Suppose you owned a hip little service station in the early 1960's, and you had a hotrod shop truck, maybe with a brand new set of Torque Thrust mags and some big n little rubber rake... What sort of pinstripes might you have in a few accent spots? Anyone have any sample pics to share? A time machine would be much appreciated!
Early stripers were influenced by the stripes on horse-drawn vehicles. Find a repro Sears 1908 catalog and check out the buggies.
Depends on where you lived and who you had strip it. If you lived in Nor Cal for instance you may want Tommy the Greek, simple two color tear drops done in sets of 3. They say that he did everything in 3s. But if you took your truck to a little shop in San Bruno, Ca and it just happened to be Friday night and he was locked in with a bottle of red wine you may get a really wild set of stripes done by Kenny Howard. I lean toward the greek myself, subtle and refreshing in a world of wild and crazy.
I Disagree with that statement.... if you look at a 1955 Rod and Custom magazine (or any other magazines/old pics from the era) pinstriping was FAR different than that stuff done in the 1800's -early 1900's. By the mid 50's what we know as modern pinstriping (Von Dutch) had already come into fruition.
start collecting 1950's hot rod magazines, you will get way more info from that; than on here. They usually cost around 5 bucks a piece at any antique store or flea market.
Striping as we know it today was huge in the mid-late 50's. (there was pinstriping long before it, but mostly scroll work, stuff like on fire engines....not what we are talking about)
The best advice is to look at vintage magazines. There is several good threads on pinstriping on here as well. Modern striping is too thick and often more intricate than average joe striper did back then if you look at magazines. Thinner lines, in One or two colors. It wouldn't necessarily be on the tailgate and hood like is so common these days, and certainly not a huge tiki lookin thing. This is not to say if you were a guy with money enough for mag wheels and a nice nearly new truck you couldn't afford Von Dutch or some other well known guy to go nuts on your truck, it just most likely wouldn't be the case if you were in middle america
Yea, thin lines are the key to 50's styled pinstriping. And Its kind of edgy...stay away from the swoopty doo's and curly q's like on Semi Trucks.
It's not a truck (obviously) but this should give you a pretty good idea of some Southern California pinstriping from 1962. Yeah, it's been on there all that time, pinstriped over black lacquer that's equally as old.
That is sweet. I always love it when someone jumps on and says that lacquer won't hold up. Of course that is probably not acrylic lacquer and that one shot is almost polished away.
Grab most any Hot Rod from the Mid 50's to the late 60's and check out the J.C. Whitney & Co. ad. They usually showed some water slide decals of pinstriping. While the water slides were pretty tacky the designs were what I used to try to copy when I was just starting to stripe. Wait, better idea, just go to post #48 (especially page 19 of the catalog) on Squirrel's great thread about Whitney's '58 catalog and check it out for yourself: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=679472&highlight=whitney+catalog&page=3
Check the selvedge yard (Google is your friend) and search Von Dutch....there are some examples of the timeline of his striping there. I've always had a yen to see a broader example base of Ed Roth's striping and have only seen a few examples? His lettering was awesome! Jeffries style is easily found and the Greek never impressed me much? NOt to cut him down,but taste and all?
Early '60's , single line , accent some body lines with some embellished striping on the hood , door handles and antenna. Depending on the tailgate , it might get some enhancing of the brand lettering and/or some additional striping . All that in a contrasting color .
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