots, put in
some white space for paragraphs. May not be just where they should
be, but breaks it up. Hope the author isn't offended.



Jesse’s girlfriend from 1949-51, Florence, who was so beautiful that Lana and Janet had nothing on her, drove Jesse’s coupe around town. He wrote her a dear mary when he was drafted. She ran around with his sister Rose and waited for him. Alas, it was the late 1950’s before he settled down with Wanda and then again married Marlene. After Jesse’s car got sold he wasn’t into the shows.

The only show that Jesse took his car to was the first Oakland show in 1950. Nick and Jesse missed the Oakland show in 1951 while in Korea, but George chaperoned their cars on the date, Nick’s in the official line up. “Nick got drafted a few months after I did, I was finished with basic training and shipped overseas before he got in. I did infantry at rattlesnake infested Camp Roberts, CA. They sent us in to clean it up, sixteen weeks basic training. During training I drove my ’41 Ford coupe back and forth on furlough passes. I lost contact with all the rest of the guys when I got drafted.

I was in the army and they were out having a good time. If I got to come home at all it was to visit my family or girlfriend. Us guys never wrote when we were separated. Nick’s mother was the only one who kept in touch and she’d send me letters, goodies, long johns, a very gracious lady Josephine. I was in Korea from December 1950-February ’52, for a whole year. I made all my points (4 points a month) on the front line. So I got rotated in nine months and then stationed in Japan for a few months at Camp Youngans near Sendai our main headquarters. We were occupation forces. I started as first sergeant and finished master sergeant. Nick was wounded in 1952. I left Camp Y to go to Yokohama. Nick was already there a sergeant.

I was in the first Oakland Roadster Show in 1950. I’m standing with Miss CA and the trophy. So later I’m in Korea. The big So Cal DJ Peter Potter was a cocky young blood there, and it was his girlfriend after all. He was jealous of that picture. He’d ask me if I put the make on her. I’d say, ‘Aw man, she wasn’t very good looking.’ Small world. She had even sent me a letter saying, ‘Hello handsome guy!’ I showed it to him. Also the full bird colonel was a car freak and recognized my car from the cover of MT. I got pretty good privileges especially when I got to Japan. He’d call me up and says, ‘Sergeant Lopez, I want you to be here at 0600 with a jeep. We’re going into Sendai,’ all business like. I’d pick him up and off we went, hey hey. That’s also why I made so much rank, too.”

Jesse left the ’41 Ford to Memo when he went to Korea with instructions to sell it. George sold it in summer 1951 for $2300 to Danny Lares who later ran the Lions drag strip track. Dannny Lares worked at LADS (Lions Associated Drag Strip) timing association from 1955-65 as tech timer and official starter flagman, and was a founding member of Road Kings Car Club Long Beach. He went to post-Korea as an air support flier. He also passed away in 2003. A time capsule of relics belonging to Danny Lares has surfaced via his nephew George Lares into the dependable custody of Trace Edwards to be unveiled at his Long Beach Motorama Car Show this September 30, 2011, among other surprises Trace is diligently preparing.

Danny’s not the one who wrecked it. He adored the car and chivalrously squired it at car shows and races, seen in his personal photographs in the good company of Matranga’s Merc. He sold the car for $500 to another guy named Stan Crabtree in the San Pedro area and Stan less than two months after wrecked the car into a tree totaling it. “Isn’t that funny though that Nick’s car and my car, among the best, and they both got totaled?” Both sold while their creators were sergeants in the Army and stationed in Japan after braving the Korean front lines.

Although Jesse had other concerns when he returned from Korea and Japan, he is adamant that his car was totally wrecked soon after he got home. Jesse never met nor knew the guys Lares nor Crabtree. Lares probably avoided Jesse in case he would want his prize car back. “I would have heard about it if it was still around much after I got back fall 1952, so not too long past the mid 50’s. You’d think I would have known about it if it lasted into the later 50’s. We would have heard about it if it was fixed up. George would have known before me. He was into that car.

