Category Archives: Larry Watson

Larry Watson 57 Chevies

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LARRY WATSON 57 CHEVIES

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Larry Watson Painted a great number of 1957 Chevies in his career, some mild with only added scallops, and some very wild with full pearl and Candy paint jobs.

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The 1957 Chevy is the one of the always popular Tri-Five Chevies 1955-1956 and 1957 that gets the least customized, at least in the past few decades. The car has always been very popular among restoration people, as well as with the street machine crowd. But for some reason it was never used a lot as Custom Car. That said… I was quite surprised to find sucha great number of Larry Watson paineted ’57 Chevies in the Larry Watson Personal Photo Archive.

I have to say that most of the Larry Watson painted ’57 Chevies are only mildly restyled, most only with suspension and tire-hubcaps dress up customizing. But it does show that the ’57 Chevies were used as base. The first samples of Larry adding scallops to stock bodied ’57 Chevies come from Larry’s very first shop at 1016 E Artesia in North Long Beach. Larry had this shop from 1957 to 1958. Making the ’57 Chevies at this shop brand new, or nearly new cars.

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Completely stock bodies Hard-Top with lowered suspension, lakes pipes, Four bar hubcaps, ’54 Chevy grille and a set of Larry Watson scallops. Notice the real Appleton Spotlights. Photo taken in front of Larry’s1016 E Artesia in North Long Beach Shop.

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Another earl black and white photo shows a hard top with scallops with bold white outlines. The body and even the suspension seam to remain mostly stock. Except for the aftermarket bumper over-riders.

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Another scallop paint job by Larry Watson on a stock bodies Hard-Top. The scallops are fading front to rear and have a white pinstriped outline. The interesting part about these scallops is that they are a mix of flames and scallops. A further development from those above. Only real modification seams to be the addition 1957 Plymouth hubcaps, and a slight stance adjustment.

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Rear view of the same ’57 Chevy Hard-Top as above.

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This ’57 Chevy 2-door sedan is interesting since Larry had a few different photos of the car in his collection. These black and white photos show the car painted all black in front of Larry’s 1016 E Artesia in North Long Beach Shop. Beautiful mild custom with the right stance, white wall tires, three bar hubcaps and lakes pipes.

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Larry also had a few photos of the same car, but now with nice pale yellow to red scallops in his Collection. The unidentified member had a Renegades Long Beach club plaque in the rear window.

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Another black ’57 Hard top that Larry did shows early style scallops in gold with fading red details, outlined in white on this mildly restyled, nosed and emblems removed ’57 Chevy. The photo was taken at Larry’s 1016 E Artesia, North Long Beach shop. 

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One of my personal favorite scallops paint job by Larry Watson is done on this unidentified pale yellow ’57 Chevy hard-top. The scallop Larry added to the side of the car looks so perfect on the car and enhances the shaped of the body and trim. The 4-bar lancers and perfect size white wall tires sure help as well.

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Larry adding the silver for the scallops on the unidentified Chevy. Masking tape and partly masked with newspapers painting outside in the driveway of his first shop.

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Same car as the photo above shows that it was updated a little later. First version had the single scallop on the sides, which was later duplicated with a second one above it, and a second scallop hides the body work needed for the emblem removal of the nose.

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This is one of the very few ’57 Chevies done by Larry Watson that made it into the magazines 1959 Custom Car Annual, and a few others. But sadly no owners name was ever mentioned. (James Potter photo.)

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Candy blue scallops, most likely over a silver base on this stock bodies, lowered Hard-Top. This photo was taken in front of Larry’s9012 Rosecrans blvd. Bellflower Shop.

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Interesting photo of an in progress ’57 Chevy at Larry’s Rosecrans Shop shows that at this time Larry did not even remove most of the trim, just taped off. Larry had upgraded to using actual masking paper by now.

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Larry adding some red accents to silver scallops on an unidentified ’57 Chevy.

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Late afternoon photo of this unidentified 1957 Chevy at the Larry Watson Rosecrans Blvd shop in 1959. Larry painted this mildly customized 1957 Chevy Sedan in pearl white and added panels to outline the character lines of the Chevy. He painted the panels in pearl light blue and fogged them in with candy blue. One of Larry’s wildest paint jobs on a ’57 Chevy. The car had wide white walls with Custom three bar spinners and full lakes pipes, dummy spotlights and lowered stance.

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Dallas Eichstadt’s 1957 Chevy 2 door sedan has not been modified much. Just some suspension mods to give it that Californian stance, combined with the right size white walls and Dodge Lancer four bar hubcaps. Both a perfect choice for this type of mild custom. Then Larry added his magic with a pearl white paint-job, followed by some carefully taping of the subtle outlines of the top, and teardrop/scallop elements around the wheel openings. Then he painted several coats of candy yellow creating a super bright yellow. The last step for Larry was outline the white with a very thin black pin stripe.

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Two invoices that Larry kept shows us that Dallas Eichstadt had to pay $210 1960 USD for the Candy Yellow and white pearl as can be seen in the photo above. Sadly we do not have a picture of the Pearl Blue Chevy from the invoice on the right.

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Another nice two door sedan was left mostly stock and all the customizing was done with the stance/wheels/tires and the paint job. Some of the body badges where removed and then Larry added a wonderful combination of pearl ice green on the main body and candy dark green on the top. The car was set on a forward rake with small size white wall tires on chrome reserve wheels.

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Another 2-door sedan with beautiful Candy green body with silver flake roof and rear panel photographed in front of Larry’s Lakewood Blvd., Paramount shop. Amazingly the photo was taken at the moment the Chrisman Mercury Comet was passing by in the background.

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Candy blue and pearl light blue on the top in the mid 1960’s.

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Typical mid 1960’s paint job from Larry Watson. Simple two tone on this mostly stock 1957 Chevy. Larry painted the car in a brilliant candy orange with a metallic warm gold on the top. By this time Larry had found out he could make much more money when he did more simple paint jobs, instead of the wild panel, fade, flame and special effects paint jobs he did in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Even though the outside of the unidentified 1957 Chevy is stock it looks like it has a pretty wild all custom interior.

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This great looking lavender pearl and Candy grape 1957 Chevy painted by Larry is yet another proof that these cars look so good as mild Custom Car. And it makes me wonder why we don’t see them more done like this today.

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Larry even painted a ’57 Chevy four door. Purple and lavender.

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Very nicely done 1957 Chevy Nomad.
Larry painted the smoothed Nomad in a metal-flake medium blue with some veiling in silver around the B-pillar and above the doors. And blue cow-webbing on the silver panel below the side trim. And most likely hydraulics on the front.

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This close up photo gives a better look at the paint Larry used, the blue cob webbing on the lower panel and the silver veiling gun effects on the roof and B-pillar. Notice the molded in sunken antenna on the front fender and the white and yellow striped tires. Anybody knows who’s car this was?

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Bright red with silver rood inserts on this Nomad with Hydraulic suspension was photographed at Larry’s Firestone Blvd. shop in Downey. It was the last photo photo I could find in his collection showing a Watson painted ’57 Chevy. 

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Larry Watson T-Bird Vino Paisano

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LARRY WATSON T-BIRD

 

Larry Watson Personal car based on a brand new 1958 Thunderbird with only minimal amount of body work. It was the unique paint design and use of color that made it a Trend Setter.



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This article shows a selection of photos of Larry Watson’s 1958 T-Bird. Most of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.
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In the summer of 1958, shortly after Larry Watson had sold his 1950 Chevy “Grapevine” Larry went shopping for a new car. In the past years he had come up with some new paint ideas, and he wanted to try them out on a new car. The original plan was to find a slightly used ’57 Cadillac, but when he arrived at the Cadillac dealer his eyes were drawn to a one year older Cadillac Eldorado brougham, it was love at first sight. But Larry did not have the $11,000.- the limited production Brougham cost. After the initial disappointment, he later decided he wanted to have an ’58 Ford Hard-top and try out his paint ideas. When he arrived at the Ford dealer he spotted a brand new 1958 Ford T-Bird, and ones again he fell in love with a new car. He had to loan some money to make the deal happen, and told the dealer he would get the first one they would get in with an black and white factory tuck & roll interior.

A few weeks later the a black and white interior T-Bird had arrived at the dealer, and Larry was called to come and pick it up. The car turned out to be factory pink… but Larry did not mind that at all, since that color would not stay visible for very long. Soon after all arrangements had been made and Larry drove it off the dealer’s lot he drove it to have the suspension lowered at Lindy’s Muffler Shop. They also added dual pipes with mufflers and stock chrome tailpipes. But with the car now so low, the tailpipes scraped the road so much that soon the bottom half of them was pushed in and something needed to be done. They then added new tailpipes from chrome plated ’36 Ford drive shafts, mounted as high as they could and extra skid plates were welded to the bottom of the pipes.

