How did Roth afford to build so many cars ?

When I was a kid in the sixties, there was the "car show" every winter. There was always one or two name cars that were publicized in the ads for the car show. Those cars probably were paid to show just like the paid cars at the local drag strip. Even though I was probably in the 7th grade, I was disappointed regarding how rough these cars were when viewd up close.....since we were probably at the end of a long list of where the cars had been, we got the "used" version that had been banged around for more than a year or two. I remember the Deuce Coupe from the Beach Boys album cover.....no crankshaft, chips and dings everywhere, looked really bad. But then, most of the other cars at those shows were pretty rough too. I dont think the culture was as obsessive about being perfect as it is now.....nor was the $$$ spend on the cars as great. I think these shows turned me away from show cars and to drag racers, especially gas class cars....at least you knew that their dings and chips came from their hard use.

 

For me, the draw to Mr Roth was the fact that he's "different" or unusual. As you put it, "an ordinary person doing extraordinary things".

 

For a kid like me entering my teen years at the end of the 50s into the early 60s, Ed was so much bigger than life it is indescribable. His humor spoke to gawky teens, his outside the box car designs, well they still speak for themselves, and he was the consummate showman. Several people I wish I had (could) meet in my life; Ronald Regan, Sandy Koufax, Kurt Warner, Margaret Thatcher, Chuck Jordan (winner of Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild in '47 and went on to be chief of GM design studios in the 80s), Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Ed Roth.

And his first plastic car, the Outlaw T-bucket was built using a plug and fiberglas mold taken from that. In fact that mold was rediscovered several years ago, restored and several bodies were taken from it and sold. Moldy Marvin's web site used to have a good documentary on that latter history of the mold. Ed even sold one from the original era of the mold and a guy made a hot rod out of it. He invented the spit-wad mold method with the Beatnik Bandit and the rest is history.

 

Man I would love to be at that party !!!! Could we invite Robert and Thomas Paine, As well as Sam and John Adams ?.....

 

I would like to meet pia Zadora. oh she's still alive. never mind.

 

Hell, one of them fell apart in the trailer after Ed sold it but in later years he drove everything, no matter how stupid goofy it was. My favorite is one of his early cars, a 55 Chevy with a 406 Ford engine. That's cosmic justice right there.

 

That was the Mysterion. Marvelous design, built to run and the engines reportedly did run for a while but contrary to a lot of protestations, you can look at all the pictures that show various parts of the frame and there is no way that car could stay together if it was moved. The frame was virtually heavy sheet metal, there were at most 3 flimsy X-members bolted in (the rear one appears to be 2" x 2" 1/8" angle iron?) so it couldn't help flexing and breaking. That is my all time favorite custom car design (that is why I am in the process of cloning it) far ahead of Barris' Ala Kart in second place but that doesn't negate the fact that it was poorly constructed. Testament to Ed's not great mechanical abilities is the Rotar air cushion car. Again it ran, floated on air but he reportedly did not account for the lack of lubrication when turning Triumph motorcycle engines on their side and one of the engines starved for oil broke a crankshaft while running at a car show, blew the fan blade and injured a spectator.

 

I can tell you exactly how poorly the Mysterion steered. I helped Show promoter Ray Farhner load it onto his semi trailer car hauler one day in 1966. But first, we had to get it out of the basement of the auditorium and that was up a long, fairly steep ramp. So we hooked a chain around the front axle with the other end of the chain wrapped around the trailer hitch ball on my '59 Impala and I proceeded to pull it up the ramp, with a Farhner employee steering the Mysterion behind.

Near the top of the ramp, the chain slacked, came unhooked, and the Mysterion quickly gained speed going backward down the ramp. So the driver had to steer it safely to the bottom, which include making a right angle turn at the bottom of the ramp, at full speed through the auditorium doorway safely.

To the driver's shock, here's how the steering worked when the car was rolling: turn the steering wheel slightly to the left and the front wheels flopped all the way left; same thing to the right. I watched in my rear view mirror as the car zigzagged in multiple s-curves all the way to the bottom of the ramp, somehow making the 90 degree turn at the bottom. Probably the fastest the car ever rolled.

I was around a lot of shows in those days as that's how I made my living, airbrushing shirts in my booth, 30 shows a year. I talked to everyone who was involved with touring that car. I never heard anyone say that it ever ran on its own power. Bob Larivee was the second owner after Ed, and when I asked Bob if it ever ran, he just laughed.

 

I met Ed at a car show in '93 or '94...humble and lovable. later I described it to my wife as "like meeting George Washington- I've seen his image and been aware of his existence since I was a child...but being able to shake his hand and talk to him blew my mind."

 

I saw Ed at Carlisle in the early '90s, which was a big surprise since I had no idea that he was going to be selling there. I spoke with him briefly and bought a Rat Fink shirt, which I had him sign. It's still in my posession.

