Pinstriping Ideas

Gordon and Suzanne Dudley have a very simple blue line outlining the body lines and trim on their mild ’55 Chevy.

The car’s been nosed and decked and has some simple, low-key designs where the trim was shaved.

An outlined spear on the frame horn almost seems insignificant, but it adds a tiny bit of color that breaks up the overwhelming feeling of black and adds a touch of elegance to Ron Lee’s ’27 T roadster pickup.

Robert Williams’ recently completed rebuild/repaint of his Deuce roadster has the full complement of numbers and striping by Bill Marygold. Variations of this design are repeated on all four fenders, grille shell, rear pan, frame horns and dashboard, and they tie in nicely with the two-tone and the racing numbers on the lakes-inspired ’dryer.

Steve Stone’s ’50 Ford Shoebox exhibits a more late-’50s look with some two-color scrollwork on the nose and deck and a pinstriped scallop running the length of the body. This adds a bit of period flavor to the car without making it look two-toned.

The seemingly clashing red wheels with caps and ’walls also work well.

Goodguy Gary Meadors carries graphic enhancement into the engine bay on his ’29 track roadster. The louver accents on the air-cleaner cover match the louvers in the hood sides, and the small scallops here work with the matching scallops on his headlight buckets. Bringing exterior colors into the engine bay really serves to link the engine with the rest of the car, especially if you plan on showing your car with the hood up.

Here’s a variation on the striped-louvers theme.

Keith Reineke’s Deuce roadster shows how a set of diminutive scallops can have the same overall effect as a pinstripe design without the business of the linework. It adds a feeling of speed even when the car is parked.

There is a way to get flames without having to deal with all that masking. Jim Farnham had his ’54 Cadillac flamed with stripes for a much more subtle effect.

Dave Salcido’s ’63 Ford (here) and Buddy Baker’s ’64 Ford wagon (below) both exhibit a generous splash of Craig Fraser’s wild linework. The designs flow along with the graphics and body lines of each car and reflect the flames theme.

They’ll keep you busy trying to find new shapes and images hidden in the designs.

We were overcome with lust at the sight of Paul and Sallie Bos’ ’28 RPU. This thing definitely had The Look. It was clean, simple, and had a great striping job from stem to stern, and we couldn’t keep Freiburger from drooling all over it.

This is the closest example of a true “Dutch” that we’ve seen in a while. Alan Michaelis’ ’60 Galaxie was a nice mix of black suede and contrasting-colored striping. The work was signed by Hot Dog, a striper from around San Diego, California. Can you see it?

This ’27 T roadster owned by Steve Phillips has a set of mini scallops working in its favor. The stripes add enough contrast to enhance the body lines without taking anything away from the overall profile of the car.

Is there a gap somewhere in your two-tone? Check out what Darryl & Peggy Nance did at the end of the chrome trim on their two-toned ’56 Nomad. Right where the side-trim ended at the rear bumper there was a gap of about 1/2 inch that showed where the two colors met. They added a short double-pinstripe to hide the edges of the paint. It’s simple, clean, and effective, and reminds us that the truth is in the details.

Pinstriping has been around longer than most of us realize. It’s a decorative art form that dates back beyond the horse-drawn buggy days. Ornamental hand-striping was last factory-applied on an American car in the late ’30s. By the mid-’40s it was an almost-dead art until it was brought back from near oblivion in a big way by Kenny “Von Dutch” Howard. The mad master started out applying his brush to motorcycles and by the ’50s was doing custom cars. This rediscovered craft took off in a big way with the kustom crowd, and a car just wasn’t done unless it had been “Dutched.” Such was the birth of a fresh new niche in a brand-new industry.

With this birth came emulation, as many talented painters tried their hands at painting lines on cars. Different styles of striping evolved with the ebb and flow of car-building styles. Today, just about anything goes. There are nearly as many ways to stripe your car as there are cars to build. While striping is almost a required element when completing graphics of any sort on a car body, it has also evolved into a stand-alone graphic element—with some designs hiding pictures within the maze of lines and shapes (Von Dutch was a master at this). An accent added to inject style, form, and attitude to an otherwise stripped-down body, striping has become so popular that you can probably find a striper applying paint to steel at just about every car show you’ll attend this year.

We’re big fans of pinstriping, finding ourselves getting lost in some of the designs like a drunken mouse in some kid’s science-project maze. They come in so many different flavors that you can alter the look of your car merely by changing the striping and, like fingerprints, no two are alike. Here are some ideas for your next project, plus a list of dudes who can lay some lines for you.