The pink factory paint is covered in platinum silver by Larry Watson at the Barris Shop.
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Next Larry took the car to the Barris Shop where he rented shop space, and had Bill Hines and his good friend Bill DeCarr shave the handles and the trim on the bulge on the doors shave the emblems and ad push buttons to open the door. They then finished the body work with some primer. The de-chromed body looked already really amazing with all the emblems and handles removed, but Larry had something in mind that would make it look even better, and make the car look longer and lower. Larry added a set of Appleton Spotlights, 1957 Dodge Lancer four bar hubcaps which he bought brand new from the Dodge dealer, and lake pipes with unique Dave’s Home of Chrome finned end caps.

Then it was time for Larry to do his magic, all this was done at the Barris Atlantic Ave shop in Lynwood, where Larry rented a booth from Barris. Larry wanted to try out an idea he had to create an ultra fine platinum pearl. He ordered 2 gallons of pre-mixed, according his own specifications, platinum pearl nitrocellulose lacquer. Larry first covered the car in a few coats of fine metallic silver and followed that with a few coats of the translucent platinum pearl. After the car had dried overnight he took it out of the shop, and parked it across the street, where he could view it good from the shop. The already huge ’58 T-Bird looked enormous with the new light bright paint. It was just too loud, and too bright. People were actually honking their horn letting them know the reflecting sun in the bright paint, acting like a mirror, was hurting their eyes. So Larry decided to get the Bird back in the shop and do another, his second, panel paint job.


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The First Larry Watson panel Paint-job

Larry’s very first panel paint job he developed was after he was asked by Renegades member Zeno Stephen’s, who owned a mildly customized pure white 1956 Mercury. To paint his car with something different than flames or scallops. Zeno’s Mercury looked so great already, and Larry really loved the lines on the car, so he came up with the idea to highlight these body lines. He masked off all the body lines, side trim, belt line, door handles, basically all the main body lines that your eyes capture first when you look at a car. He used 1 1/2 inch masking tape to make sure the outlining was even all around. He then pained the the inside panels in GM Tahitian Red. When he had removed the masking tape it looks totally amazing. Larry striped the panels in gold, and Zeno took off, cruising to the Bellflower Clock where everybody was staring at his brand new Larry Watson outline paint job. A new trend was born.

Zeno’s Stephen’s 1955 Mercury with Larry’s first ever panel / outline paint job in GM Tahitian Red over factory white.
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Polaroid Insta-Matic photos of Larry’s Vino Paisano in front of the Barris shop at Atlantic Blvd. The photos were taken shortly after the car was finished by by Bob Seiger, and given to Larry. In the background on the first photo we can see Lyle Lake’s 1952 Buick “Blue Danube” sitting in the shop window. This part of the Barris shop was rented by Larry as his shop space for some time. The T-Bird was painted at this shop.
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James Potter had urged  Larry to hurry up with the T-Bird, since he wanted to use it on the cover of the 1959 Custom Cars Annual he was putting together. Larry just made the deadline for the photo-shoot at a new bank building on Willshire Blvd. The color photo above was used on the cover of the book, and so was an color photo of Larry’s ’50 Chevy. Two Watson Customs on the cover, that made Larry very happy.
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From the James Potter 1959 Custom Cars Annual photo-shoot.
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Larry figured that the bright platinum paint could do fine as outlines, as long as the majority of the body would be covered in a darker color. Larry carefully laid out his masking tape (1 3/4 inch wide), following all the major body lines on the T-Bird. Even thought Larry had paneled Zeno Stephen’s ’55 mercury before, on his T-Bird he wanted to do things a little different. The ’58 T-Bird had very distinct body lines, and he wanted to highlight those, and wanted to see how much effect on the overall looks his new design/technique would have. Making sure the platinum pearl outlines would later highlight the beautiful body contours and enhance the low look of the car. Ones Larry was happy with the tape lay-out he show the panels in a beautiful deep candy burgundy wine, mixed by Joe Sheline, straight over the fine platinum pearl. Which created the most amazing sparkle for the Candy paint when the sunlight hit it.

The Vino Paisano parked on the curb at the Barris Shop. This photo shows how the paneling Larry designed enhances the shapes of the Thunderbird body lines. This photo also shows how much difference the car is compared to anything else on the road. Imagine how much impact this had on people who saw it on the road.
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Notice that the Spotlights do not have the scallops added at this point.
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When the tape and paper were removed the result looks spectacular. After the paint had been rubbed by Dayton “Darkie Bob” Randolph and his crew in Huntington Park, Larry added some bold striping in imitation gold. But he did not like the effect and redid it the same day in a lavender with had the just perfect result, slightly softening the edge from burgundy to silver. The Watson paint design made the T-Bird look longer and lower, it really was customizing by nothing but paint.

Larry also painted the grille mesh and the mesh around the taillights in the Candy burgundy. All four taillight lenses were detailed with chrome plated bullets. And on the front Larry removed the stock bumper/grille guards and modified a set of chrome bullets and mounted those over the holes left from the bumper guards. The bullets were bought at Dave’s Home of Chrome.

As soon as Larry was finished with the car James Potter shot it for the cover of the 1959 Custom Cars Annual. And soon s that book hit the book stores everybody in the US was going wild over the incredible new style paint job Larry had done on his T-Bird. Larry used the car on the road, cruising down to all his favorite places, and in the weekends entered it in many Car Shows, where it won many Best Paint Awards. Since the car was so extremely low the cops really loved Larry’s T-Bird as well, and they awarded Larry with many tickets as well. Later Larry would add a license plate to the front, and remove the lakes pipes in the hope the cops would pull him over less than before.

Shortly after finishing the -T-Bird Larry Watson showed the car on a aluminum foil covered turn table at the Renegades Car Club Rod and Custom Motorama at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium in 1958. The car had been named “The Burgundy Bird”. The Renegades club had honored Larry with a large top location at the entrance of the building.
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The Candy burgundy and platinum silver on Larry’s T-Bird looked amazing on the rock salt round display at the Renegades show. The car was a huge success with the crowd, and another Watson trend had been born. Notice that prior to the show Larry had added scallops and pin striping to the Spotlights.
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George Barris photo of Larry’s T-Bird at the Renegades Show in 1958. According the signs at the bottom the turntable was created by Gary McNaught.
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Larry painted the inside of the engine bay white and added chrome valve covers and air-cleaner. Notice the scalloped and pin-striped Appleton Spotlights.
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Second version

The custom paint that was available back in the later part of the 1950’s and early 1960’s was very bright, colorful, and the hues very brilliant, but most of these products were experimental and not tested very good. In fact Larry helped develop a lot of new custom paint products, and was testing material for his suppliers. It turned out that a lot of these early custom paints started to fade or crack after just a few month in the sun. This also happened with Larry’s ’58 T-Bird, so after half a year he the candy burgundy had faded so badly that he really needed to re-paint the whole car.


Karen Beach, Larry’s girlfriend at the time is posing with the T-Bird for this night shot at the Long Beach Circle. The photo was taken by Lowell Helms and according the stories two police car were using their headlights to dd some extra light for the photo. It worked pretty good to me. Notice that Larry also added a license plate to the front of the car, being sick of getting too many tickets for not having one.
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After having studied the paint and how it had faded on his car he noticed that the panels looked still good on the outside, but the further into the panel, the worst the fading became. He decided he could fix the paint with another round of paneling. He taped of the panels with 2 inch tape, making sure the outlines would be even all around. He then sprayed the inside panel with silver, let it dry and taped off the outside of the silver panel. He then fogged in the inside of the panel in Candy grape. When he removed the tape the new panels had a nice silver outline, and the inside was candy grape fading to silver. Larry covered it all with many clear coats before having Dayton “Darkie Bob” Randolph do the complete polishing on it. Another new, trend setting Watson Paint Technique. Larry would later create many paint designs based on this T-Bird paint.

Larry drove and showed the car like this for some time and then he updated the car with a set of chrome revere wheels detailed with shallow moon hubcaps, which possible are 1950 Mercury units, detailed with another chrome bullet. And later Larry decided to remove the lakes pipes. The car was extrmely low already, and the pipes, which were mounted below the body, made it even lower, and often hard to drive. After having owned and enjoyed the car for about a year Larry decided to sell his T-Bird to a young Bob Finley of Long Beach, who absolutely loved the car. Bob needed his father to finance the car. Larry moved on and bought an 1959 Cadillac which he customized again right after he got it to his shop. Bob owned and really enjoyed the car until late 1961, when he sold it to a principal of Long Beach Poly High School.

