Custom Car Chronicle
Memo Ortega Files

Memo Ortega Stories Part Eleven

1961-62

Its 1961, Memo gets married, keeps on cruising his Custom Cars and his interest for drag-racing is growing more and more!

 
[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, 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]
 
A few weeks ago Memo bought a scanner for his computer, so he would be able to share his photos on the CCC a little better. Since then Memo really got the hang of it, and is scanning everything he finds of interest. He even is looking for material he has not been looked at in many years, making suprize discoveries from time to time as well. In the last couple of weeks Memo found some material of the times we have already covered with his series of articles…
Memo and I have a lot of contact about these articles. Usually Memo writes in the evenings, and we email back and forth about all the details. When its late at night in California, where Memo is, then its early in the morning in the Netherlands were I’m.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-16-wTerry, took this photo of Memo with his laptop, while he was getting some more info to me.
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By Memo Ortega

It’s funny once I get going on these stories the more stuff comes to my brain lol.
Cordova was crusin his 1958 Chevy all over pomona valley with his girl friend, I sure dig-ed the way his car stood out. Me and my buddys were doing our thing crusin all over, we were young an full of life. Me and Terry are going steady and one of her girlfriends is going out with my buddy Chi..Cho Lopes (the guy in the Olds photo with the chick). Terry and me are planning to tie the not around late September 1961. So I got to figure out what I am do with my cars in the coming months. It’s a hard choice, I’am living with my sister an there is no gate on her back yard, anybody can steal parts from my cars. As I’am writing this, I’am hearing guitar boggie shuffle on my i-pod. This really gets me in the right mood and brings my memory back to the early 1960’s.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-11-wCordova’s 1958 Chevy looked really nice with a slight foreward rake.
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As I was saying, no gate. Just like it happened one day, while I was working on my yellow chopped 1930 Ford Coupe. This was on a sat afternoon, when I got home from working at Kolberts. I had a blown a head gasket on the Merc flathead, so I pulled both heads off, and the tripple carb intake also came off, to check everything out. I left with the two heads, went to Louies Speed Shop in Pomona. Thats where I used to buy my Drag News magazine on Thursdays, this was like a ritual every Thursday, this way I knew which drag strip I would go to on the weekend. Well, only one head needed to be resurfaced. They were fast at doing there work, when I got back home my tripple intake was gone complete with the carburaters an linkage! Man I couldn’t think straight, one of the neighbors had seen two guys walking away with it. But was afraid to name them. Right away I went and checked my Ayala Coupe, nothing was missing from there. I took off in my 1952 Olds went all over the nieborhood looking for the two guys. I never found them, or my parts. I went back to Louies Speed Shop and got me another used tripple intake. Besides selling new parts he also had a large selection of used parts. Well I still needed the carbs, and one of my friends just happened to have some good used ones. Cost me some coin, but that got me going again. I never left my stuff laying around after that.

Below are a few of those new finds Memo recently did. They are from 1957 to 1959, years of Memo’s live we already covered in previous articles. But the photos are too nice not to use here.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-04-wDuane Steck winning an award with his “Moonglow” 1954 Chevy in 1959. Notice the tow hooks below the bumper.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-03-wWild paint on Jerry Devito 1957 Ford “The Maze” at anPasadena indoor car showin 1059.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-01-wMy great friend Rudy Fito’s 1949 Chevy built by the Ayala’s.
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One day I had taken the yellow coupe to work at Kolberts, this guy came over at luanch time, I had gone to buy burgers with Jhonny. He asked my boss Matt Kolbert if the coupe was for sale. Klobert told the guy to wait, since we would be right back, he told him the big guy owens it. When we got back he was there, and he asked me if I would sell it. This guy was big, he was a meat cutter. I told him no, he said I will be back everyday till you get tired of me asking for the coupe. He sure did, my boss would tell me, Memo here he comes again. He kept pestering me and in the end I gave in, he did win. I sold him the yellow coupe an in the trade iI got me a cherry 1949 Chevy Coupe an latter on the same thing happened again… with another guy…

I really regret that I did not take any photos of my cars back then. Some of my friend luckily did and gave me some in the 1960’s. I’m really glad I kept those, they mean a lot to me now. And I really have a great feeling being able to share them here with these stories on the CCC.
I remember that guy, Barris on the football field outdoor shows coming around with his tripod camera, taking photos of the cars around us. He consequently by passed our cars, never took any photos of them. It did not matter to us, we were having all kinds of fun with our cars we bowed to no one. Back to me not taking photos, that was a mistake of me not taking photos of my cars an cars i worked on in the early days, but thats water over the brige now, as they say. I’m still crusin my my chopped Gil Ayala coupe every chance I get. Taking it all over, East Los Angeles and Pomona’s Ganesha Park cruzers paradise on Sundays, and taking turns crusin my 1952 Olds with my friends and Terry on Sundays. We would cruze to Fairmont Park in Riverside, then come back to Pomona’s Ganesha Park, or go to cruze Montebello Park on Whittier Blvd. Like I said we were yound an having fun.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-15-wRik found this photo in an photo album he was looking at during the 2013 GNRS, and there  he spotted two photos with my car, the Gil Ayala 1942-46 Ford on it. I cannot remember this place, so most likely this photo was taken after I had sold the car. 
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I got married to Terry on September 30, 1961. Somwhere around this time I made the mistake of selling my Gil Ayala custom coupe. I still regret that today. I moved from La Verne to Pomona with Terry for about six months, then we bought a house in Montclair Ca, back to Terry’s neighborhood. This was somewhere in march of 1962. I traded my Olds for a 1952 Ford pickup that I had to have for moving some of our home stuff from one place to another. Jhonny and me still doing kustom work at Kolberts, me an Terry needed another car. So we got us a 1953 Chevy hardtop. Of course I did some custom work to it as soon as I got it. I filled in the hood and trunk, painted the bottom of the car white and the top silver. In between the rear quarter chrome trim I painted that candy green, it sure looked good. We called it the white tortilla, that was cool. By this time I was starting to spend a lot of time at the drags. This guy Ed Taylor, that owned a new speed shop, brought a Bantam roadster body for us to cherry out.

