Who here remembers Ed, Big Daddy Roth, and his Rat Fink decals? In the 60s, he was a pin stripper, car painter, designer and creator of the most awesome decals in the Ratfink designs.

But now we have "The rest of the story". In the early 60s, he was working in Portland, Oregon as a car painter and pin stripes. He developed a great following for his designs. He moved to Los Angeles and started working wit legendary car builders like George Barris. He also was a custom builder in his own right, building such masterpieces as the Orbitron. Around this time he also created the Rat Fink decals. Which was really a cartoon character called Rat Fink with drawings of custom cars and motorcycles. Very creative stuff. I used to have some of his decals I picked up at a swap meet in the 70s.
In the 80s he met a good Mormon girl and got married. Of course, his lifestyle and creative art was not a genre the Mormon church really appreciated. He passed away in April, 2001, and for the last 20 years of his life he was stripped of his creativity by tscc. A real shame, because he was a very creative genius.

Oh, I remember Big Daddy Roth and his beautiful car designs. And I loved Rat Fink! R.F. was coolest of the cool! Of course, since I'm female, I was eyed askance by boys and other girls too for liking "guy stuff".

I remember him, too -- and hat RatFink stuff :)

As for the poster above, I never got that...when I was a teen, if a girl showed interest in cars and such that I liked, I would have been ecstatic, and would have found it extremely sexy!

Our family station wagon ('56 Ford Counrry Squire) was pinstriped in Roth's shop in Maywood.

I was an avid fan of Roth and George Barris, whose shop in North Hollywood, was a way cool place to visit and check out the cars in the showroom.

Ilene Roth hosts the Rat Fink convevtion here in middle Utah. Big Daddy found a good woman. Google it! She worked all her adult life to support her children from 2 earlier unsuccessful marriages.

I was a huge fan of Ed Roth when I could go to the store and stand looking at the custom car magazines, and usually couldn't talk my mom into buying one for me. (when they were 25cents).

I built more than one plastic model of his cars, especially the Beatnik Bandit, the Mysterion and the Orbitron. And unless I'm mistaken, one of the plastic kit companies made a model of the Rat Fink figure, and when I turned in school books at the end of 8th grade, my mom let me spend it on one of these models. The model cost me $1.99, IIRC.

Here's an official website: http://www.ratfink.com/

and there's a movie, produced in 2006 about his story. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0491698/

I actually bought a DVD copy of it back when I was buying DVD's and I think I donated it to the County Library when I was living in Las Vegas. It's kind of a weird movie, but if you're a fan...

I also read that whoever is selling the products with his name was going to be at the Cache Valley Cruise-In in Logan, Utah in June, and his wife was going to be there. I didn't make it to see if she was. I think I need a t-shirt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2017 08:06PM by memikeyounot.

I had to look up the art...Looks like he influenced a couple of generations of artists because I've seen this style in animation and a whole lotta band show flyers. Not my style, but I can appreciate it for what it is.

No surprise the cult didn't appreciate his creativity.

I discovered hot rods when I was 11 in 1959 and I was a huge R.F. fan and loved all thing Roth. Back then I couldn't afford to buy his t-shirts by mail order so I drew my own...and they weren't half bad if I do say so myself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2017 08:20PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

The found the Orbitron in bad shape in front of a Mexican sex shop, and brought together the original, now geriatric team to restore it. Check your cable listings--the episode also featured the Pink Panther mobile.

I'm a big fan of the Rat Fink art. I love it so much that the words rat fink appear several times in my novelette. In fact the working title for it was "Rat Fink Boner Thunk." But I toned it down. The title, that is. The story is all rat fink.