The T-Bird at the Compton Drive in photographed most likely by George Barris.
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Closer look at the panel, outline and fogged in paint on Larry’s T-Bird in front of the famous Watson’s shop wall.
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Every time I see one of the photos taken in front of the Larry Watson Rosecrans Blvd shop wall I wonder if Larry had this in mind when he designed the wall.  Posing his creations in front of the wall was a genius promotional action.
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Low angle photo shows the white painted under carriage, and it also shows how extremely low the car really was. No wonder Larry later removed the lakes pipes making driving the car a bit easier.
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Larry mounted chrome plated bullets on the stock T-Bird taillights. The exhaust tops are ’36 Ford drive shafts cut to size and chrome plated, they created a very nice mellow sound. The gas tank was painted white.
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This photo from the Larry Watson Personal Collection has seen better days, but I wanted to include here anyway since is has a nice birds eye view showing the panel work on the top and hood so nice.
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Great black and white photo taken late in the day creating long shadows.
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We could not find a clear photo  of the interior in Larry’s T-Bird, so here are two cropped images that show a little bit of the factory stock black and white tuck & roll interior.
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Larry proudly posing with his T-Bird in front of his Rosecrans Blvd shop in Artesia. The photo shows that not to long after Larry had done his personal T-Bird many customers had requested similar panel and outline paint jobs.
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James Potter made a few close ups of Larry posting with his T-Bird.
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Another George Barris photo-shoot at an unknown location that George used several times. By now Larry had removed the lakes pipes, which make the car look a little less lowered.
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Larry pointing out where the push buttons for the door solenoids was hidden.
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Two close ups photos showing the different wheel/hubcap set up used on Larry’s T-Bird. 1957 Dodge Lancer four bar hubcaps detailed with burgundy paint on burgundy painted steel wheels on the early version. And later after the car had received the paint update, Larry mounted chrome reverse wheels with shallow moon hubcaps (possible 1950 Mercury units?) with Bullet centers. The wheel wells were painted flat white, a big trend back then. As these photos show the white did not stay clean very long. Note the missing lakes pipes on the right photo.
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Larry’s T-Bird made it onto the cover and inside the magazines many times back then, and it is still used a lot these days. Larry had a lot of frames (even more than captured in this photo by Roger O’Dell) devoted to his ’58 T-Bird on his Museum wall.
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Survived

The story of the T-Bird after that is very vague (so far) we know that it has changed hands some more before ending in the hands of Mark Mohoney from Hollywood. In the early 1980’s Mark offered the car for sale in the Recycler and it was bought by Beach Collision Body Shop in Huntington Beach owner Rick Randall. Bill DeCarr had found out about the car being owned by Rick, and had mentioned it to Larry. Larry traced down Rick and looked up the car at his body shop. He sure recognized his old T-Bird which made him very happy to know the car was still around, and in good shape. Rick had started to take apart the car, have all the chrome redone and the car was in primer at the time.

I captured the restored Larry Watson 1958 T-Bird in 2011 outside of the Pomona GNRS buildings. The car was part of a huge Larry Watson display at the Customs Then & Now exhibit.
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The rear quarter view of Larry’s T-Bird is my personal favorite view. Here all the outlined panels make the car look so perfect.
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Several years later Larry’s good friend Gary Niemie asked Larry about the T-Bird, and contact was made with Rick to see if the project was for sale. Which it was, since Rick had been to busy working on the project since Larry last saw it. Larry helped out Gary restoring the car to its first version, how it was first seen by the world on the cover of the 1959 Custom Cars Annual.

Danny Hull at Corona Custom Shop in Norco, Ca was chosen to do the final paint work. Larry helped mixing the pearl silver and the candy burgundy. Danny spayed the silver, after which Larry did the panel tape work for the burgundy paint. Danny also added the Candy burgundy, but let Larry add one coat as well. Later Larry pinstriped the panels in lavender, just as he had done back in 1958.

Gary Niemie later sold the car to Ralph Whitworth who was putting together a huge Hot Rod and Custom Car museum. When the plans for the museum were canceled the T-Bird ended up at the Icons of Speed & Style Auction where the near entire collection of the museum was auctioned on September 26th, 2009. Roger and Marie O’dell, close friends of Larry Watson ended up buying the car for $55,000. After Roger had purchased Larry’s T-Bird he stored it in Larry’s personal museum, the absolute best place for the car to be displayed.

Detail showing the Thunderbird emblem on the rear of the top. The emblem can be pushed to operate the door solenoids. This photo also shows the fine pearl silver paint, candy burgundy and Larry Watson lavender pin-striping.
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Chrome bullets from Dave’s Home of Chrome covering the holes for the factory bumper guards. The grille mesh was painted candy burgundy by Larry back in 1958, the same thing was done on the restoration.
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The chrome bullets used on the taillights are restored originals Larry used back in 1958. Notice the Candy burgundy painted mesh.
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Appleton Spotlights and candy burgundy paint details.
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Watson panel – outline paint

Larry painted a large number of cars with the outline paneling technique he had developed for his personal T-Bird. In fact Larry did at least half a dozen 58 T-Birds in a similar – but slightly different in design and color – outline-panel style as his own T-Bird. The outline and paneling paint technique was a huge success for Larry from 1958 up into the early 1960’s. During this time Larry operating from his Artesia and Rosecrans shop, both in Bellflower California. Cars from totally stock, just lowered cars where he would accent all the body details, to smoothed customs where he would outline just the main body lines.

Larry was a true master when it came to this technique. He started by looking at the car for some time, and finding all the key lines that really mattered for the look of the car. Those where the lines than needed the extra color accents. Or he would choose the widest panels and found ways to make those look longer and thinner, by masking a little more, or less space around the edges. Larry’s designers eye allowed him to do custom work with nothing but paint. The result were cars that not only looked spectacular, they looked longer, lower and thinner. Something that could done only with very expensive metal body work as chopping and sectioning before. And now Larry was able to do this in a matter of hours and days, for just a fraction of the costs.

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Larry Watson Painted Hot Rods

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WATSON PAINTED HOT RODS

 

Larry Watson is best know for his special paint on Custom Cars, but he also painted his fair share of Hot Rods during his long career.


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This article shows a selection of photos of Hot Rods painted by Larry Watson. Most of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.
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Most of the photos in the Larry Watson Personal Collection were taken of his beautiful paint work on Custom Cars, Bikes and boats. But these are also a few that show that Larry also did some fantastic paint work on Hot Rods. Unsure why there are relatively few Hot rod’s being painted by Larry. Most likely because he was most of all known as a Custom Car painter, and perhaps the local Hot Rodders thought he might not be interested in doing their Hot Rod, or perhaps thought he might be too expensive doing those fancy Custom Car paint jobs.

Still Larry did his share of Hot Rod painting and showed that he could do beautiful paint jobs on those as well. In this Custom Car Chronicle article we show you most of the Hot Rod photos from the Larry Watson Personal Collection, I have added a few photos from other collections, since they were slightly better quality, or were taken in color. Pleas feel free to place a comment if you know more about the cars showing on the photos. Because as always, they did not come with any info at all.

Larry took this snapshot of Bill DeCarr – on the left – and possibly the owner of this t-Touring with a mostly stock body. But the primer spots indicate that Bill did some work on it to get it straight for Larry to paint it. The car has wire wheels, and a dropped chrome axle…
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“Ye Old” Joe Barnett’s T-Touring with the finished Larry Watson paint job. The car looks a lot like the on in primer above, but some details are different, so it might be a different car all together. This T runs on black wheels, baby moons and big & Little white wall tires. The tall top is covered in white canvas, while the interior is upholstered in black.
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This T has a dropped, black painted dropped axle. The color combination of light metallic, or pearl blue with the white top and black interior and wheels works really well.
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Rear view shows the really nice rake on this T.
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Great photo of the Bill DeCarr/Watson 10116 Artesia Blvd. when it had still the Ed Schelhaas sign on the front. In this around 1960 photo we can see Jerry Fever’s nice ’29 Model A Roadster Hot Rod outside, a 1959 Ford inside the shop that just had a nice Larry Watson silver and candy blue paint job, and Terry Holloway’s 1957 Plymouth in the back behind the roadster.
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Close up of Jerry Fever’s 28-29 Model A full fender orange-red Hot Rod. The car has black wheels and baby moons, just as the T-Touring above.
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Jerry Fever had a good looking all dressed up flathead engine in his Model A with a three carb intake, and paint detailed Stromberg Carbs.
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Very nice Model T coupe with a wonderful Larry Watson paint job. The stance, the chrome wheels, the tires, the white interior and top they are a part of making this one a very stylish Hot Rod. The rear bumper was not installed, most likely still at the home of this very happy Hot Rodder.
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Unique vintage look was achieved with the non chopped top, traditional Watson paint, chrome and white details.
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I really like this photo of the primered T-Body in front of the Watson/DeCarr shop. Also notice the circular paint overspray on the bottom right. The photo below shows how that happened.
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Not the same T-Body as above, this one was hanging on the wall of the Larry Watson Museum, and shows how the circular paint over-spray in the photo above might have happened. Not sure where and when this photo was taken, but the flames are of Larry’s early 60’s style.
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This is the former and first AMBR Bill Niekamp’s 1929 Model A at the time it was owned by Delmer Brink. Larry Watson actually painted this car twice. First in a candy purple and later in a fading from front to rear candy red/maroon paint job which you can see here sitting in front of the Artesia Blvd Shop. The hood and grille are still missing in this photo. More on Delmer’s Hot Rad can be found in this CCC-Article.
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David C. Martins Model A Ford was restyled by Bill DeCarr at his Artesia Blvd Shop and later painted a beautiful Lime Gold by Larry Watson in the paint booth he rented behind Bill’s shop. The body was partly channeled over the frame and special rolled panels added below the body on the sides and at the rear. A ’32 Ford grille was sectioned to fit the lower body.
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Bill also installed an narrowed 1940 Ford dash and modified it to accept 5 round gauges before Larry painted it. More in David C. Martins Hot Rod can be seen in on this Custom Car Chronicle Article.
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Unidentified Tall Model T bucket in front of the Artesia Blvd shop. By now the Ed Schelhaas sign had been replaced with a Bill’s Shop sign. There are only primer photos of this car in the Watson Collection as far as I know. So I don even know if Larry ended up painting it, or if it was only in Bill DeCarr’s Shop.
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Jim Skonzakes on the right leaning against the special trailer he build for the “Kookie T” which had just been repainted by Larry Watson in pearl white and Red flames. This photo was also taken at the Artesia Blvd Shop.
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Beautiful pearl or fine metallic teal blue paintjob on this ’27 Chevy Coupe Rod.
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Larry choose a really unique classic looking color for this near stock bodies Hot Rod. The photos came with no info, so we have no idea who the owner is.
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Beautiful Candy purple paint job on this restyled T-Bucket for owner Gene Chan (thanks Marcus Edell). The contrasting white interior and gold rear tires look really well on the car.
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Candy Red painted traditional T-Bucket.
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Phil Kaelin’s 1932 Ford from the Larry Watson Collection. Sadly there was only a few black and white photos of this car in Larry’s Collection. The color inset photos come from the Wirths Custom Auto Collection and is used to show the amazing colors of the car). This front 3/4 photo shows that the body had been chopped and channeled over the frame. Note the double sided white wall tires up front.
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Willys mostly ended up as gassers and drag racers, but this one was done more as a Hot Rod with shin line big and little white wall tires on chrome reversed wheels. The fresh Larry Watson paint-job look a mile deep.
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Another car that most of the time was used for the race track was this American Bantam. But the owner of this car decided he want to Hot rod his Bantam. These cars always looked a bit odd with their unusual proportions and relatively small size. And this one with large – out of scale – tires makes it even look stranger. Larry Watson painted this one with many wonderful coats of Banana/peach yellow pearl.  This photo was taken at the Watson Downie Firestone Blvd shop.
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Rear 3/4 view of the Bantam. The Pearl paint-job looks really amazing. The unknown owner must have been very happy with the result.
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Woody Barber had two photos of this Larry Watston painted American Bantam in his collection. since these were a bit sharper than the photos Larry had in his collection I have added them to this article.
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Larry painted this 1929 Chevy panel in gunmetal gray, and covered it with vertical free hand airbrushed stripped flames for owner Ron Glusac. Typical styled for late 1960’s early 1970’s. This photo was taken at Larry’s Firestone Blvd shop.
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Few more Hot Rod photos from Larry’s paint-jobs fro Larry’s Personal Museum walls.
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Ed Roth at Watsons

