Memo Ortega Stories Part 30

PASO ROBLES SHOW

Memo Ortega recently came across some more of the photos he took at the late 1980s Paso Robles West Coast Kustoms show.



[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 2015, 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]


Memo’s Flashback

Cruising to East Los Angeles

Remembering some of my early cruising days back in 1951, ’52, with my old 37 Chevy. A car I will never forget. I did a lot of work on it to my liking, thats wats customizing is all about. When I got the car I was 14 going on 15, years old and I just wanted a kool kustom to kruze them wheels off… which I sure did. I filled the door handles and truck-lid, and installed ’40 studebaker tail-lites on my rear fenders. I made me some plain side hood panels also, and installed some ’40 Ford headlites on my front fenders, and eventually painted it metallic green. An of course I lowerd the heck out of it. It was so low that at one time I got stuck on the railroad tracks. Theres a lot more that I did on this car, check it out in one of rik’s early Memo Ortega Stories.

I grew up in La Verne, Ca where one of the older krusers told me about a kustom shop in East Los Angeles called the Ayala bros. He mentioned that maybe one of these days you might want to go over there, and check it out since you like our kustom cars…  The older kruzers in my neighborhood had some neat kustoms… those were the ones that gave me the kustom bug. Well I told one of my friends if he would like to kruze over to East LA with me on a Saturday to see if we could find that Ayala’s Kustom Shop, since I had never been there before. Yeah lets kruze there he had never been to east LA either. So comes Saturday and we just took of to East LA, even if we did not know where the place was, we had no address, no nothing. When we got to East LA, we asked at this auto shop for directions.  Turned out the guys in the shop knew about the Ayala’s and told us where it was.

Johnny Rosier gave Memo a picture of an old restyled Ford pick up truck he used for his Ice deliveries.
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Well we met Gil an his brother Al an they really liked my ’37 Chevy. From that moment on we went to that East LA shop pretty often on Saturday afternoons. We got to see kustoms there but we never bothered the workers in the shop, mostly we talked to Gil, he was always nice and we became friends. One other guy I remember from the Ayala Shop was Johnny Rosier he would later get a ’53 Mercury that was done at the Ayala shop. We got to know him a little better, he was kool, took time to talk with me an my friend, two young teen kids instrested in kustoms… he liked that. He allways asked us how come u guys come way out here to East LA, that’s real far from where you guys come from. Because we like krusin we always said!   His car merc so was kool just seeing him leave the Ayalas shop was a huge plus for us… Just one of my many great memories from the 50’s.

Johnny Rosier later had this 1953 Mercury hard-top that was restyled at the Ayala Shop. It was a really beautiful car with an amazing paint job. I remember clearly how Johnny slowely took off at the Ayala shop to go for some cruising on Saturday nights.
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Paso Robles WCK show

I recently came across some more photos we took at our 1980’s visits to Paso Robles how. This was such a great show, great memories. So back to Paso Robles Part 2. I know the Paso Robles West Coast Kustoms car shows are no more, but so many of us still remember them… awesome times we all had there. Never to be forgotten! So many of us out there met and made so many new friends were made that we still talk to and together we remember those were neat times in Paso Robles.  So many cars to look at. This show I went there with my G.M.C. chopped truck which I had just painted in two tone blues. The first time I went there it was in black paint (I see that one of the pictures I found was with the truck painted black). Now the truck lives in japan with the Pharaohs Car Club with Junichi last time I heard.

Later on the show was moved to Down Town Paso, where it was even better and the night kruzin was the thing to do. On some of these photos you can see one of my grandsons posing with some cars, good memories from back in the 1980’ss. Nowadays the show continues in the town of Santa Maria, Ca,

This lavender metallic 44-48 Ford chopped coupe looked really clean.
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Primered ’51 Merc with chopped top with original rear window, and recessed tube kind of grille.
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Ford Victoria in light blue primer with lots of work done on the front. It looked good.
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The “Mini Merc”  first time I saw the Volvo Amazon based custom. Was really interesting to see, great custom, to bad its gone.
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So many great cars there, I really loved these 80’s Paso Robles shows.
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Very slick looking chopped Chevy Hard-Top in metallic black with silver top and black tires.
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This blue primers ’51 Merc with 50 rear window looked really good to me. He came all the way from Washington.
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This one was from earlier when I took my GMC truck (in the background) when it was painted all black. Thats my friend Richard Crawford aka “Thinnman” with his ’55 Chevy low rider panel wagon.
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Buick mild custom. My GMC is in the back painted two tone blue by now.
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Loved this wild 51 Merc.
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Unfinished chopped mid 50’s Mercury in pink and lavender primer… Wild.
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’57 Chevy bumper with custom bullets and 53 Chevy grille on wild looking50 Merc. I really like the large radius hood corners… 
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Paul Bragg showed up with his stunning ’49 Mercury in two tone olive green. Thats my grandson kneeling in front of it, he loved it also.
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Bill Reasoner had brought his personal 1951 Mercury named “Cool 51). Beautiful car, that bill and his wife sitting on the right side of the photo. I heard Bill’s old Merc is now also in Japan.
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