Tiki and vintage Hot Rod / Custom Car culture

Here is another example I found of a car club plaque that is a direct link to tiki. The company who made these were in business from the late 1950s until about 1969.

Never assume. :)

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2013-07-13 10:41 ]

On 2013-07-13 07:59, JOHN-O wrote:
This is pretty cool. It's a recreation of the the "Surfite with Tiki Hut" Revell model...

(photo by Bamboo Ben)

As Tiki documented on pages 236-237 in the "Surfin' Tiki" chapter in the BOT...

And our favorite Hula Girl, Miss Dinah DeRosa, who made the cover of the OC Weekly...

It's at the "Kustom Kulture II" exhibit running through August 31st in Huntington Beach, CA.

EDIT - Oh yeah, I'm assuming the Tiki Hut was built by Bamboo Ben. Big Daddy Roth gets credit for the Surfite. :)

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2013-07-13 08:21 ]

Hey Jon-O! Never assume ( Bad News Bears....) but YES! I built the hut!!

And, there is more tiki at the show! So come on down!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/268915816584014/

Looks awesome Ben!

Now that is really cool! Nice job. Looks like a busy Saturday next week, Don's Marketplace, Huntington Beach Art Center, and Tonga Hut 55th.

DC

Additional Products Pictures
Gilligan’s Tiki Huts began building quality Tiki Huts and bars in Florida in 1979. Bill White, the owner and builder of the huts, invested a great deal of time in research and study with the Native American Indians learning the techniques involved in order to perfect his trade. In the early years he was known to many as "the Hut Man" and "Gilligan" as in the popular TV series Gilligan’s Island, hence the name, Gilligan’s Tiki Huts, emerged. tiki huts

[ Edited by: rakibul 2013-07-13 11:40 ]

On 2011-05-25 23:30, Kon-Tiki Viking wrote:
I think it's more likely that the Hot Rod pith helmets are just US Military surplus...the Marine Corps wore them in WW2...see attached photo..

I think that makes the most sense. Here's another great salt flats pith helmet for good measure.

On 2011-05-23 16:15, Lukeulele wrote:
Typically what a car club would do back in the 50s and 60s (and, today, as well) would be to have car club plaques cast with their logo or insignia. These were aluminum plaques approximately 6"X 9" in size (about the size of a license plate). They would usually be painted in the club colors and then sanded so the top portion of the image would be aluminum and the lower relief area painted. The plaques would be hung from the rear bumper in support of the club. The images below are raw aluminum plaques before painting and sanding. These are just a few of some original clubs from the late 1950's.




Not necessarily Tiki, but fitting for this forum....

Hey Rick, what's this cool club you speak of?? :)

these guys are a great company, i've had them make plaques for us a few times - you can search a database at this manufacturer that has 12,000 old plaques - looks like they have the Mau Maus one, so they could probably remake it

http://www.obrientruckers.com/plaques_search.php

RE: Pith helmets After the war, So Cal had many War Surplus stores that were frequented by hot rodders looking for cheap things they could adapt to their use. Belly tanks, helmets, goggles, overalls, gloves, a warm bomber jacket to wear in the roadster, oil tanks, instruments, etc. were among the treasures you could find. Pith helmets were in abundance and cheap. Hot rodders like cheap.

Not totally on-topic to this fascinating conversation, but in regards to “ relevant to the intermixing of surf culture and hot rod culture 'in the day' was the Beach Boys. Prob the closest they came to tiki was the song 'Hawaii'..”:

just wanted to point out that the Boys also had a song called “luau,” which was the b side of their very first single “surfing’.”