A week ago I was at a cruise night with the car in my avatar. A guy was looking at the pinstripes on my trunk and asked if Fenyo did it. He didn`t. But it did have Fenyo lines on it from about 1975. More on that later. I was about 45 miles East of Platsmouth(south of Omaha) Nebraska, which was where he was from. Before he headed east in about 80 or so. There he was know as Tophat. This guy said that he would start striping a car, not like it and wipe it off and start over. Which was true. Pic`s and stories to come later. Share yours if you have them. A few other thread have been started about him, but they spelled it Mark. And didn`t have both names in the titles.
He striped my OT daily at one of the KKOA shows in the early 90s. I really enjoyed our conversations that weekend, and watched him work for 3 days. Amazing guy. We commiserated about how hard it was to work, raise my family, and build a really radical custom. He suggested that when I got home to immediately cut all the power cords to all the TVs in the house, and finish my car. He was deadly serious, too. I watched him interact with his customers all weekend, and watched him modify his persona with each of them. Or maybe he just didn't like some of his customers. He had just the right amount of crazy artist in him, and I admired the hell outa him, and liked him, too. The car he did for me was sadly totaled by my daughter in '96. It looked damn good, and I'd still have it just because of his work if she hadn't wrecked it. Thanks for posting this.
I would have guessed that there would be at least 10-15 posts about Marc by now on this thread. Not like he was easy to forget.
Most guys here in the south only knew him by his moniker "The Mad Hatter" or Top Hat" he came South and settled in Georgia, he would often stop in at my business across the border in Anderson, South Carolina and buy One Shot if he was in the area. He was extremely well know and it wasn't uncommon to see him and his little paint encrusted Radio flyer wagon with all his supply's piled up at car shows near & far, he always wore a white shop coat and his ever present top hat. HRP Marc passed away May 1,2006 His talent is apparent in this video.
Great video. I`ll have to show my neighbor. A closeup of Dad`s Fender on his truck which Fenyo did in about 1980. Maybe someone can post a link to his other threads that have been started.
I remember in the early '80s a gearhead friend mine, who was a few classes ahead of me, had big parties at his farm place off the highway just west of Yutan. At at least one of those Saturday night bashes Marc Fenyo came and pinstriped anybody's car, including a few of my friends' '79-'80 Camaros and '71 'Vette, I want to think for $10 (or was it $100 or a case of beer? I can't recall). The guy was busy all night long. At the time he was kind of a celebrity in the area, and for years people talked about having Fenyo pinstripe their car or truck. My friends sold their cars with the pinstriping still in place. Me, I din't really care for pinstriping, but then again my '55 Ford was in suede and pinstriping didn't seem to be 'right' for my '63 Galaxie or T-bird. I kind of miss those times, but then again there's a lot of things about then I don't miss, either.
Interesting, My car had spent 5 or so years in Yutan with pinstripes by Fenyo from it`s previous owner around 77 to 82. I purchased it later on. The owner at that time thought Fenyo was from California. That`s where it rolled the assembly line. It also was lowered and had chrome reverse smoothie caps.
The Jalopy Journal
