Here's my snapshot from the Mickey Thompson show at the Great Western Exhibit in the spring of '67 showing the detail of the first lace job. In my mind, one of the best lace patterns I've seen. It inspired me to go back to Kansas City and lace the flat side panels on the '66 Riviera that I acquired that fall. Unfortunately, I neglected to take photos of the Riv. Note the Watson price lists scattered in the angel hair.
A few more photos from Larry's Collection. Here is a great - black and white - photo from the Larry Watson Collection. Calvin Wiekamp 1955 Mercury mild custom which was nosed and decked, lowered and a Watson lavender pearl with silver and purple faded striped scalloped paint job. Larry outlined the oddly painted scallops in white striping. The car was called the Snake wagon... for obvious reasons. This great shot shows Larry's Grapevine in the back ground... Here is a rare photo that Larry took of his Grapevine Chevy showing the gold wheels with the hubcaps and skirts off. Perhaps he took the photo with the car just being put together after Damon Richey had painted it with 1956 Olds Rose Mist metallic below the trip. And a dark metallic purple that Larry had custom mixed by Joe Sheline. Larry got inspired by the colors after seeing Jay Johnston's 1950 Shoebox. Jay's Shoebox was Purple with a lavender top before Jay painted it Coral and orange as it was on the Car Craft cover. Later on Larry learned how to paint from Jay. This picture of Larrys car was taken at Bellflower High School, where Larry went to school, and which was close to his parents home. He didn't graduate though, he would park his car in the corner of teachers lot. The principal told him not to park there or he would be suspended, he said he had a business going and needed to advertise with his car. And he didn't need a deploma to make money. Al Lazarus and Larry Watson where very good friends. Larry had a 1955 mild custom with shaved, nosed and decked body. Lowered full chromed suspension and a nice white and light blue interior. In 1957 Larry painted a set of what we now call seaweed flames, in Silver and green. The flames covered the complete body. In this photo taken outside Larry's shop we can see half of the body all ready taped and covered with news papers. The passenger side is drawn up, but not taped yet... To bad the photo is a bit over exposed, but still great to see... Parked in front of the Bill DeCarr & Larry Watson shop at Artesia Blvd is this wonderful chopper painted by Larry. A very nice chopper with some really nice body work, and of coarse Larry's wonderful panel paint in Fuchsia over pearl white. And another feature I really like are the clear red plex, custom shaped pedals. Also notice the 1946-48 Ford bumpers on the 1940 Ford Coupe sitting in front of it.
Awesome! How do you get any sleep? I'd be up all night just looking over those pics and searching out all the details night after night.
Not real sure how that Rainbow paint would go over today. Since rainbows now have a different meaning
I had the honor of Larry giving me a personal tour of his museum a few years ago, and over the years, he had taken literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures and saved nearly every one of them. He had photo displays (if you went to this year's GNRS you saw them) of cars, bikes, and boats that he had painted that I could have spent DAYS gawking over. The guy was amazing. Not only was he an incredible painter, but he had an amazing memory. He could tell you what day of the week he shot the car, the weather, the paint mix, etc. I just stood there with my jaw dropped, trying to soak it all in. I always loved his reference to anything non-lacquer........Communist paint and communist clear. He was a real detail freak, and everything he had from his house to his hair reflected his pursuit of perfection. Everything was spotlessly clean and perfectly positioned. That's usually not the case with most painters. Rik- Do you have a picture of the candy-painted light bulb display? Larry had a display at the shop where he had a bunch of powered light bulbs all sprayed with all of his available candy colors. He said that he would flick the switch and all the light bulbs would show the colors. He said that he used to get tons of paint jobs from that display..... Somebody really needs to make a book out of all of these pictures. It would be THE reference guide on how a true custom should look, created by one of the Masters. The time that Larry perfected his craft was my absolute favorite era of customizing. I miss Larry. He was always a fun guy to talk to. He liked to talk about himself, but that was totally OK with me!
The lights would not light up, that was a joke with Larry. The original light/color board is still in his Hollywood shop across the street from Paramount Studios. (Theatritical Auto Body). He started the one you seen at his house, because he used to do them for colors on my car as a favor, after he had several he decided to make a new board , it set in my bedroom a couple of years with the first four bulbs. Roger
And here are some more.... Larry Watson and team taping the flames on Pinky Richards 1957 Corvette. No fine line tape back in the late 1950's. Larry's flames are so stylish, and always perfectly shaped. In this photo we can see Larry Watson lay some very heavy yellow lines around the black Pepper flames that Larry had just painted on Pinky Richards 1957 Corvette. This photo is not staged like some of the Watson at work photos we have seen. This is Larry at work doing what he does best. Another photo of Larry's Grapevine.... LOW
Another photo of Ed Roth at the Bill DeCarr/Watson Artesia Blvd. shop working on his Rotar. Ed is marked in this photo, but I have no clue to who the other people are in this shop. But I do know that if these people are still alive today they most likely will remember this wonderful time the rest of their lives. How great it must have been to walk around in one shop and see the great man Ed Roth, Larry Watson and Bill DeCarr doing their magic... And one more photo of Pinky Richard's 1957 Corvette getting flamed by Larry Watson. Again this is not a staged photo, but this is Larry actually spraying the paint for the flames.
Thanks for continuing to update this thread Rik. Some really great pictures and as you said what an amazing time for custom cars. The unstaged pictures are really cool yet kind of sad at the same time knowing what we now know about the lack of safety equipment that was used back in the day and the effect it has had on a number of the old customizers over the years.
Thanks Rickster for posting all of these wonderful old photos. What a great time for the craft seeing the greats emerge to become the icons we hold dear today. Frank
I'm not positive, guys, but I BELIEVE that the super bitchen Triumph in this photo belonged to Jim "Bones" Noteboom. I visited his son Kutty Noteboom's house once, about four years ago, and I remember seeing this photo. I totally geeked out on it--'cause it's awesome--and I think that Kutty said it was his old man's bike.
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