It helped Kustoms get noticed. Many of us would have heard about it, nobody could have hid the fact that it was rebuilt, there were too many people involved.” The photograph of Danny Lares in his Road Kings car club jacket standing against the cherished ’41 Ford was forensically circa 1952, right with the three other photos from Danny’s scrapbook that show it flanked by the Matranga Merc and others. Perhaps the '53 Ford pickup truck that is seen in the background of another outdoor show photograph was purchased in late '52 or into ’53, and the date stamp was a tardy developing date, and the '54 Olds seen in the upper right corner of the Thrifty drug store photograph had an introduction date Oct '53 in CA? One can surmise that this last photographic evidence of the car would be late '53 or early '54, or in other words wintertime during thetransition of those two years.

The Thrifty car show was clearly in the wintertime as the folks are dressed for cold weather CA style. In any case I don't think there is substantial evidence of Jesse's car being around in So California much past the mid 50’s. Any allusions to it beyond that is a Jim Morrison sighting or Elvis buying Sno Balls in 7-11, or at least suspicious. Those cars had soul, and not just anyone can own one properly. It seems as if these cars, like certain cowboys’ horses, didn’t want to be owned by anyone else. Both Nick and Jesse had moments thinking they might not be coming back, and gave it all. “I did 75% of the work on my car, and I did a lot of work on Nick’s car too, I showed him a lot about engines and customizing. I helped his interest in racing and mechanical work. Who knew that cars were going to be what they are?! If I’d a known, Corvettes and ’Birds…” George Barris gets a lot of heat for taking credit where credit is not due, and some of that heat is justified.

However, I can tell you that he was a skilled craftsman in numerous ways with myriad great ideas. Just one example would be his work on Nick's car in addition to Sam's, and his idea for the "pillarless" hardtop side window treatment on Nick's Mercury. There are other examples we won't go into here. George Barris was the maestro. After Korea, Jesse could be found lying on the beach in Acapulco 1954-55, “Like King Farouk, with Don Rachmann and Hershey (Hershel Conway). We made a trip like you wouldn’t believe. I ran with Joyce for on and off seventeen years, she was a good lady and I should have married her. In the beach pictures I was twenty-five and Joyce was twenty.” Jesse and his brother, Memo, owned a Mobile gas station in the mid-50’s in Vernon outlier LA, “Lo’s”, they used to call him Lo. “George called me ‘chili’ or ‘beaner’, I called him ‘beaky buzzard’. Jack Stewart said to me last week, ‘Remember old beaky buzzard, tee hee?’ I learned to rebuild racing engines and deliver parts after high school, and I memorized Ford parts numbers like a computer.”

Carl, X, and me were inseparable. We went to Mexico together, we went to Catalina, Crestline, and everything. But Carl and X got into a deal. X married Carl’s cousin, and X was mayor of Bell. So he got the license to build the first casino in Gardena and Bell. He got the Y involved and I told X, ‘Don’t get them Y into your love life, man, hey you got a problem.’ So he did. His cousin-in-law, Z, rolled over on X and X done two years for fraud. He had the casino 51%, he had it in his lawyer’s name. Z got tapes and turned it over to the feds. That’s how I got involved in X’s casino deal. He wasn’t supposed to go near the place. My name got involved so the feds come to me, they thought I was on the Y side. I was out in the chicken yard feeding and these two FBI’s come up in suits. But one guy was wearing cowboy boots, ‘Hey man, you got some beautiful roosters!’ They were coming up and I sez, ‘Whoo…I got problems.’ They hung the badge on me and said they wanted to talk. Real calm. Real nice. ‘Hey, you know what, I grew up with the Y.

Carl and I went to grade school and high school and ran around. I don’t like what they done to X and I want nothing to do with it. You do what you have to. But you’re in my house.’ And I had this big house, a mansion that I built in Azuza. And I had my dinner/night club in Azuza by Hwy 39 with live music, the Canyon Inn. They made some movies on location there. This was from 1980-early 90’s. A natural rock foundation and fireplace. I had the rooster ranch on a couple acres there. I sold it to Buddhists who made a monastery of it. They put a retreat in the chicken yard, right against the mountain with deer. The guy with the boots was sympathetic and they went away and left me be. But they had me on tape with that Y…”

