>From the Salt Lake city "Deseret News" Friday, April 6, 2001
Car designer Ed Roth dies in Manti
Rat Fink creator helped to define hot-rod culture
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By Paul Chavez Associated Press writer
Los Angeles -- Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, the outlaw genius whose fantastic car
creations and anti-hero Rat Fink character helped define the California
hot-rod culture of the 1950's and '60's has died. He was 69.
Roth died Wednesday at his studio in Manti, Utah, said Joe Bennett, a
dispatcher with the Sanpete County Sheriff's Department. The cause of death
was not immediately given.
A generation of teenage rebels across the country found a hero in Roth,
whose chrome and fiberglass creations stirred awe at car shows. Male
teenagers also adopted his airbrushed anti-hero, the bug-eyed, menacing Rat
fink, who became a cultural counterpoint to Mickey Mouse.
While Roth worked on custom cars in his Lakewood garage-studio, youths
across the county broke out the airplane glue to work on intricate scale
plastic models of his "Outlaw" roadster, bubble topped Beatnik Bandit" or
futuristic "Mysterion>"
As a designer, Roth was considered a genius and visionary, not only for
his radical designs but also for his pioneering use of fiberglass in car
bodies.
He was described by author Tom Wolfe in his 1964 essay on the California
hot-rod phenomenon, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby," as
the "most colorful, the most intellectual and the most capricious " of the
car customizers.
He's the Salvador Dali of the movement -- a surrealist in his designs, a
showman by temperament, a prankster." Wolfe wrote.
Roth created Rat Fink and a host of other wild monster characters to help
pay the bills and finance his car-design work.
"Rat Fink was probably the most famous of his monsters that he created,"
said David Chodosh, 40, a friend and business associate. "He made Rat Fink
to create some cash flow so he could support his car-building habit."
Chodosh, a Manhattan Beach resident, said that in recent years he helped
Roth license some of his Rat Fink artwork and Roth's characters have enjoyed
a bit of a renaissance among punk, alternative and hard rock bands.
Roth began a transition into semiretired domesticity in 1974 when he
converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and abruptly
abandoned his rebel lifestyle.
He left Los Angeles, taking up residence in Manti, a small farming
community about 120 miles south o f Salt lake City. He continued to work on
car designs, however.
"My fanaticism with cars has just destroyed my personal life," he told
the Associated Press in a 1997 interview. "It's an obsession, an addiction.
everyday I pray to God 'Release me from my calling!"
Chodosh said Roth was still working on new designs at the time of his
death and was hoping to tour a new car in 2002.
'The guy over the years has epitomized cool," Chodish said. "Even now,
in so many ways he is still the Boss Fink."
Roth is survived by his wife, Ilene and several children from two
previous marriages.
*********
FYI
The paint work on the latest creation has been done by Jack Harris of
Kaysville, UT... J/BGS Bonneville Record holder and driver of the fastest
front engined dragster ever with a 264 mph run at Bakersfield last year. He
had some wild things going at the end.
Wes
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