 

Well....there's "ran" and then there's "drivable". Most ran,but weren't drivable.

 

Awesome, you got to touch it. TELL ME YOU HAVE A ALBUM FULL OF DETAILED HIGH RESOLUTION PICTURES OF IT FROM EVERY ANGLE!!!!!! Actually with the steep caster Ed put in the front axle (top fuel dragster amount like 20degrees) you would expect it to be totally unsteerable backward but steer laser straight forward. The story about it running is from rod books and magazine articles and I have found them to be consistently wrong when citing details about the car's construction and parts used so they are probably wrong about it ever running too.

Your story sounds like Ed never connected the rear brakes?!

 

EVERYTHING was cheaper and the value of a dollar was SUBSTANTIALLY more...

Unlike today, where it's
"25$ for 1 GOOD dollars worth,".

 

I once read that at some point the Mysterion's two 406 Ford motors were actually gutted of their internals, after breaking the car in half when loading it on a trailer.

 

yeabut . . . . my dad and mom brought home $3,000 in a GOOD year! he earned $1.75/hr as a time and materials carpenter, she was a school secretary/bus driver making $1.25/hr. If he spent $12,000 on the car (another figure from a mag article so it is probably bogus), that is 4 yrs wages in my humble universe!!

 

That I can believe.... Let's see, two early FEs with cast-iron Ford autos? that's gotta be around 1800 lbs right there. Don't forget the motorcycle tires on the front, which were probably only rated for about 600 lbs each...

 

You got it! I had to really search to find that style of vintage tire and they are only rated @ ~750#. Saving grace is one of my engines will run, the other is totally gutted (block and heads) w/ plasma cutter and I will run alternator inside it. Probably 100# total. Only running 1 tranny, will use the space gained on the interior for leg room.

 

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Some passenger cars will go full lock when going backwards if the wheels are turned very far at all. I think partly becauaw When Backing up the caster is pointing the wrong way and the resulting "trail" is negative.

Steering with the rear wheels may be part of the instability deal all by itself, because the vehicle weight is being shlepped outward when turning, not pulled inward.
Driving fast in a Fork truck with rear wheel steering requires a deft touch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gohlPpex2eY


The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration commissioned building a motorcycle that steered the rear wheel because somebody figured it would be safer.
http://photo.vrccservices.com/albums/userpics/10069/nadarbike.jpg
I think originally no one could ride it without crashing. The same group proposed motorcycle seat belts with matching ignition interlock.
http://www.msgroup.org/forums/mtt/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5542

 

Lots of parts setting around. and friends of which he had many as i remember. A car thats never seen much was his orange 55 chevy it was so damn cool. my uncle Jack would take me around now and then and i always thought he was great. I still have a real mothers worry kit as well as a t shirt i have not been able to ware since i was 10 or so and i am 59 this year. good Man.

 

Exactly, Bob. It's hard for this generation to understand what a different world it was then.

As a fellow airbrusher following Ed's lead at shows in the Midwest, I know firsthand that the only place anyone anywhere could have a shirt with a design onit was to get one airbrushed at a car show...not in any store anywhere of any kind in the world. That's right, Ed was the first mass merchandiser of imprinted shirts worldwide and he never gets credit for that.

And, yes, the other showcars started getting paid only after Ed was the first builder to command payment for bringing the car.....and he got a free booth too!

Bob, you know this, but to others, keep in mind, Ed certainly knew how to make money, but money meant absolutely nothing to him other than a too to enable him to do what he wanted to do an have fun.

 

One thing about Ed Roth I admire and no one can take away. He knew who he was and he was true to his vision to the end.

Tom Wolfe wrote about this too. He said big companies like Ford were already moving in on the custom car guys (in 1962!) and they were going to sell out. Soon the establishment would turn the whole thing into a safe homogenized pile of crap they could sell at the mall (Von Dutch ball caps anybody?).

But he predicted Ed Roth would sell out last, if he sold out at all. So far as I know he never did.

 

Tom ,You nailed it ! I am so thankful I grew up in that time. As you said ,it was a very different time and you had to be there to know the feeling. There will never be another time in history like it was back then.Just to wear an airbrushed car shirt made you the cool guy ahead of the pack and in the know back then.

 

I saw Ed Roth at an East Coast event in 97. It was a sort of sad seen. My wife stood in a long line of zombie faced people waiting to get signed autographed hats. No one spoke. I think most just wanted a famous person's autograph and didn't know what Roth was about. They were too young. Roth too old. Ed Roth reminded me of an old boxer that stayed in the game too long. I wish I had been able to tell him what he meant to guys like me when we were kids but I couldn't muster the words that would have worked in the time frame of the moment. RIP Ed Roth.