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ED ROTH AT WATSONS

 

Larry Watson painted some of the most memorable Ed Roth Creations. Cars that traveled to Car Shows all around the US, and appeared on the covers of many magazines.



[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of Ed Roth creations painted by Larry Watson. Most of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]

In this article based on the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection we concentrate on the photos Larry saved of cars created by Ed Roth, that Larry Painted. Ed Roth always came up with these extremely creative and wild creations. The earlier cars were usually painted at Roth’s shop, some by Dirty Doug. Ed’s Shop was not particularly clean, and there was no paint booth, or space to create a primitive paint booth. Early on they used mostly solid lacquer based paint which was very forgiving. If dust, or even flied had settled in the paint, you could just sand and rub it out. But from the 1960’s new wild painted were developed, pearl, and candy colors, which really required a clean paint-booth to use. If your made a mistake with these new paints, or a fly would drop in, you could just start all over.

From then on Ed Roth started to use Larry Watson for some of his creations. The first one was the Rotar in 1960, which Larry painted while he was at the Artesia blvd shop in Belflower, Ca. where he rented space from Bill DeCarr. Larry saved a series of unique photos of Ed working on the car, while its at Watson’s shop, first with primer, and later with base white and color. Painting the Ed Roth Cars was good for business for Larry. Ed’s cars traveled all around the US and were entered in countless Custom Car and Hot Rod Shows. Ed always made sure that the hand painted Show-Signs gave credit to Larry for the beautiful paint jobs he did. Plus Ed’s cars were very popular with the crowd, and were featured in many magazines. Lets take a look at some of these unique historic photos.



Rotar

Ed Roth pushing the freshly primered Rotar to Larry’s paint booth at the back of the Artesia Blvd shop in Bellflower. Great snapshot with the hey-Trucks in the background and the white wall tires on the military jeep of one of the shop’s employees.
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A bit more close up on the same photo as above.
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Ed still pushing, and getting closer to the booth. in the background the front of the Jeep, and of course the famous Ayala/Barris 1949 Mercury of Louis Bettancourt and later Johnny Zupan.
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Close up on that photo gives u a good look at the tail fin Ed created using ’59 Cadillac bumper sections.
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The Rotar at the paint-booth with the louvered doors, with Ed talking to one of the guys on the right.
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After Larry had painted the Rotar with a white base, Ed can be seen here working on masking the stars and color separations for the red and blue sections.
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A closer look shows how the stars were created using fine line tape, and still needed to be cut at the ends.
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Inside Larry Watson’s paint-booth shortly after Larry had finished painting the body in red and blue.
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Ed busy in the paint-booth removing the masking tape of the stars on the red part of the body.
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The finished Rotar in a promotional postcard.
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Orbitron

Two photos of Larry working on the Ed Roth Orbitron. On the left in the paint booth, and on the right Larry posing for the photo “applying” some striping to the headlight pod.
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The finished Orbotron at Larry’s Lakewood blvd shop in Paramount Ca.
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Don Loster took a picture of his ’59 Ford that was painted by Larry and the Roth Orbitron was parked next to it. This picture is dated November 1964.
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Ed Roth Orbitron photo frame at Larry Watson’s personal Museum.
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Road Agent

Larry putting down the white pearl base coat over the dark gray primer on the Road Agent. Notice that Larry used news paper to mask the plexiglass top and frame.
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Larry spraying the candy red/fuchsia paint over the white base.
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Larry finished painting the car with the ultra brilliant candy and can be seen here carefully removing the masking tape and paper.
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Some time later, in the late 1960’s Ed Roth’s Road Agent was at Larry’s Firestone Blvd shop in Downey, Ca. and this promotional photo was taken with a model in a wild plastic Metalflake dress with Watson logo.
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Promotional postcard of the Ed Roth Road Agent.
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Larry’s photo collection of the Roth Road Agent on the wall in his personal Museum.
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Druid Princess

Larry also painted Ed Roth’s Druid Princess. For this he Larry developed a special 3-headed paint gun to apply the effect paint on the hand made body. Larry used a paint technique called veiling for this, a technique used mostly on vintage lamp shades, which Larry adapted to be used on cars using car paints.
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Promotional card for the Druid Princess. This car shows the veiling effect on the cowl and rear fenders a bit better.
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Larry’s framed Druid Princess photos on the wall of his museum.
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This was an 1964 Ford Econoline Van that Larry did for himself. Using a 4 inch dropped front and parts left over from his abandoned space Truck project to fix frontal damage. The van was actually painted by Joe Navarro at Larry Shop. When he took the freshly finished Van over to Ed Roth to pick up an order of new shirts and flyers from Ed he found Ed drooling all over it. Ed bought the truck from Larry the very same day.
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Larry Watson Line-Up photo

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WATSON LINE-UP Photo

 

6 wild and brilliant painted mild Customs, all painted by legendary Custom Painter Larry Watson. Lined up for this Watson Line-Up Photo shoot.



This amazing line up photo of 6 Larry Watson outline or panel painted Custom Cars was most likely organized for a magazine photo shoot. Several photo taken during this photo shoot have appear in various magazines including the 1961 Custom Cars Annual the Popular Customs Winter 1963 issue. The photo was taken most likely in 1959, perhaps late 1959. Possibly it was George Barris who took the photos. The photo, including several close up’s of Larry with his ’58 T-Bird taken at this location appeared in the Barris Kustom Techniques of the 50’s Volume 4 book. The location, which so far I have not been able to identify was used for this, but also for several other photo shoots of Larry Watson painted cars. Most likely it was in the neighborhood where Larry had his shop in 1959, Rosecrans Blvd in Bellflower Ca. If anybody recognizes this location, please let us know.

The cars that were picked for this photo-shoot are (from left to right) John Busman’s 1956 Chevy, Unknown owner 1956 Mercury, Unknown owner 1956 Chevy, Jim Doss 1958 Chevy, Bob Mayfield 1959 Chevy, and Larry Watson 1958 Thunderbird. It must have been really fantastic for Larry Watson to see this line up of beautiful painted Custom Cars he had created. So colorful with outlines and panels enhancing the body contours and lines of the cars. Larry was still in the beginning of his long career, but the Rosecrans Blvd shop had already turned out a huge number of trend setting paint-jobs that had put Larry at the top of the field.

