Awesome thread! Love the old Pontiac's. Would like to do Watson style car on my 64 Catalina some day. Keep the pictures coming!
Unidentified Corvette with some mild body work getting ready for a Watson paint job at the Artesia Blvd. shop. In the background we can see just a hint of Richard Gonzales 1955 Studebaker which was in the shop for a remake by Bill DeCarr. Unidentified 1956 Chevy in two tones of yellow. Pearl below and candy on top...
Growing up in the UK, I used to see that T-shirt and the Muff Diver one in the back of Custom Car mag but I had no idea what they meant, the one with the vultures that says "Patience My Ass, I'm Gonna Kill Something" went over my head too.
I always wanted one of those...........and the older i get the more i empathise with the statement.............. . .
yeah, i remember one time i was with him when he was flaming a 58 impala at his shop in norco, ca and the owner and his friends wanted to watch him do it. he was just gonna start spraying and he walked over grabbed one of his cigars and lit it up and and started spraying. keep in mine we were in the shop spraying with the doors down and just the back door cracked open to blow the fumes out with some squirrel cage fans. they got the hell out of there real quick and i remember they kept telling me come on this fool is gonna kill you. i just said yeah right larry knows what hes doing.larry just LOL and said thats my boy and kept spraying. after they took off out the door he just said that trick works every time to get rid of them and that i had nothing to worry about. so there we were in a cloud of paint fumes and cigar smoke.
I've had a pic of that bike for years, but never knew any of it's history. It's great to learn all this info. The pic I have shows it with the signature tank but with dual carbs and what appears to be all gold metlflake paint. I will post the pic when I find it.
Some more... Larry Watson painted 1949 Chevy Hard Top at an indoor Car Show in the early 1960's. Teal and blue pearls outline and scallops combined with heavy white outlining. Forward rake, scalloped spotlights and white with dark blue tuck&roll interior. Also notice that the car runs wire wheels on the back and some sort of mags (m/t raders?) on the front. I also have some photos of this car running wires all around. Not sure which was first...
Look for the teal 1949 Chevy HT in an upcoming issue of Kustoms Illustrated. Not the next issue (#29) since that article is already finished... and Custom Car enthusiasts will most certainly like that! So most likely two more photos of this Teal Chevy will be used in issue #30. Here are two more photos. Larry Watson painted a set of very stylish flames on this 1963 Ford Galaxy. The base color on the car is most likely factory stock, the customer only wanted to have a set of flames added to his car. This old photo suffered some damage of the years, but is sure shows the very nicely shaped flames Larry drew/taped and painted... Watson's shop... always busy, so many cars to paint. No Customs or Hot Rods in this photo. But some of the many "foreign" cars - Porsche in this case - that Larry painted with one of his fantastic paint jobs...
Some more... Larry Watson painted David Lape's 1963 Buick Riviera in what he called Candy Ink Metalflake on the main body and Candy Purple Cob webbing over a Lavender top. David had to pay $350,- for the whole job in 1966... Very nice outline/panel paint job on this rather high 1956 Chevy. Dark Sunburst Orange Candy over gold with fine white pinstriped outline. The perfect paint job to make the heavy 1956 Chevy body look just a bit more elegant. The rake/stance - almost drag race like - is a bit to high for my personal taste... but I still like the overall look of this one. This is the only photo of this car in the collection. No info as to who owned it...
That's the "Larry Watson" I love! Simple, loves the lines of the car...Distinct, Clean and Original! Thanks Rik!......Centurion9
I've been following your posts on FB, Rik, but it's great seeing this thread. Thanks for sharing all of this Watson history with us!!
Yeah, the '56 is up there,...but the paint application is perfect...Tasteful...! That word tasteful and Larry Watson are synonymous.
That was the best half an hour i've spent on the net, Larry was a god. Some pics I couldn't see though.. I loved his Black Seaweed flamed 57 Buick. True old skool which was cutting edge??? Keep em comin
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