Memo Ortega Stories # 18

PART 18

In the mid 1980’s Memo finds out about Teen Angle and ends up having some of his drawings and stories published in his magazine.

 
[box_light]Memo Ortega is a well known name in the SoCal Custom Car and LowRider Scene, but perhaps not as well known as it should be. Memo has been working on custom cars and Low Riders since the early 1950’s. He became good friends with Custom Car Icon Gil Ayala, and in the late 1950’s he even bought Gil’s famous 1942-46 Ford Coupe as a persona driver. Today, in 2014, 80 years young, Memo is still chopping tops, and any other custom car work you can think of from, his garage work-shop. Check out more of the Memo Ortega Stories in the Memo Ortega Files on the CCC[/box_light]
 

Teen Angel Flashback

[dropcap]One[/dropcap] day in the mid 1980’s I went to this store and I stopped at the magazine section where I saw this Teen Angel Magazine. I had never seen that before and started thumbing  through it. When I saw some of his drawings inside he really got my attention, Man this guy Teen Angel can draw, I kept telling myself. So I bought the magazine that day. After that I started buying the mag every time a new issue was out. Just to check out his drawings. Back when I was in the 6th or 7th grade I was doing a lot of drawings of guess what… UFO’s… yes ufo’s. I drew em in all kinds of ways, with jet engines set in defferent ways, I drew em like they could take off like the British have their Harrier jets. My teacher allways liked my ideas that I had back then. He would tell me maby some day you can be a plane engineer. I was ok on my drawings, but not that good, but it was good for me. Just something I did in school.

Back to Teen Angel. I decided to send them a picture and a little story on my ’37 Chevy with the ’40 Ford headlites. They liked the story and published it. Later they asked me if I could send them more stories, since they had gotten some good feed-back from their young readers. They wanted more little stories from me. Wow that was cool! So I did some more stories and did some drawings to go with them. This went on for a while. Then latter Teen Angel and his wife asked me to come over and meet them. Man, Terry and me get a chance to meet Teen Angel in person… YEEES.  So we went all the way up to San Jose, Ca. to his house. They were very glad to see us. So we finally got to know Teen Angel and his wife. We talked about cars and his drawings, the magazine and about me and my cars. It was a lot of fun being there, he showed me a few  tricks on drawing, which I still use today. The day that we met Teen Angel is another day I will never forget. Long live Teen Angel.
 
I think this was the first photo that Teen Angles used in his magazine. Me in front of my 1937 Chevy in 1951.
[divider]
 
Teen Angle magazine #12 with an 1937 Chevy inspired by my own 1937 Chevy on the cover.
[divider]
 
Close up of the front with the 1940 Ford headlights mounted on the Chevy Fenders. Teen Angle did the cover Illustration.
[divider]
 
Close up of the License plate Teen Angle added to the car.
[divider]
 
The story Teen Angle magazine ran on my 1951 Chevy.
[divider]
 
The original drawing of my 1951 Chevy I send to Teen Angle. He added some stuff to it to make it pop more for the magazine.
[divider]
 
My story on the Gil Ayala coupe in Teen Angle magazine.
[divider]
 
Original drawing I did on Gil’s coupe that I send to Teen Angle. On this one he also added some stuff to make it look better in the magazine.
[divider]
 
A full page on my new ’37 Chevy four door with two photos and one of my drawings I did on the car.
[divider]
 

 
Two more times my ’37 Chevy made it into his magazine.
[divider]

 

Part Nineteen… coming soon, stay tuned.
Go to Part 17.
 

[divider]

(advertisement)

 
[divider]
 

 
[divider]
 
 
.