By looking at this Line-Up photo you can see that everything was well directed. With the guys all standing next to their cars. The cars are parked in such a way that most of them show up in the picture. The colors of the cars were evenly spread to make sure the contrast between the next car was as large as possible, making it work best for both color fill as well as black and white photography. And this last thing makes me wonder if this shot was also made on color film, since there are individual photos of most of the cars in this photo-shoot taken at this location in full color!

Lets take a closer look at the cars in this special All Larry Watson painted Custom Car Line-Up photo-shoot from 1959.

The Larry Watson painted Custom Car Line-Up photo from around 1959. Photo from the Larry Watson Personal Collection, original possibly taken by George Barris.
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1956 Chevy John Busman

John Busman was a good friend of Larry and Larry painted John’s 1956 Chevy several times. Shown in this photo the car was painted in candy purple and silver. This version of the car shows a brilliant combination of several styled blending into one cars paint-job. Larry combined his famous outlines with scallops and flames into one beautiful design. The silver outlines enhance all the body lines of the car, and make the body look slimmer. The fine silver painted flames were highlighted in pearl white to give them a 3D effect. The car was mildly restyled with shaved hood and trunk, lowered with white wall tires, Spotlights, Lakes pipes, as well as Bellflower tips at the back and Lancer Hubcaps.

Close up from the Line Up photo of John Busman’s 1956 Chevy.
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Printed color photo from the Popular Customs winter 1963 issue show John’s Chevy photographed at the same location as the Line-Up photo. The all white tuck & roll interior looks stunning.
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Another photo of John’s Chevy comes from the Larry Watson Collection and was taken at Larry’s Rosecrans Blvd Shop. It gives a better look at the paint colors. Notice that the body was only mildly shaved, the door handles remained on the car, and Larry even accentuated them with outlining them with paint.
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Unknown 56 Mercury

Unidentified smoothed ’56 Mercury with lowered suspension, lakes pipes and Bellflower tips and Dodge four bar lancer hubcaps with painted root beer centers. Larry Painted the body in a lime gold with wonderful candy root beer panels. Larry created a much larger outline around the body main character lines than he usually did and outlined this in another gold outline. The spotlights and a full white tuck&roll interior make this car a wonderful sample of late 1950’s customizing.

The unknown owner of the car is standing behind the Merc on the left side of the photo. Anybody knows who he is?
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A beautiful color slide was made of the Mercury during the photo-shoot. This very sharp photo shows the Mercury in all its beauty. The Mercury was still a mild Custom, although it had some more work done than John’s Chevy next to it. All the emblems and handles were shaved of the car, combines with the outline paint job and Larry’s excellent eye for design the car looks so much longer than when it had been painted in just one color.
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This snapshot is from my own collection and its very interesting, not only because it shows the Merc from a different angle, but it also hows Jim Doss’s ’58Chevy and Bob Mayfield’s ’59 Chevy in the background at the location. Not sure who took this photo, but more than likely one of the car owners, or possibly a friend that joined them to the photo-shoot.
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Unknown 56 Chevy Sedan

Many of the cars Larry painted in his career are sadly unidentified. They came to the shop, Larry painted them and the next day they were gone. Same thing happened with this great looking 1956 Chevy Sedan in white and candy teal-green outlines pinstriped in gold. The scallop on the trunk shows how genius Larry was. Hiding the trunk lock in the end of the scallop. Before Larry got to work on this one, the Chevy was mildly restyled with an ’53 Chevy grille with added teeth, removal of all emblems and door handles for an super smooth look, Lowered suspension, lakes pipes, three bar spinner hubcaps and Custom lenses on the taillights. One very smooth Sedan.

The unknown owner posing behind the Chevy on the far left of the photo.
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Snapshot from my personal collection shows the Chevy with the ’55 Merc and Jim Doss’s ’58 Chevy parked next to it at the Line-Up photo location. The addition of the older ’53 Chevy grille (or ’54 units) was a very popular option for ’56 Chevy’s.
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This photo of the unidentified Chevy taken at Larry Watson’s Rosecrans Blvd shop shows the brilliant design of the outlines on this car. The way Larry designed the layout the car’s body looks almost sectioned.
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Jim Doss 1958 Chevy

The ’58 Chevy in the Line-Up photo belongs to Jim Doss of Bakersfield, Ca. The car had been shaved of all its handles and trim including the fake rear quarter scoops. The front bulbous portion of the side trim was replacing with the rear portion. This gives an elegant feel to the side of the body that you really wonder why they had not thought about that at the factory. The rocker panel trim was also removed and to help lowering the body a set of lakes pipes was installed. At the back the taillight were replaced with a taillight unit from a 1959 Pontiac Catalina. The roof scoop was modified with the chrome trim removal and the addition of a small peek to the leading edge. The car was lowered and four bar lancers hubcaps were installed on perfect size white wall tires. All body work was performed by Walker’s Body Shop from Bakersfield Ca. – the home town of Jim Doss. Larry painted the car in candy green with lime gold outlines pinstriped in white. Jim’s car has been published a lot over the years, and is still one of the most recognizable and well known outline painted cars from Larry Watson.

Jim Doss in vertical striped shirt posing next to his deep candy green and lime gold ’58 Chevy.
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Published photo from the Popular Customs Winter 1963 issue shows the car at the same photo location as the Line-Up photo shoot.
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This photo of Jim Doss’s ’58 Chevy taken at the Rosecrans Blvd. Watson Shop shows how gorgeous the car is with the super slick outline paint job in candy green and lime gold.
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Bob Mayfield 1959 Chevy

Bob’s 1959 Chevrolet Impala was just as Jim Doss’s ’58 Chevy restyled by Walker’s Custom Shop in Bakersfield. Bob Mayfield also lived in Bakersfield, California. Bob’s Chevy had perhaps the most actual body work done to it from all the cars in the Line Up photo. The hood “eye-brows” were filled-in while extending the hood. All emblems as well as the door handles were shaved. The taillights were removed, new shaped metal added and two ’59 Cadillac taillights added on both sides, into custom made pods. The stock grille was replaced with an tube grille, very popular on mild customs at the time. A set of spotlights and side pipes were installed and the car was lowered by cutting the coils wide whites were added with Dodge Lancer four bar hubcaps with gold center on gold painted wheels. With the body work completed Bob drove the car to Larry Watson’s Rosecrans Blvd shop for a Pearl white paint job with flowing scallops in lavender and purple pinstriped in gold.

Bob Mayfield with his checkered shirt behind his Chevy.
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Snapshot of Bob’s ’59 Chevy at the Line-Up photo location. The paint style on Bob’s Chevy it totally different from all the other cars in the Line-Up. Very light, and elegant with a lot of “motion”.
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Larry Watson 1958 Thunderbird

The last car of the line up, all the way to the right is Larry Watson’s personal car, his ’58 Thunderbird. Shown in this photo is the second outline, or panel paint job on the car. In 1958 Larry bought his car brand new and drove it to be lowered at Lindy’s Muffler Shop, then next it went to Barris where Bill Hines shaved the door handles and ornaments. Bill DeCarr nosed and decked the car. Then Larry painted the car in the brightest silver platinum pearl. The ultra bright paint made the lowered car look to bolt, and it was way to bright. So Larry figured he could outlined all the body contours and then added Candy Burgundy over the pearl silver. The candy paint looked absolutely amazing, and the effect was just what the car needed. The car looked a lot thinner with the new paint job, and the thin lines of pearl silver accenting the body lines added an extra custom touch to the car. It was almost like doing Custom Restyling, but then with nothing more than paint. Larry pin-striped the candy burgundy panels in lavender, which slightly softened the hard edge between the silver and burgundy.

The custom paint that was available back in the later part of the 1950’s and early 1960’s was very bright, colorful, and the hues very brilliant, but most of these products were experimental and not tested very good. In fact Larry helped develop a lot of new custom paint products, and was testing material for his suppliers. It turned out that a lot of these early custom paints started to fade or crack after just a few month in the sun. This also happened with Larry’s ’58 T-Bird, so after half a year the Candy Burgundy had faded so badly, that he really needed to re-paint the whole car. But he thought about it and decided to add some more panels on top of the faded paint. He taped of the panels with 2 inch tape, and sanded the inside as smooth as he could, then added a fine silver base. Then taped off the outside half inch and fogged in candy grape. When he removed the tape the new panels had a 2 inch burgundy border (from the original paint job), then an half inch silver outline and the main panel was candy grape fogged over the silver. The paint job looked stunning and it brought Larry a lot of new customers who wanted a similar paint job on their cars. This is the version of the car that shows in the Line-Up photo.

Proud Larry Watson posting with his “Vino Paisano” 1958 Thunderbird.
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Close up of Larry with his ’58 T-Bird at the Photo-Shoot location. The color photo on the right, from a 80’s Hot Rod magazine publication, shows Larry’s car in color at the photo location.
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And here is a photo, to show off the colors a bit better, taken at the Rosecrans Blvd. Watson Shop.
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Can you imagine to drive by this location at the time this photo-shoot was going one, seeing all the wild brilliant colorful Customs outside in the sun gathered together at this parking lot. Or having to stop at a stoplight seeing these cars just leaving the scene, in a convoy back to Larry’s place, or up to the drive in for some local cruising.





