Resurgent hot-rod pinstripers keep old art form alive
Most weekends, 25-year-old Brad Meredith stands deep in the past, painting tiny lines that extend back to the candy-apple, rockabilly 1950s.
By day, Meredith builds hot rods and custom cars with his father, Carl, at their 13-person shop, Carl’s Custom Cars in Red Oak, Texas
In his spare time, he immerses himself in the ancient art of pinstriping, “laying lines” with a fine brush down the sides of cars and on their trunks, hoods and panels.
Meredith, who drives a primered 1930 Ford hot rod with a radically chopped top and a shift knob that looks like a hand grenade, is among a growing number of young pinstripers who are reviving a hot-rod art form nearly lost in the 1970s and ‘80s.
“I want to walk in the steps of all these old masters,” he said.
The resurgence of pinstriping and its 20- and 30-something practitioners is yet another indicator of hot-rodding’s robust state, adherents say.
Fifteen years ago, rodders were deeply worried about the future of their billion-dollar-a-year hobby. Most were in their 50s and 60s, sometimes paying $100,000 or more for a professionally built hot rod.
Back then, the only young people in the sea of gray at hot-rod events were the rodders’ children or grandchildren.
Today thousands of young enthusiasts supplement the veterans, encouraged by an underground “rat-rod” movement that began more than a decade ago and that celebrates rough, loud, home-built cars like the raucous rods of the ‘50s.
Those rat rods spurred a new appreciation for traditional hot rods, which in turn reenergized pinstriping.
“Pinstriping started out to fix up old enamel paint jobs or a primered car,” said longtime hot-rod author and historian Pat Ganahl, a regular contributor to the Rodder’s Journal who has written 13 car-related books.
“We went through all of these fads, and now that pinstriping is back, it has been distilled down to a pretty artful rendition,” said Ganahl, 64, who wrote a book about the quirky, eccentric creator of hot-rod pinstriping, Kenny “Von Dutch” Howard. “They’re able to do much better work now than we ever saw in the ‘50s.”
Pinstriping can involve one or two lines — often in contrasting colors — along a vehicle’s side body creases. It can also take the form of more intricate teardrop or handlebar-mustache shapes painted with multiple stripes.
Meredith began pinstriping seven years ago, practicing for four years before he felt confident enough to try it on other peoples’ cars. He also stripes motorcycles, helmets, trucks and other items.
Like stripers from decades ago, he learned techniques from older mentors, including the late James Crawford of Garland, Texas, who pinstriped dozens of vehicles in north Texas.
“When someone brings a $100,000 car to you, you really have to be comfortable that you’re putting the right stripe on it,” Meredith said.
He said he pursued the art because he couldn’t afford to pay someone $200 or $300 to pinstripe his hot rod.
Among his pinstriping peers is 31-year-old Tanner Leaser of Arlington, Texas.
“I could stay busy seven days a week just doing cars in Texas,” said Leaser, who is also a partner in a skateboard company. “I fly all over the country doing pinstriping — everything from pulling a factory line on a Kia to pinstriping a rat rod.”
He developed hand control through painting signs — just as stripers did in the ‘50s — and continues to letter signs.
But his ultimate goal is to become as good as the old Southern California masters.
“I can pinstripe two colors front-to-back in 20 minutes or so, and I usually charge $150 to $200 for that,” said Leaser, who described his annual pinstriping income as “nice.”
“If I’m doing a low-rider with five lines and lots of intricate work, that can be $1,500 to $2,000,” he said.
Leaser and others practice an art developed by the mercurial Von Dutch in the early ‘50s at shops in East Los Angeles and publicized in a Car Craft article in 1955, Ganahl said.
Von Dutch, a lifelong alcoholic who sometimes worked under the name J.L. Bachs (Joe Lunch Box), died from alcohol-related complications in 1992.
“You have all these ancient pinstripers from the ‘50s who are like gods and all these kids who worship them and want to learn the art,” Ganahl said. “It’s an interesting reinterpretation of the ‘50s.”
Box writes for the Dallas Morning News/McClatchy.