Carl Abajian died in 1986. He had the ’42 Ford coupe that Marcia Campbell traded her powder blue ’49 Chevrolet convertible for. Gaylord ruined the first interior on Jesse’s maroon ’51 Cad, Carson redid it. “Everyone said it was the most beautiful upholstery ever done. Imported German mohair, maroon and crème. I changed it with dual exhaust fishmouth bumpers and put a ’52 grill on it. The guy at Rinshed-Mason doctored it up with gold metallic. So many did our plush cars in that popular color. We didn’t have a lot of colors to go by then, and that showed up nice in the light.” The 1956 Ford pickup truck was also painted “Sam’s maroon”, the 1940 GM ruby and Buick royal maroons dazzled with gold dust, the same color tricked for Nick’s and Johnny’s Mercs, George’s Buick, Richard Carter’s ’41 Ford convertible, Oren Breeland’s ’34 Ford chopped three-window coupe, and several others.

While Jesse worked at the Huntington Park Chanslor & Lyon auto parts and paint store, and built engines for his friends in the machine shop in back, in 1955-56 he developed a stabilized formula, involving DuPont toner red and viscous amber clear (measuring one small Minute Maid lemonade can of red to one gallon clear, the paint codes differ today), of candy lacquer to spray his 1958 T-Bird, and actually advanced the science of automotive paint. He sold the formula to George Barris who named it “Kandy Lak” in his line. “The first perfect candy went on my ’58 Bird. It was a perfect beauty. Simply customized, not like a too made-up woman. That car color drew more attention because the car style was brand new and the paint style was brand new. Nobody ever saw that before. A lot of others came after with that patent paint.

I sold the Bird in late 1958 to Don Rachmann for his wife.” What a doll. Content and forever young on his ranch home by a streaming lake, “I also built this house in Riverside County from the ground up. No contractors. I had to relocate because of the zoning on the chickens. I’d love to be at the ocean. We were body surfers. I don’t enjoy fishing, though, because after Korea I never liked to shoot or hunt. It did something to me. My car, Snooky’s car, Hirohata’s car had a lot done to them, so much more complicated work customizing and chopping than even Nick’s superb custom chop. Metal work, hard top chops, channeling, different grills and bumpers, fade away fenders, finessed chrome, stylish pleats and paints, a lot of work defines a custom. Engines define the speed.”

 

Very cool story indeed.thanks for sharing.Please continue with anything else you might have about Mr.Lopez.

 

Man! Cool story, interesting details!

Thanks!

Are you busy writing part 3?

 

Thanks Michelle, great story. Your one of my favorites. Jim

 

Great effort Michelle.You have done a great thing for the cause.

 

Thank you for the history lesson today. Now I must search out your other threads that you have started for more good stories.

 

God i just love that pic with the Merc....Thank you for taking the time to type and organize all these amazing pics. WOW, what a story i can only imagine if it could be a movie. I'm a big kustom car nut and one of my 1st builds i wanted to pay tribute to was a 53 Chevy i named 'Low & B-Old'...I never did get to do what i wanted to it mainly cause i started a family. But to read things like this is just incredible and the history is beyond words...So again Thank You for sharing!!

 

A great photo of Jesse Lopez'S 41 ford with out skirts next to Nick Matranga mercury!It really shows how low his car was to the ground. The photos of Jesse Lopez standing next to his car in his uniform is awesome too. Its in primer showing he did drive this a lot of the time.

 

Thanks for the PM Michelle. A nice write up on a funny guy . I know this took you a long time to piece together. And thanks to you and David, J.L. attended the History of the Custom gathering at the GNRS. Take care

 

What an amazing story and photos,thank you for taking the time and effort to put this story together.It is really appreciated.Wow,just wow.

 

The history of our hobby is important , it's great for us that people like Michelle can garner the info & set it out here for us to enjoy .

Cheers

 

that is impressive writing and an even more impressive story. thank you for posting this, i can assure you that it will be read and re-read for a long time.

 

That was a nice little history lesson that obviously came from the heart . And thanks to CruisenBrucie and 47Plym for taking the time to re-format a nice story .

 

I still cannot get over all these wonderful new never before published photos of the Jesse Lopez Coupe. They are just incredible. Nd these finally give some answers to many questions we have had about the second owner Danny Lares.. and wow, even a third owner which I did not even know about!

