The 23rd Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance will feature a class of ‘Big Daddy’ Ed Roth custom cars when it takes place on 11 March, 2018 in Florida, USA.
The legendary Ed Roth created some of the most outrageous, reality-bending customs of an era that thrived on American individualism run amok. He was born in 1932, into a world in transition and upheaval, a theme that underlined his life and his career. His first car was a 1933 Ford coupe bought at the age of 13. After a tour in the Air Force he married and became the father of five sons, so the ‘Big Daddy’ nickname came naturally.
His custom cars, his T-shirts and his art defined what came to be known as counter culture. Ed was part engineer, part mad scientist and artist all at once, and well ahead of the curve of his time. His Rat Fink character – a drooling, bug-eyed rodent – was, he claimed, his anti-Mickey Mouse. It was his T-shirts starring Rat Fink that brought fame and enough fortune to create his custom cars.
Roth’s best-known cars, Beatnik Bandit, Orbitron and Surfite, all enjoyed successful movie cameos in addition to headlining in hot rod and custom car magazines.
‘The custom car era of the 1950s and 1960s was an interesting mutation of the “dream car” epoch that swept through the Big Three and the hot rod scene of that time,’ says Bill Warner, founder and chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. ‘Roth pushed things well beyond the edge of the envelope. Then he tore up the envelope. His customs were three dimensional versions of his cartoons. This is going to be fun. Weird, but fun.’
More information on the Amelia Island Concours of Elegance here.
Orbitron pictures courtesy of Beau Boeckmann, Galpin Ford
