Bob Schremp's 1954 Chevrolet was the first car that Larry Watson scalloped.
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| This is how Bob's 1954 Chevy can be seen on the Clock drive-in Bellflower poster by Steve Stanford. |
Bob was from Norwalk California, his car was a mild custom car with removed trim on the hood and trunk and the door handles where shaved. All the body work was done by Brandson Body shop in Artesia.
The shop also lowered the car and according the 1958 Custom Car Annual the ground clearance was just 1 1/2 inch, which was more than likely measure from the lake pipes to the ground. But still Bob's car was very low.
Bob installed the 1956 Oldsmobile hubcaps on medium size white walls on all four corners and no fender skirts where used as was the trend in the later part of the 1950's with this style of custom car. Bob also used a set of Spotlights which looked to be early style dummy spots that had still the shape of the Appleton Spotlights but no handles.
In 1956 Bob drove his car to Larry's Watson house and asked him if he knew how to fix the bad runs he had on his freshly painted hood and trunk. Bob did not want flames on his car, and he realized the runs where to big to be hidden by some pin striping.
Larry had been having scallops on his mind for a while, and he figured this car would be perfect to use them on. He could sand off the runs, and cover up those sections by the scallops. Bob had no idea what scallops where, but he let Larry do them anyway.
Larry painted the scallops in teal blue with white fading tips in 1956 in Larry's driveway. He remembered that he wanted Bob to flip the front bumper on his car so he told him he would not pin stripe the scallops until he modified the front bumper on his Chevy. Bob agreed, flipped the front bumper and Larry striped the scallops initiation gold.
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| This is the only photo in the Larry Watson Collection of this car that shows some color. But I'm unsure if this the actual color of the scallops, or that its just a chemical process that gave the scallops color. There is no other color visible in this photo. |
Bob's car set the trend, and for a while Larry was asked to scallop a lot of cars for people who had seen Bob's Chevy at the local drive in's.
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| Bob Schremp stands proud next to his 1954 Chevy mild custom with the first Larry Watson scallop paint job. |
The photos of Bob's Chevy shown here, where taken by James Potter to be used in various magazine features on the car, the test sheets these scans where taken from are part of the Larry Watson Personal Collection.
