New to the group. No car yet (I'll just keep riding the Harley) but I'm hoping to be a Vette owner soon!

I love the smooth lines of the C5s and C6s and the paint canvas they provide. I'm wondering what happened to Pinstripes. They used to be a unique way to personalize a car but seem to have all but disappeared these days.

RM

 

I think that like anything else, they became fashionable, then no longer were. They were a popular thing, on C-3s, because the C-3s had "sharper" body lines, that led themselves to pinstripes.

 

I see pin stripers at the bigger custom car events, but I live in so cal, a car crazy area. I never interact with them , but some of the set ups travel to shows, much like a guy selling fudge will follow state fairs.
I mostly see them painting items people carry in , purses, mail boxes , rat rod stuff.

I bought a pin stripe book from Dean Batchelor, primarily because of his name , but never used the instructions. It's not too complicated, the brush edge and condition is the critical part, a steady hand can be practiced until mastered.

In talking with the guy, he started working with Barris customs after he quit stunt man work. Said he got to the point where sane men quit, when you start to look forward to the pain, a kind of weird mental effect after enough crashes. he used to get credit as the man behind a lot of the Barris cars, but I guess the has faded that detail, or perhaps it wasn't accurate, I don't know.

You might already know pin striping was invented to disguise circular marks left behind by angle grinding disks. Von dutch is still famous for his pin stripe work, and I doubt he made a habit of working sober. with all respect to the mans high quality accomplishments. I particularly like his machine work and inventions, like the three foot long crank operated switch blade.