But they had something no '50s girls would have had: tattoos. Girls dressed in cherry-printed halters, bright red lipstick and vintage clothes carefully harvested from thrift shops swayed through the crowd. Today, judging by the Kustom Kulture Extravaganza, the movement seems to have evolved into nostalgia for a time when cars first reigned supreme.īut like any recycling of history, the second time around it has resurfaced in a form far different from the original. (Moldy Marvin has pin-striping on his cell-phone case.) There was no real name for the phenomenon of car art until the Laguna Art Museum dubbed it "Kustom Kulture" in a 1993 show that featured the work of Roth, artist Robert Williams and some others. They were the Picassos, Rembrandts and Brancusis of the blue-collar world, working in the medium available to them in 1950s America, the automobile.įrom cars, the flames and pinstripes moved to trash cans, mailboxes, toilet seat covers and oil cans. Hot rodding was about average Joes with no other creative outlet than finding old pieces of junk and melding them onto cars like sculptors, chopping, frenching, channeling, decking, nosing and shaving those babies for speed and style, to express themselves. "There's surfing, rock 'n' roll and cars." ![]() "It's really about American culture," he explained, taking a break under a sprinkler after handing out 43 gold-plated Rat Fink trophies to winners in the car show. He said Kustom Kulture "has a lot to do with hot rodding, art and music." Moldy Marvin, a special effects artist who runs worked with Roth and runs a Kustom Kulture gallery in North Hollywood, organized this event. So what is Kustom Kulture, and are these people just poor spellers? And they are old enough to have cars of their own, too." "A lot of people who were around in the '60s _ baby boomers _ say, "My mom wouldn't let me buy these T-shirts,' " said Rebecca Marvel, who works with Moldy Marvin at the Kulture Shoq gallery in North Hollywood. After a couple of decades in hibernation, the rat resurged in the 1990s. (From tiny Tokyo-made key rings to 6-foot-high statues, Rat Fink's likeness graced T-shirts, artwork and stickers.)īy 1963, teenagers across the country were buying Rat Fink model kits and mass-produced Rat Fink T-shirts, according to the rat fink Web site. At an event like this, Rat Fink seemed to have been cloned ad infinitum. ![]() Revell American licensed his characters and his cars to make models.īut most of all he was the creator of Kustom Kulture icon Rat Fink, a scary-looking green vermin of a cartoon with bloodshot eyes, jagged teeth and long toenails, developed in the '50s as a counterculture response to Mickey Mouse. ![]() He used junkyard parts and a new product called fiberglass to create automobiles in his garage. ![]() Roth, who died last spring at 69, was a car builder, designer and artist. But to these gear heads, mad scientists, hobbyists and connoisseurs of Kustom Kulture, cars are religion, and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth is a GOD! Listen, you might not know who Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was, what Kustom Kulture is, what flaming, pearling, scalloping or pin-striping are (no, they aren't a kind of menswear!) or how to tell the difference between a '57 Chevy and a '62 Impala.
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