![]() Roth said he would like to get the bulk of the collection into a museum. Surrounded by his dad’s legacy, Roth feels an obligation to ensure that this unique slice of Southern California pop history is remembered and enjoyed by future generations. He won the fight shortly before his death in 2001. ![]() Big Daddy refused to let them have it, sparking a court battle that resulted in him suing his sons and his ex-wife. Little air bubbles over the cartoon’s mouth were full of amusing questions like “what’s your crazy dad up to now?”īut by the late ‘90s, Roth’s brothers Howard and Dennis - both artists and hot rod builders in their own right - clashed with Big Daddy over the rights to operate Roth Studios, which their mother had owned since the divorce. The walls of his home shrine are littered with old faxes of drawings that his father would send him with salivating Rat Fink cartoons requesting steering wheels and tail lights. As a manager of an auto parts store, Roth was able to help Big Daddy with parts that he needed to build his new hot rods. Roth and his father began rebuilding models together, and Big Daddy began appearing with his cars at car shows again and revived some of the old T-shirt designs and merchandise that had made him a legend decades ago. Eventually, Big Daddy realized Roth’s quest was one born out of loyalty and a sense his father still had something more to give. After finding out that Darryl had restored the damaged auto with longtime Big Daddy collaborator Doug Kinney (aka Dirty Doug), he was so angry he refused to speak to his son for two years. The first of his finds was the Wishbone, a car that Big Daddy originally hated so much that he sawed it in half after building it in 1967. In the early ‘90s, Darryl saw a renewed interest in hot rod culture and decided to start tracking down his father’s old signature hot rods, which were scattered from the garages of car collectors in Southern California to the casinos of Nevada. By the early ‘80s, he’d taken a job as a sign painter at Knott’s Berry Farm, using the assumed name Bernie Schwartz (based on actor Tony Curtis’ real name). Though he continued to build cars sporadically, he shunned the rebellious remnants of Rat Fink mania, dropping out of the limelight and severing ties with family and fans. “It was rebellious, but paradoxically, it was just good clean fun.”Īfter remarrying several times, Big Daddy converted to Mormonism. “I had all the Rat Fink-related items growing up,” Stanford said. The valuable collection contains thousands of mementos, art pieces and artifacts that his dad created.įor well-known custom car designers like Steve Stanford, Big Daddy’s influence doesn’t come with a price tag. Some of his collection includes an original sketch of the Flying Eyeball logo created by Von Dutch (born Kenny Howard), a Kustom Kulture legend and friend of Big Daddy’s whose name is now associated with a lucrative clothing line. His den, garage and various storage spaces are crammed with original model kits of “Big Daddy” cars found everywhere from Japan to Mexico, old bikes and cars his father created, rare photo reels of him in his famous top hat and red suit coat with tails. ![]() With today’s resurgence of interest in hot rod culture and Big Daddy’s legacy, Darryl Roth has decided the huge collection of his dad’s work that he spent years tracking down and now has lying around his house should probably be in a museum somewhere. ![]() “My dad was always convinced that once the Beatles came to the States, kids kind of lost interest in cars and American culture and started picking up guitars instead,” said the 51-year-old Roth, who worked for two decades as a manager in an auto parts store and is a reserve policeman for the city of Bell, Calif. Gasser and Drag Nut.īut after the decline of hot rod culture in the ’70s and ’80s, Roth’s conversion to Mormonism and family squabbles over the business, Rat Fink and company became less and less ubiquitous until it all seemed to fade away entirely. Young fans around Southern California, and then the world, scrambled to get their hands on his T-shirts, model car kits and plastic figurines of gruesome monsters stuffed into tiny, super-groovy hot rods. ![]() His character Rat Fink, a sort of grotesque version of Mickey Mouse, became shorthand for cool in the post-“Easy Rider” era. ![]()
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