And it makes me wonder how many more of these hidden treasures of Custom Car photos are out there. I urge everybody who knows about collections similar to this one to help scan them, and share them here on the Hamb or else where, or at least digitalize them for later. I have heard about way to many collections being lost for ever when the original owners passed away and the family did not care for them and they ended up in the dumpsters.

Collections like this help tell the real stories on these cars and the people behind them.

Many thanks for Michelle and David (and Trace in this case) for finding this stuff, document everything and sharing the information with those who all love it.


In the Michelle's text there is some talk about the latest photos of the Jesse Lopez Coupe - which was then owned by Danny Lares. But those photos are not shown in the initial posting.

Here is one of the photos showing Jesse's '41 Ford with the long trim piece on the hood, which was added when Danny owned the car. And in the background on the left of the car we can see a 1953 pick up truck. The date on the photo is 1956. But that is not the date when the photo was taken, rather the date when the film was exposed, and or developed.

This photo below of the car with the hood open, was found by Paul Kelly in Australia as part of a Photo Collection. Only this one and two other photos from the entire collection seemed to come from California...




And the other photo mentioned it the famous Parking Lot Custom Car show held at the Thrifty Drugstore parking lot in 1954.

 

Hello Rik!​

Jesse was touched when I told him the other night that Danny Lares didn't wreck his car, rather he treasured it. It is uncanny how the Lares photos surfaced earlier this week after I quested them for months. I actually dreamed of Danny the morning before I received the photos, as if he wanted his name cleared. I hope this article serves his respects. Jesse never understood how someone could be so reckless. Now his perception of Danny is elucidated, and he is accepting of him. Also, Jesse was amused that his car was around in car shows and races for at least a year after he returned from Korea/Japan.

Both Jesse and Danny will be highlight featured at the Long Beach Motorama on Sept 30-Oct 2, 2011.​

Warmest Regards
(sunny hot Las Vegas, NV)
~Michelley​

 

wow Michelly, what a cool piece of history!

Glad I visited your thread and thanks for investing the time to share it with all the rest of the crybabys.

 

That is awesome

 

One of the best stories in a long time, thanks for writing all this. Had no idea what became of Jesse Lopez, and there were always rumors about where the 41 would up...most of knew it had been totaled, but very glad to see that Danny Lares did not crash it.....I remember him as the Lion's starter, but only later realized that he was the next owner of the Lopez Ford.

One of the main features of this story is how many of the real giants of hot rodding and customizing hung out together, it was really a community in the 1940s and 1950s, as this feature shows.

Michelley, THANKS FOR ALL OF THIS, a huge contribution to the HAMB!!!!

 

thank you for the story, thank you for reformatting for my crossed eyes.. what a cool story.. i would of tried to format the text my self but i fail at English so i would of messed it up.. thanks again, cool stuff.
chris.

 

Great story ! I used my pointer so I wouldn't loose my place !

Retro Jim

 

Thank you very much, ................... great reading, and thanks for the photos as well !

firstnomad
www.angelfire.com/jazz/flatlandstudio

 

Wow Michelley thanks for putting this together... its really an amazing piece of history you captured..

I was lucky enough to see the Danny Lares album that Trace got and have been scanning the photos for the Motorama.. its filled with amazing photos of not only the Merc but his life in the drag racing world at Lions...

Funny how things happen...

say hi to Dave for me!!

Piero

 

I'm no English teacher, but I broke part one down into paragraphs as best as I can. Anyone care to do part two?

-KK

*Removed at the request of the OP*

 

I came back to read this again this morning and check out the pics again...awesome work, Michelley...interesting to find out the fate of his '41 and how it was unfortunately so similar to Matranga's Merc. Sad, really. But on the other hand, it's neat to learn that his '41 was in fact the first car with bumperguard tail lights and rolled running board covers, both of which have been copied many times since. I'm looking forward to seeing more at the Motorama this September! Can't wait...

 

Here is something i found very interesting and cool. i dont know if Harry Bradley knew Jesse Lopez and Nick Matranga, but he drew the two of there cars together. Even though its not the same as the photo. Its still the two cars.