No you can’t own it, drive it, look at it, what? If it was mine I’d mount a grill on it, drive around grilling big fat juicy steaks! Dan
Beat me to it! Upholstery on the outside of the vehicles? Yea, I did that. Not to my own stuff, but I graduated from Auto Body Repair in high school and my first job was at a custom van shop owned by a local Chevrolet dealer. “The Vanners” liked to one up each other in every way and one shop I subcontracted to made a good business of covering the roof and lower body, up to the belt line with padded vinyl. He thought, the car manufacturers are putting padded vinyl tops on cars (I did that too) so why not vans? And if you can pad and vinyl a roof, why not other areas of the vehicle? The most popular vinyls were ones with oak leaf patterns in colors that matched the factory colors. Browns, reds, greens. We would pad and wrap the sheetmetal and also the fibergl*** “add on’s” like spoilers, visors, wheel flairs and wings. I got pretty good at stretching vinyl over weird curved pieces. We would then pop rivet on bendable aluminum trim that was covered with a colored rubber cover. A million drilled holes in new vehicles! Wish I still had some photos! Cowmanche, ha, ha
well said It is VERY memorable. I sorta like it, but then I also upholstered my dining room chairs in cowhide (brown and white) back in the ‘90s. Painted the coffee table and end table to match. Wish I had pictures.
"In 1960 it rolled into Detroit for the inaugural National Champion Custom Car Show and finished second in the Special Rod Show cl***." I envision all the guys that didn't trophy, were *****in away "I have 500 hours of body and paint in my car, and I got beat out by some clown who wallpapered his truck"! It HAD to have a J.C. Whitney cow "Moo" horn. Might have even had 'cow induction'...
@Ryan I don’t think you have a chance in hell herding this group of cows er I mean cats now that they’re turned loose Dan
I just happen to have an unpainted RPU, and there's a herd of cows just the other side of the fence, hmmmm.
The owner liked it, that's all that really matters. One time at Back to the 50s there was a car I thought was terrible, and I made some snide remark about it to my buddy. I thought we were far enough away from the car that the owner wouldn't be able to hear me, but it turned out we weren't... I saw the look on his face when he heard what I said, and I felt pretty bad about it. Since then I've refrained from commenting out loud on cars that aren't to my tastes.
May not be the coolest, but damn if it ain't memorable! Anyone remember a '89 issue of RnC where Ganhal shared photos of '49 Roadster show? Had a steer hide interior roadster pickup that was pretty wild! Also, didn't the Road Warrior have a cow hide covered "thingie" in it's wild ending chase?!
Some people build things that are remembered, others build things that are forgotten. Everyone should build things that make them (or the customer) happy. I would drive that every nice day.
If you know, you know.... and they never were easy to tip over in my experience. Plus they actually got pissed off when you did get one to the ground.....
Somewhere there has to be a one only, produced, of a velvet Elvis sitting around a table playing poker with a bunch of dogs dressed up like Elvis!
Two pictures of it in "Custom Pickups" from Peterson Publishing by George Barris. Spotlight books #532.
The Jalopy Journal