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Larry Watson Painted Fords

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LARRY WATSON painted FORDS

 

In his long career Larry Watson has painted numerous Ford based cars. In this article we show you a selection of the Fords he has painted and saved the photos. From the Larry Watson Personal Collection.



[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of Fords painted by Larry Watson. All of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]


The first flame paint jobs Larry did was on Buzzy’s 1950 Ford sedan. Maroon crab-clam style flames in maroon with yellow tips over an off-white base. (Larry only added the flames to the already painted car and did the work at his parents drive way, before he had a shop to work from.) 
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1940 Ford Pickup owned by Clyde Castleberry from Norwalk, California had Larry Watson paint some really unique and good looking scallops in deep purple over a soft yellow base. The scallops where outlined in white striping, this snapshot was taken late in the day when the sun was setting at the Larry’s Rosecrans Blvd. Shop.
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Larry painted this 1949 Ford Sedan peach Pearl with a band of red webbing created with a veiling gun. Mildly customized with shortened side trim at the back, some trim removal and a California rake with thin white wall tired and chrome wheels. with baby moons.
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Unidentified 1950 FordCoupe done in blue with outline in silver and white striping. Unique look on a Shoebox Ford. Sadly there is only this single photo of it in Larry’s Collection. I would have loved to take a better look at it.
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Around 1957 Larry Watson added some silver and lavender scallops to Ray Moore/Pete Angress 1952 Ford. The scallops on the hood and trunk where free style, with nice round curves, similar to what Larry had done to his own Chevy.
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In 1958 Larry completely redid the Ray Moore/Pete Angress 1952 one more time. Larry painted the car in a bright warm gold and masked off panels to highlight the body contours. He then added a deep candy burgundy and outlined everything in white.
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Very clean and simple 1953 Ford Convertible was painted by Larry in one of his trademark outline paneled paint jobs. This time in candy red over gold striped with white. The car had been mildly customized with de-chromed and shaved body. Custom hubcaps and an aftermarket tube grille.
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1954 Ford F100 Pick-Up truck painted candy blue with a silver blue top.
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Simple but effective scallops added by Larry to hide the removed trunk handle. 
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Jerry Koller’s 1955 Ford was scalloped in candy green over a medium green body by Larry.
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Larry Quatrone 1955 Ford Crown Victoria was restyled by Ed Schelhaas and painted a wonderful candy root beer with a pearl lime green top by Larry Watson at his Rosecrans Blvd shop in Bellflower Ca. (More on Larry’s Ford can be seen in the full CCC-Article on this car.)
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Another 55 Ford Crown Victory was painted Pearl Pink with Candy Fuchsia over a mildly de-chromed but otherwise stock body. 1959 Dodge hubcaps, lake pipes, spotlights, and a nice slight forward rake make this a very nice cruiser for the late 1950’s, early 1960’s. Sadly we have not been able to find an owners name for this custom so far. (More on this Ford can be seen here.)
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Larry Watson photo of Don Loster’s 1959 Ford Galaxy taken around 1964. The car had some nice body work done by the Martinez Brothers which included new front and rear pans. deeply tunneled custom taillights removal of most of the chrome, smoothed body and an integrated lake pipe cover to the lower rocker panels. Don Loster had his own business in hydraulics so he put his own hydraulic system on his car to get it low to the ground. The interior on Don’s Ford was done by Joe Perez in gray leatherette and white “button tufted” fabric. Larry Watson first painted Don’s Ford in a candy Fuchsia over a Platinum Pearl underbase. The top was done in silver with chrome tape on the c -pillars. Finishing touches are the Buick Skylark wire wheels and General Dual 90’s white wall tires. These tires came with three thin white lines, the middle stripe was blacked out to give it a unique two-stripe treatment.
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Nice mild Customized 1959 Ford at the Bill DeCarr/Watson Artesia blvd shop for owner mr Holhfos. The car is painted a wonderful dark Candy blue on the main body and a very light blue/silver pearl on the top. Some badges where removed and it looks to have a full custom interior. The car has anice California rake added to it which was the big rage in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
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A really great early evening photo of a beautifully done 1960 Ford Starliner Custom. Mike Perello had Larry Watson do the Pearl Abalone Gold with a Candy Root Beer on the top. The stance on this car is really working well for it making it look like its going fast standing still all this was done using hydraulics on the front. The perfect combination of thin-line white walls and chrome reverse rims.
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Another 1960 Ford was painted candy green with a lime green top by Larry.
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Unidentified 1961 Ford done in a pearl warm roze color.
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1961 Ford in an off white pearl with the body highlights fogged in with candy pink.
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Candy teal and a perfect stance look fantastic on this 1961 Ford.
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Front shot of this Candy Teal painted 1961 Ford shows it uses a modified 1960 Mercury grille, and it looks fantastic. The body work and grille installment was done by Bill DeCarr in his Artesia Blvd shop.
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Candy grape painted 1962 Ford convertible.
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Jim Boyd’s 1963 Ford was painted by Larry Watson in candy fuchsia-red, after the body had been smoothed and a studebaker pan was added to the front, below the bumper. It also had Buick wire wheels and hydraulic suspension on the front, and later added to the rear as well.
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1963 Ford Galaxy 500 painted in a brilliant candy red.
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1963 Ford Galaxie 500 with mild de-chrome body, extended side trim and hydraulic front suspension. Larry painted the car in soft lavender pearl and candy red for an unknown owner.
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1964 Ford Galaxie painted pearl pink.
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Pearl teal painted 1964 Ford Galaxie with most likely hydraulic front suspension to create the heavy California Rake.
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Cobalt blue candy painted 1964 Ford Galaxie.
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Ford Fairlane painted with silver and black with cobweb and veiling effects.
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1966 Ford Galaxie with a candy over pearl burnt orange paint-job. Simple but very effective.
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Larry Watson Painted Porsches

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WATSON PAINTED PORSCHES

 

Larry Watson painted a large number of Sports Cars and Foreign Exotics, including a number of Porsches THis article shows a selection of the Larry Watson Painted Porsches from his Personal Collection.



[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of Larry Watson painted Porsches. All these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]

Larry Watson became well known for his pin-striping, his flame, outline, panel and other special effect paint jobs in the late 1950’s and 1960’s. But towards the later part of the 1960’s Larry started doing more an more single color paint jobs. Still special paints, custom mixed candies, pearls and metalflake, but without all the extra work of painstakingly masking off flames, panels, outline or scallops. The time was right for the super straight unique colors Larry was able to put onto the cars. Larry loved doing these, since he could handle much more cars this way, and the results was very effective and his cars still won best paint prizes ever were they went. From the late 1960’s till up in the 1980’s Larry painted a lot of cars with special paint, but just single colors. Custom Cars, Hot Rods, and even foreign exotic cars. Unusual to see those without an factory approved paint job today, but back then it was done a lot. Larry painted quite a few Porsches with special paints. Otherwise completely stock Spots Cars, just with a wonderful Custom Paint-job to satisfy the customer, and make him stand out from the crowd.



A lot of these Porsches were painted when Larry was at his 5576 Melrose Hollywood shop from which he operated from 1972 till around 1977. I’m not a Porsche expert, so I will let these photo tell the story.









Larry painted this Porsche in a beautiful Candy Red paint photographed here fresh out of the paint booth. Notice that all the windows remained in the car and are taped off. The door handles were also taped, but some other details and trim pieces were removed. 
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Same car all finished and put back together again. In shop another Porsche is being prepped for another Larry Watson paint-job.
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The building in the background is the Paramount Studios, Larry shop is out of the picture to the right.
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Rainbow Porsches
During the 1970’s Larry Watson did a series of candy over pearl fade away Rainbow paint-jobs he did several for Ricky Cooper. Spectacular paint-jobs which showed Larry’s increadible steady hand, and skills to get candy paint on very even, especially on the faded sections. Larry painted at least three porsches in his Rainbow colors.














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Jerry Preston 54 Ford Victoria by Watson

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JERRY PRESTON 54 FORD

 

Jerry Preston 1954 Ford Victoria was one of the first panel paint jobs with faded panels done by Custom Car painter Larry Watson.



in 2006 I came across 4 original Larry Watson photos on ebay. Two of the cars in those photos I had seen before in the magazines, but the other two I had never seen. One was a ’56 Chevy white with green outlines, and a wild panel and outline painted 1954 Ford Victoria. The photo of this ’54 Ford was really super quality, and much sharper and more brilliant in color than the other photos. When I received the photos some time after the auction had ended I scanned them and shared them on my Custom Car Photo Archive website, and hoped somebody would recognize the two photos that I had been unable to identify.

Several years later I received an email from Bobby Eidem, that the ’54 Ford Victory was owned by a good friend of him Jerry Preston. And that Jerry was still around, and very thrilled to see the photo. We emailed back and forth about the car and Jerry had two more photos of his old ’54 Ford painted by Larry Watson that he shared with me. And Jerry also shared his story on another car, a ’59 Chevy El Camino he had after the ’54 Ford that Larry painted for him several times.