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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-18-wMe and my wife Terry on our wedding day.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-05-wSadly there are no photos left of my 1953 Ford pick-up. All there is left is my memories about it… so I did this drawing.
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Around 1961-62

At kolberts we did all the body work on the Bantam, making sure there were no more dents left on the body. Taylor wanted his body left in primer at first. But latter on he asked me if I would paint the body for him. He wanted a fire engine red, I told him I never paint enamel. I don’t like enamels cuase you can get runs real easy. Taylor was a real picky person everything had to be perfect. He pleaded with me to paint it, “I know you can do it”. I told Taylor if I paint it, dont blame me for the runs on the paint. “I won’t blame you”, so I prepared the car and shot the car in his shop. The paint-job came out absolutely perfect, Taylor was so happy with the glossy paint job. He told me “I knew you could do it”. Around this time I met the “Frantic Four” a Top Fuel dragster team from Pomona. I would go and help them once in a while, at there shop or at the drags. That was a good time working on that dragster. I also met Bill Adair from Browns Muffler, a friend of the Frantic Four. He also had a Top Fuel dragster, and I also helped him on some week ends. I was still working at Kolberts, the Frantic Four became a famouse Top Fuel team.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-19-wEd Taylor’s Bantam Roadster which I painted in fire engine red enamel. Notice the Kolbert shop sign on the back of the car.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-13-w Early 1960’s when I was messing with top fuel dragsters with the Frantic Four at Pomona. Thats me behind the dragster, Dennis Holding straping in Norm Weekly, and Merek Chertok, behind the blower.
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We sold our nice 1953 hardtop Chevy to our neighbors, the Bee..Bee brothers we called them. They had the car for a week, and they flipped the car over on the corner by our house doing donuts circles. What a waste for a nice custom, however we still had our 1952 Ford pickup i have a couple of photos but i cant find them mybe sombody needed them more then me, By now I had lowered the pickup and filled the hood emblems and smothed the tailgate, rolled the pan bellow the tailgate, and I installed 1941 chevy tail lites. After that I painted the top of the pick up a pearl white, and the bottom a dark metalic blue, and out linning the fenders with pearl white. It was a nice looking pickup.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-02-wI’m not quite sure when this photo of my 1938 Chevy two door sedan was take. It must have been anywhere between 1962 and late 1964. I think this is the only photo I have of my 1938 Chevy.
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After that we got a 1938 Chevy 2 dr sedan from a friend. The car ran good, me an Jhonny painted the car candy burgundy. One day we went to Fontana drag city, after the drags were over, we went to where my car was parked, we noticed some joker had scratched the body next to the trunk from the top all the way down to bare metal. My buddy asked me how come I was not realy mad. I told him what’s the use of getting mad its all ready done, nothing I can do about it anymore. The bad thing about this was that is was real hard to match the candy paint. So I repainted the car a dark green. I did not keep this car long. Earlier I mentiond about this happening again. This two brothers came to the shop wanting to trade me a 1959 Oldsmobile hardtop for my 1938..chevy. Here we go again,… I told them I did not want to sell it. Homer, one of the brothers said to me in front of my boss “I’m will be coming back to bug you till you change your mind…” well in the end I did trade the 1938 Chevy for Homer’s 1959 Olds.

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-10-wI also do not have any photos of my 1959 Oldsmobile from this period. I have from later in the 1960’s which I will show in future article. All I have is this drawing I made in 1984. 
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On my search for more old photos I came across some photos of my friends that I have mentioned in this series of articles. I thought it was nice to put them here so you have  face to go with the names

CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-09-wJulian Lopez with his 1954 Chevy
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-07-wBob Modreger standing with my Chevy.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-14-wDina one of my grand daughter’s with the Merc, Dina has helped me with these stories and taking some photos etc.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-06-wMy friends Manual Fuentes (aka Papitas), Jack Purther, me and Mike Evans.
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CCC-memo-0rtega-part-eleven-end-w

Go to part Twelve.
Go to part Ten.
 

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Rik Hoving

Rik is the CCC editor in chief. As a custom car historian he is researching custom car history for many years. In 2004 he started the Custom Car Photo Archive that has become a place of joy for many custom car enthousiasts. Here at CCC Rik will bring you inspiring articles on the history of custom cars and builders. Like a true photo detective he will show us what's going on in all those amazing photos. He will write stories about everything you want to know in the realm of customizing. In daily life Rik is a Graphic Designer. He is married to the CCC webmaster and the father of a 10 year old son (they are both very happy with his excellent cooking skills)

4 thoughts on “Memo Ortega Stories Part Eleven

  • Love the stories Memo. Please keep them coming.
    The additional pictures are great as well.
    Torchie.

  • thanks guys, i am having a lot of fun doing this while i still can , so you guys know what it was like back then, like one of the guys told me i felt like i was there cruzin with you on your car in one of the storys, i thougth that was cool, thanks to the ccc staff an rik for making this possibble,

  • The old photos are great memo , you and rik are doing a great job of taking us all for a cruz down memory blvd. It’s cool that they still cruz the parks you mentioned not like back then but they do and I know you and terry are out there dragging those pipes every chance you get !
    El jeffe

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