Sometimes we find things or people in life that are genuinely "cool". You can't always put your finger on it but it usually stems from someone's unique idea, invention, or talent. Something created from the soul. And when "it"
really is "cool", no one from the marketing machine told you that "it" really is "cool", so you should buy "it" or you will not be "cool". Von Dutch, the man, was cool because of such talents that I will detail in a minute. It twists my stomach when I see what the Von Dutch brand has done to the memory of Von Dutch the man, a pioneer of car culture. I had to find out how this happened and thought I would share with you a brief history of cool in the form of Von Dutch.
Von Dutch, born Kenny Howard, is the father of free-hand custom pin striping and flame paint jobs. In the mid 40's, he began work at a southern California motorcycle shop as a mechanic, ...a 15 year old mechanic. He soon started free-hand pin striping motorcycles, something that had not been done on a vehicle in America since GM stopped doing it in 1938. Except his radical designs were a new step forward in custom painting. They were an expression that no one had seen before and it caught on quick. Ten years later he had a reputation that followed him from town to town working until he saturated the custom bike scene every where he went. He moved from motorcycles to cars only by chance as it was meant to be a joke and it snowballed from there. His work was so head turning that everyone in the 50's wanted their custom car to be pin striped and flamed by Von Dutch.
Von Dutch is one of the reasons the 50's and 60's Kustom Car craze stormed over the nation, with Southern California as the epicenter of the rodding culture. Cars owners would bring their rides from all over the country to be "Dutched". When a car owner came to him, he never told him what he wanted, just how many hours of work he was willing to pay for. The designs were completely up to Dutch and he never let anyone down.
Apparently, Von Dutch never liked the popularity much and would double his rates all the time to keep people away and let him be alone with his work. Dutch never made any real money from striping. Money was something he could care less about. He was quoted in 1965 explaining his philosophy on money: "I make a point of staying right at the edge of poverty. I don't have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I have are on my feet. I don't mess around with unnecessary stuff, so I don't need much money. I believe it's meant to be that way. There's a 'struggle' you have to go through, and if you make a lot of money it doesn't make the 'struggle' go away. It just makes it more complicated. If you keep poor, the struggle is simple. " And he walked the talk, living many years in a converted city bus on the back of a friends property.
Since the 70's he worked quietly for Cars of the Stars in LA. He is most recognizable for his logo, the Bloodshot Winged Eye-ball. It came from his theological beliefs and it stood for "the eye in the sky knows all and sees all". He was a believer in reincarnation and according to many people, had a photographic memory as he would recite mechanics manuals word-by-word and then give the page number it was from. When asked why he kept his manuals if he already memorized them, he said "I still like to look at the pictures".
He died in 1992, of a stomach abscess, leaving behind two daughters. It was the daughters that sold the rights to his name four years later to Michael Cassel, an entrepreneur who wanted to open a business that would appeal to the hot rod crowd. He and his partners opened the first Von Dutch store in 2000, on Melrose Avenure in Los Angeles. Not exactly what I would call Hot Rod central. Since then their goal has been simple, get every celebrity they can to wear a piece of their Von Dutch clothing so everyone will think Von Dutch is cool. Their "
Hall of Fame", already has 100's of celebs strutting their stuff in Von Dutch merchandise and for those who don't know any better, I guess that makes Von Dutch "cool".
Mr. Jalopy, a favorite of my web blogging weekly visits says exactly what is on every gear-heads mind. "The $65 Von Dutch trucker hats sold at Bloomingdale's are an abomination. [However] Von Dutch's pinstriping tool box selling for $270,000 [on eBay] makes a sort of sick sense. Sure, it is insulting at some level that anything less than a 3 bedroom house should sell for that much money, but this box is key in the history of hot rodding. Not the dry lakes and khaki's hot rodding of the 40's, but the acid and Coors drenched metalflake 60's. Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate."
Next time you see a high schooler wearing a Von Dutch hat, ask them if they know who Von Dutch is and what he painted.
If you want to see the
real cool of Von Dutch, check out these links.
The Art of Von Dutchand
Von Dutch: The Art,The Myth,The LegendLabels: Misc
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Some of you know that I have a fascination for robotics. I read more about robots than I build or buy them, as I only own one robot, (a Wowwee Robosapien V2), but I’m certain I have figured out where this obsession was conceived. Transformers! When I was a kid, this was my Pokemon, my Harry Potter, and my Gameboy. Transformers… robots in disguise; it does not get much better than that for a guy who loves cars and loves robots. Well, we’ve all grown-up now, so I guess that means Transformers are all grown-up too and they are making a live action movie that is showing some real maturity. What’s more interesting is that it is a Michael Bay movie; remember the intense sequences of Pearl Harbor, The Rock, and Armageddon? Or how about the insane car chases in Bad Boys and Bad Boys II? This will not be a kids' movie; this will be a grown-up kid's movie. Only 368 days until its release; I know I already have my $13.50 for a movie ticket sitting in an envelop tucked away for 7-4-07. 
