Customs What year range cars are scallops acceptable on?

This is not to be construed as a slam, but my personal opinion and you will ignore it, but to me,it seems like people who follow trends and consider things outdated have no real strong feelings of what they like or dislike. My ex was big on changing furniture and wall paint etc to follow trends because it got "outdated".
I love the pastel colors of the 50s cars..always will, and I love a well articulated scallop job. I have 2 pastel painted cars and considering painting another one, and it doesn't bother me at all if I am the only one that likes it as long as it floats my boat. My 2 cents..

 

Hmmm..... You sound like the real deal.... Old School and Traditional ... You are really lost in the '50s... Just like me

 

I see food and I eat it..

 

I did this with rattle cans in 1958 over a $19.95 Earl Schieb paint job. Would I do it again, maybe. I find these kinds of threads stupid. It's your car and if you want to put scallops on it, do it. The opinions posted here are worth exactly what you're paying for them.

 

This one for sure.

 

Hello,

This is a loaded question as there is no one answer. It is your car, your paint job, your style. In another thread, wheels and stance make a hot rod the way most people visualize. Painting is another different ball game. You have to be able to withstand the looks and scrutiny of other people’s idea of what a hot rod should be, cruising down the street.

Scallops were easier to draw than flames for us young kids in the 50s. No one in our circle of friends could draw flames. We all started hand painting scallops on our bicycles, lawnmowers and wagons until we learned to draw fancy flames. The scallop design was fairly simple to draw on our Pee Chee Notebooks at school from the edges. It was a drawing pad right in front of you, at your desk. But, if you did not draw the scallops in a straight line back, then it looked like hand drawn, early flames.

Most of the older hot rods we saw in our neck of the woods had scallops, not flames. It was not until later in the 60s that some flames began to appear on the street cars. On custom cars for shows, those local and famous painters made everyone “ohh and ahh” with their skills. This was a pretty awesome skill to have. Those early flames were done with a lot of curving style and not too overboard.

After every show we attended, there was a mad flurry of SLOPED S,S,S on paper to emulate the curves of flames. At first, it looked like a rope, but with more practice, the flames actually looked like the real flames on hot rods. But, we just could not put them on anything without looking really bad. So, scallops it was.

Jnaki

In high school, no one had the nerve of driving their cars with scallops or flames. One of my friends had me draw a silver outline line of flames on his black car, but the transfer was not good looking and was immediately wiped off. It looked good on paper, but in real life, not so good. I never tried again until we got the 40 Ford Sedan Delivery.

I practiced with chalk and tape to make a pinstriped flame pattern, but it just did not look right. So, I did not spray anything. None of our friends became a car painter or designer. It was all standard, single, solid color with custom wheels and modified motors for our cruising hot rods.

External, hand drawn, pinstripe scallops on the outer surface of a plastic bodied, model cars was fun. A mistake was easily wiped off. The final product was clear sprayed over to protect the design.

Kudos to those expert scallop and flame painters on full size projects, you rock.

 

I can't say for sure, but I plan to find out on the Tbird if they are acceptable. Only problem will be finding a scallop color that won't clash with the current LSD Green paint job.

 

It's all Hegel's fault

I once heard a guy I work with say "Woof!* It's gorgeous! But no: in six months' time it'll be ugly." As if there is some substantively real force giving objective effect to fads and fashions.

(* Interior designer – big on woofing.)

Similar are the people whose first reaction to anything completely novel is to ask about the socio-economic background of the people who are into it. The intrinsic merits or otherwise of the thing be damned if it can be associated with the Wrong Sort Of People. I've got no time for that attitude.

That said I like to look for the origins, rather than merely accept that scallops are a Hot Rod Thing or a Custom Thing. The first hot rods and customs didn't happen in any kind of awareness of there being such a thing as a hot rod or custom, much less an elaborately defined thing with all kinds of definitive elements. I always find that the best hot rods and customs have something of that seminal movement, of coming out of a place where the familiar definitions don't yet exist.

But what are the origins? Someone mentioned aircraft, and I reckon that's believable. '20s/'30s aircraft taking cues from WWI warplanes, which were arguably informed by a tradition of heraldry going back to the Middle Ages. Question: do the best scallop paint jobs tend to follow heraldic colour conventions about "tinctures" and "metals"? Scallops sanguine on coachwork argent? It would be interesting to do a survey of sorts.

 

I know the O/P was trying to learn here so I'll try to add some extra credit "homework". Anything is acceptable. From horse drawn carriages to modern wraps (eew...) scallop designs are a matter of taste and proper accents. As shown, all the way back to the start of wheeled transportation some form of dress was applied here, there, everywhere, and all places in between. Old wood spoke wheels were scalloped on cars in the teens, carriages had gold leaf here and there, some scalloped, some as borders. Watson, Jeffries, Winfield, Bailon, and of course Barris, all did it from the glory days until their spray guns were hung up for good. As to what's "acceptable", that question starts with who wants it in the 1st place. If they say they want it the only boundaries are taste and imagination.

So, your homework will be to look up as many really old pics you can, carriages, fire wagons, hell even Roman chariots, and study how things are dressed and accented. You'll find most things are black and basic but don't stop there. That was the norm because it was relatively easy to repair. Look for the stand-out stuff.