A very appropriate tribute to "Big Daddy" at:
http://www.mooneyesusa.com/
Ed
Wester S Potter wrote:
> >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
> --------------------------------------------------
> 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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