Scan from the photo how I got it from the eBay auction. The border around the photo was ripped from having tape removed from it at one point. The photo was stained a bit as well.
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Jerry Preston remembering his 1954 Ford

“The first car Larry painted for me was a 1954 Ford two-door hardtop Victoria in factory color white. I had bought the car from a guy who was getting married and needed the money. The car was already lowered and had flipper hubcaps. I don’t remember how much I paid for it, but I would guess that it was somewhere between $175 and $250. After a month or so, I went to see Larry Watson, who was on Bellflower Blvd. at the time. I asked him about getting the car painted, and he liked my suggestion of a pearl white bottom and a gold top. But I first went to legendary body man Bill DeCarr who removed the handles and shaved some of the the trim and emblems. Then I took it back to Larry for his magic. When the paint job was finished, the car looked good but very plain.

Larry said, “You know, this would be a perfect car to panel.” I had seen some of Larry’s work, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. Trusting his expertise, I agreed to let him panel it. The first time I came back to see the car, it had the candy green faded panels. Even though I thought it looked better, Larry said that he wasn’t done with it; he wanted to add a trim color – lime green with gold outlines to match the top. Well, at this point, I was all for it. So, he made the additions and cleared the entire car.

Cleaned up photo shows Jerry’s Car at the parking lot of Larry Watson’s very productive 9012 Rosecrans blvd. Bellflower Shop.
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Cropped section gives us a great look at the creative designed outline, solid and fogged panel paint job by Larry Watson. 
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I picked the car up a few days later. It had not been rubbed out or color-sanded yet. Larry said he wanted the paint to dry for a few weeks before he did the color-sanding and the final rub out. He also said that he would do the final pin-striping. When it was finished, I took the car home, and what a reception I got! The comments ranged from “WOW” to “You’ve gotta be kidding”! The car sat in the garage for the next two weeks. It was then returned to Larry for the color sand and rub out, and then later on he did the pin-striping in white. When the car was completely finished, I picked it up and went directly from his shop to Harvey’s Broiler in Downey.

Harvey’s Broiler in 1958, the first Place Jerry took his freshly finished ’54 Ford, and where his new Larry Watson paint job was an instant hit.
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Needless to say, I was instantly famous. Over the next few months, my friends dubbed the car “The Easter egg”. For the next few years, the car was seen cruising the streets of Lakewood, Bellflower, Downey, and Whittier. The chicks loved it! I later added Appleton spotlights, side pipes, chrome wheels, and lowered it some more. I believe Larry charged me a whole $125 for all that work. The bodywork, consisting of nosing and decking and shaving the door handles, was done by Bill DeCarr. The interior, which I added later, was done in good old TJ. It was all white tuck and roll, with a tonneau cover over the back seat, which was popular at the time. The dashboard was painted gold, the same as the roof. Many good times were had in that car. I have fond memories of that car every time I see the picture. I am thinking about doing it again….well, maybe not!”

The photos Jerry send me are actually a bit older than the one from my own Collection. Jerry’s two photos show the car with the Spotlights, but still without the Full Lake Pipes.
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Rear 3/4 view shows that the trunk had the emblem removed, but the handle with lock remained on the car, and Larry incorporated it with the design of the outline, panel paint.
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Jerry Preston on the left with Larry Watson on the right in Larry’s Museum with the two photos of Jerry’s car on the wall. (Dennis Mckee photo)
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Close up of the two framed photos of Jerry’s ford in the Larry Watson Museum.
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Jerry eventually sold the’54 Ford and never saw it again after that. The next car Jerry bought was a 1959 Chevy El Camino which he had restyled again by Bill DeCarr and when he was finished he asked Larry Watson to paint it for him… in fact Larry painted it several times for Jerry.

Many thanks to Jerry Preston


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Larry Watson Lace Painting

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WATSON LACE PAINTING

 

Larry Watson often gets credits for inventing the lace paint job on cars. But it was actually a Von Dutch story that inspired Larry to start experimenting.



[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of Larry Watson Lace paint jobs. Most of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]


Lace painting on cars has been very popular in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. The Low-riders used it a lot of their wonderful creations, and the technique was also very popular with the van builders. Several people usually get credit for developing, inventing the lace painting on cars. Larry Watson is most often named to be the first who did a lace paint job on a custom car. George “Crazy Painter” Cerny Jr has been told to paint dragsters with lace as early as 1963. Custom painter Joe Anderson gets credits for doing lace painting on a dashboard the later part of the 1960’s. We know that Larry did his first lace paint-job in late 1966, and most likely it was at least a year later that Joe Anderson’s lace paint-job was documented. But it was actually Kenneth Howard (Von Dutch) who came up with the idea of lace painting… unintentionally. Lets take a closer look at Larry’s story on lace painting.

Larry first lace paint job was created in late 1966. Larry had just been away from Custom painting for a while, being an actor in Hollywood. But after about a year, when the acting jobs had dried out pretty much for him, he went back to painting cars in his Lakewood Blvd, Bellflower shop. One night while he was thinking about what he could do next for new techniques that could draw many new customers, he remembered a story from 10 years ago. In the mid 1950’s Larry spend some time with Von Dutch. Von Dutch had told Larry a story about his work bench and how he had accidently pushed away an old doily that had been on the bench for ages. All the overspray from perhaps years of spray painting in the shop had left an bitchin design on the bench. Von Ducth actually liked it so much he clearcoated that section of the workbench, just to save it.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doilyA sample of how the lace painting worked, and Larry got inspired. A fabric doily on the left, the doily covered with spray paint in the middle, and the doily removed leaving a nice spray paint pattern as end result on the right. With this in mind Larry started to think how it could work over an already custom painted base…
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With the Von Dutch bitching doily overspry story in mind Larry went to a large L.A. yardage store, looking for lace that might look good on a car. It needed to be not to flowerly, or curly like most lace designs are. So it took him a little while before he found a nice graphic lace, with large “X” shapes in it, that he thought would work fine. He bought several yards, enough to do 2 sides and the roof of a car. At the time Larry had Doug Carney’ 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix in his shop which he had prepped for a new paint jobto be entered at the 1967 L.A. Sports Arena Custom Car show. This car was going to be Larry’s first ever lace paint job.
Althought Larry might have been the first to do a automotive lace paint job, there are not to many documented lace paint jobs done by Larry. I have gathered all the lace pait projects I could find in the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection and gathered them in this article.


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Doug Carney’ 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix

Once Larry had painted Doug Carney’s 1963 Pontiac in a shade of candy fuchsia, he masked off the to be laced panels on the side and the top of the car. He then carfully aligned the lace and taped it to the car. He mixed some special paint to experiment with, realizing hecould not go with heavy coats. A half-gallon of thinner mixed with quart-pint of ink-blue toner, a table-spoon of blue Murano pearl and he was ready. He carefully sprayed the car, making sure not to coat it to heavy, walking the car spraying the laced panel in one continuous stroke, front to back. Then he removed the lace and the result was stunning.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-05Freshly finished first ever lace paint job on a car on Doug Carney’s 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix gets the last final detail touch ups from Larry Watson.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-06Finished first lace paint job… Doug’s Pontaic is ready to get the chrome installed again to get it ready in time for the 1967 L.A. Sports Arena Custom Car show.
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Doug’s Laced Grand Prix turned heads where ever it went, and won ‘Best Paint’ at the 1967 L.A. Sports Arena Custom Car show. And with this first lace painting Larry had started another trend that would become very popular during the 1970’s and is making a comback in the last couple of years.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-08I wonder if the people at the Watson shop realized what impact thiscar would have of the custom painting in the next dacade… and more.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-07Doug Carney taking off from Larry’s Lakewood Blvd. shop. The guys watching on the side walk is just the typical reaction the lace paint job got. The people on the street, or anywhere had never ever seen anything like this before.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-09Tom Davison was able to capture the lace painting really well in this 1967 photo.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-01Parked in front of the Lakewood Blvd shop some time after the paint job had been finished. Doug now has the cowl panel chrome plated. This photo shows the paint a little more red than the car actually was.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-02Close up of the rear portion of Doug’s Grand Prix gives a good impression of the lace paint. The dark sections aswhat was covered by the lace. The lighter sections was covered by the pearl mixture. Portions of the top, including the pillars are flaked.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-doug-carney-04Hard to tell from the photos we have, but the roof was also laced. This photo shows a bit how the center section of the top was painted the dark color before being laced.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-dragster-01Laced in black and gold on this dragster at the Lakewood Blvd shop.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-dragster-02Enlarged details on the dragster paint job.
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Armando Salazar 69 Buick Riviera

Another famous lace paint job Larry did was on the 1969 Buick Riviera of Armando Salazar. Several photos of this graphic laced Buick have appeared in several publications. The photos with the model with flower dress, go-go booth posing with the car dressed up with Cragar wheels and this amazing lacepaint job really completed the picture, creating the ultimate early 1970’s look.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-armondo-salazar-01Cragar wheels, thin line white wall tires and an amazing pearl paint job highlighter by side panels done with subtile pearl blue lace patterns. 
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-armondo-salazar-04Close up of the lace paint section shows how the pearlslight upand create an unique effect.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-armondo-salazar-07The complete bill for Armando Salazar’s full paint job, including $100 body repair work and lacing on the body sides and rear pillars was  $550.- in August 1971

