Listen up, those of you who know the difference between chopped, channeled, bobbed and Frenched, it's time once again for Auto-Rama, the annual vehicular extravaganza in which good taste and common sense are locked in the trunk for three days while we partake of everthing that is wild and crazy in autodom.
And what could be wilder and crazier than Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, the creator of Rat Fink, a very un-Disneyesque vermin that artist Roth first sketched on a napkin in 1960. The rat went on to become a national symbol for the car counterculture of dragsters, hot rods, customs and one-off show cars, and he's still going strong.Roth and Rat Fink are on hand for the 20th anniversary of AutoRama, which opened Friday and runs through Sunday at the Salt Palace.
Featured car at this year's show, according to show chairman Mickey Ellis, is the $200,000 "Tribute" custom, which began life as a 1941 Ford two-door sedan but has been "morphed" into a "phantom lead sled" said to have taken 13 years and $200,000 to build.
According to Ellis, the attendance at AutoRama over the past two decades indicates that Utahns have a love affair with the automobile in all its permutations.
"There are a lot of other things to do and see at an AutoRama, but the show is still about cars," said Ellis, "the way they look, the way they smell, the way they drive and what you can do to or with them."
Maybe so, but my personal interest this year is in Big Daddy himself, an artist, show car designer/builder and self-promoter whose name has been legend for all of my adult life.
Billed as "the man, the myth, the monsters," Roth and his staff designed, built and exhibited some 25 show cars through the '60s, cars with names like "Outlaw," "Beatnik," "Bandit," "Road Agent," "Mysterion," "Orbitron" and "Druid Princess." Most are now said to be in museums or private collections.
Roth, 61, also developed hundred of monsters posed in cars with extended shifting arms. Carrying monikers such as "Mother's Worry," they were produced by Revell Toy Co. in a series of model kits painstakingly assembled - to the chagrin of their parents - by 12-year-old boys everywhere.
Most astonishing of all to his legion of fans is the fact that Roth, the ultimate product of the Los Angeles car culture, now lives in Manti, Utah. That's right, Big Daddy and Rat Fink are alive and well in Sanpete County.
Call Roth's home and the odds are high that you will not get Big Daddy first time around, you will get his answering machine.
Predictably, Roth doesn't just tell you to leave your message and he'll get back to you. Instead, he gives you his favorite recipe.
"OK you single dudes out there," says Roth on his message tape. "Take a handful of old spaghetti out of the fridge, the kind that gets really hard from sitting in there. Put it in a frying pan with a little olive oil and then put four eggs on top. Let it simmer for five minutes and, man, it's the best breakfast you ever tasted."
Then, true to form, Roth gives a little commercial for his catalog of "the world's best 500 monster shirts." Only $3.50.
That's his business now, selling T-shirts and noveties at car shows. He no longer builds cars, but he likes to talk about the car fads of the '50s and '60s.
Roth says he feels sorry for kids today who don't know the "joy" of building a hot rod out of an old junker.
"Blame it on the Beatles," says Roth. "When the Beatles came, everything changed. First, everybody let their hair grow. Then a percentage of them got guitars, started bands and started using drugs. The music and the drugs went together and kept the guys from building cars. It no longer was the cool thing to do."
Roth said he first sketched Rat Fink on a napkin while he was trying to figure out how Steamboat Willie, a relatively crude cartoon stick figure, evolved into Mickey Mouse. Not long afterward, the Fink began showing up on customized cars, dragsters and T-shirts. He even had his own comic book, Rat Fink Comix.
"I never thought it would be that popular," said Roth. "But really, Rat Fink was just the other part of my existence. It helped me make the money so I could build the cars."
Roth joined the LDS Church in 1974 in Los Angeles. Then, on a trip, he drove through Manti and was "astounded" by the beauty of the Manti Temple. "It brought tears to my eyes to see such a beautiful building," he said.
He eventually bought a 100-year-old home in Manti and moved in six years ago.
Like many people in the age of computers, modems and fax machines, Roth says he can run his business anywhere there's a phone line, and he has no regrets at leaving the L.A. lifestyle behind.
"Everyone knows what you are about in a small town and the curiosity seekers don't come by here, it's out of the way," he said.
But no sooner were those words out of his mouth than some tourists "dropped by" to check him out. With Von Dutch-style pin striping on the house and Rat Fink covering the gas meter, Big Daddy's digs tend to stand out.
Roth said it's amazing that the cartoon character he created 33 years ago is still popular and is still his prime source of income. He trademarked Rat Fink in 1980 after a court battle in which an interloper tried to copyright the little rodent for himself.
Today, Roth has some 600 T-shirt designs bearing Rat Fink's scruffy likeness. "It's amazing, but people still like the little rat," he said.
Roth was scheduled for appearances at the AutoRama all three days. Show hours are 5-11 p.m. Friday; noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $8 for adults and $3 for children under 12.