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-armondo-salazar-05For some reason Armando’s Buick had to be repainted in November of 1971. The full paint job including lacing now only cost  $250.-. We are unsure if the photos of the car shown here are before or after the repaint.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-detailLaced roof panel of an unknown Watson car. Sadly the photo is a bit out of focus.
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The Falcon Python

Dean Jeffires created a customized Ford Falcon for the 1963 Ford Custom Car Caravan in just three weeks time. The car toured the whole US for month. Dean originally painted it in burgundy fading to black. At some point a new owner must have brought it to Larry Watson at his Firestone Blvd Downey shop for a new paintjob. Larry repainted the car in a shade of fuchsia and added cobwebed and lace painted panels to the car.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-falcon-python-00This is how the Falcon Python looked like when it was first created and finished by Dean Jeffries.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-falcon-python-01Here is the Falcon after it has been repainted, laced and cob–webbed by Larry at his Firestone Blvd shop.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-falcon-python-03Close up shows the very large graphic pattern of the lacing, which worked really well with the car.
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The Bikes

Larry also custom painted a lot of bikes in his career. and several of them recieved lace painting on the tank and fenders. In none of the photos of the finished bikes we have found this is shown, but we did find a few photos that show Larry aplying the lace to a tank for an Modern Cycle magazine article as well as a set of fenders and tanks fresh from the paint booth in Larry’s Firestone Blvd shop.

CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-larry-01This is a photo taken of a large photo on the walls of Larry’s museum. It shows how Larry pulls away the lace after having painted a bike gas tank with a contrasting color. This photo was taken as part of a magazine article.


[divider]CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-cycle-magA two part Modern Cycle magazine article on Larry custom painting bikes. Included are some photos showing how to lace paint. This photo was taken at the Watson museum.
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CCC-larry-watson-lace-painting-bikes-01A fender left and a gas tank, center lace painted at Larry’s Firestone Blvd shop. 
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More info and Resources

  • Rod & Custom Magazine, October 1996
  • American Custom Car, 2001, Book by Pat Ganahl 

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Larry Watson 57 Fords

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LARRY WATSON 57 FORDS

 

The 1957 Ford was a popular base for mild Customs, they did not need much to look really great. Larry Watson painted several of them, from mile two tone paint jobs to wild panel, outline and flamed versions.



[box_light]This article shows a selection of photos of 1957 Fords painted by Larry Watson. All of these photos come from the Larry Watson Personal Photo Collection. More on Larry’s personal collection can be found in the Larry Watson section on the CCC-Site. Or on the Custom Car Photo Archive. Special thanks to Roger O’Dell for scanning this amazing material and sharing them with us on the Custom Car Chronicle.[/box_light]


When the 1957 Ford was introduced in late 1956 the Custom Car scene has chanced drastically from the early 1950’s scene. The panoramic windows made it much harder to chop a car, so more and more milder Customs made up the scene. Cars that only had minimal body changes, lowered suspensions and wonderful paint-jobs started to dominated the shows and streets. The 1957 Ford was already a good looking car from the factory. Wonderful panoramic windshield and rear window. Beautiful side trim that started at the hooded headlights flowing nicely to the rear with a gentle downwards movement following the line of the roof. Then kicking up at the rear quarter to enhance the rear fender fin. These cars needed very little to look even better. The car looked extremely great with a lowered suspension with a nice mild forward rake, mild de chroming and of course a good looking pearl or candy paint job. Larry of course knew the best ways to make these 1957 Ford bodies look even better using his paint and design skills. Lets take a closer look at some of the 1957 Fords Larry Watson painted in his career.

CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-05This 1957 Ford Sedan was mildly customized with its door-handles and emblems removed. Larry painted the car is a light green-blue pearl base. The Larry designed an wild combination of outlines, panels and scallops to highlight the body contours. These were painted in bright candy dark blue and turquoise, both with fogged darker edges and outlined with a heavy white pinstripe. The car is on a slight forward rake, has double dummy lake pipes, and color coordinated four bar lancer hubcaps.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-06The rear 3/4 photo taken at Larry’s Rosecrans Blvd shop in 1960 shows that the also had a name painted on the rear quarter. Sadly both photos of the car from Larry’s Collection are a bit blurry and prevent for reading the name. The photos did not have any info, so we also do not know who owned this car, not what happened to it.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-07Sadly there are no individual photos of this wonderful deep candy red and dark champagne outlined 1957 Ford Hard-Top. It only appears in a few overview photos of a number of colorful cars parked at Larry’s Rosecrans Blvd shop in 1960. The lack of having hubcaps indicated the car was freshly painted and still needed final assembly. The outline design accentuates the lines of the car, and makes it look longer and lower. 
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-08The Rosecrans Blvd shop where Larry was from 1959 to 1960 was Larry’s most prolific shop. Here he created a huge number of wildly painted cars as this photo clearly shows. The Candy red and dark champagne colors on the 1957 Ford much have looked stunning in person.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-01This photo was taken at an late afternoon at the Rosecrans Blvd shop. Its show an mild custom 1957 Plymouth and another candy red painted 1957 Ford that Larry painted. This 1957 Ford is my personal favorite Larry Watson did, sadly this is the only photo the car is shown in full. Larry also used outlines on this mildly shaved car, but much more refined than the previous one I showed. It appears the outline was done in pearl white, and Larry painted the top in a fine silver. The car has the perfect stance, customized hubcaps, spotlights and lake pipes to create the perfect 1957 Ford.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-03This photo shows that Larry started to use single colors in late 1960’s. Larry loved to do the more intricate flames, panels, outlines and two tones. But also realized that single colors looked great, the customers loved them and he could do them much faster, being able to paint many more cars that was. This pearl off white Hard-Top looks like it was fleshly pained and ready to be picked up by another happy customer.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-04This photo shows how little these 1957 Fords need to look good. Some emblem removal, lowered suspension with a slight forward rake, three bar spinner hubcaps and a Larry Watson blue and white paint-job. The Watson Collection only has this one photo of the car, with no additional info on the owner.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-02A little later Larry painted this 1957 Ford Hard-Top in a wonderful pearl banana yellow and a metallic silver top. The body was shaved and the suspension lowered with a slight forward rake. The car has chrome reversed rims and ultra thin white wall tires giving the car a much differnt look than the wider white walls popular in previous years.
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1957 Ford Ranchero’s painted by Larry Watson

Larry also painted several 1957 Ford Ranchero’s. These pick up versions of the 1957 Ford were very popular. 1957 was the first year of the Ranchero and fro the beginning they were often used use mild custom. Larry did two of these that had quite a bit publicity. One for Nick DeMattie in candy root beer, silver and flames, and the other for George Mitobe in green with outlines and flames. On both these Ranchero’s we will do a full feature article in the near future.

CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-griepsma-01Jim Griepsma (from Dutch origins) owned this white and flamed 1957 Ranchero. This is possibly the first 1957 Ford Ranchero Larry painted. He did the work when he was at his 1016 E Artesia Shop in North Long Beach. The car was white when it came from the factory. Some emblems were shaved from the front and the body work was covered when Larry applied the flames in gold and red accents. This photo was a staged scene showing Larry faking how he striped the flames.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-griepsma-02That is possibly Jim inside the car parked in front of the E Artesia shop. Larry combined flames with scallops on this car. The car showing on the far left, just above the hood is the Moonglow. Jim’s Ranchero used, as most of the ’57 Fords in this article a stock grille. Jim used 1957 Plymouth hubcaps and added a set of full length lake pipes.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-griepsma-03This photo of the rear shows more flames on the tailgate and also shows that the rear quarter script as well as the tailgate had not been shaved.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-griepsma-04This rear 3/4 view shows Jim’s Ranchero had a nice forward rake. The Moonglow in silver and white scallops can be seen on the far left side of the photo.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-metobe-01George Mitobe owned this wonderful candy green and gold Ranchero. Larry designed a wonderful combination of outlines and flames for the car. Interesting is that George decided to lower the car with a level stance, unlike most other 57 Ford which were lowered more in the front. Lake pipes made it look even lower, and the four bar lancer hubcaps on wide white wall tires are absolutely perfect for this car.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-metobe-02The rear of the car featured the most customizing. 1958 Edsel taillights were used and the rear bumper was replaced by a molded in roll pan and nerf-bar bumper. This bird-eye view also shows the paneled sections on the roof with the chrome tape, a very popular custom technique from the late 1950’s.
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CCC-larry-watson-1957-ford-nick-de-mattieLarry painted Nick De Mattie’s 1957 Ranchero in the mid 1960’s. The car was painted in a brilliant fine silver with candy root beer, and free style airbrushed flames. The silver panel flows beautifully with the side trim and has a bit of a 1953 Buick feel to it. It helps optically makes the car look longer. The body work on the car was done by Art Chrome’s shop. The wild interior was done in a wild pearl tuck&roll by Joe Perez.
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