Thread: Psychedelic VW van project

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Custom is custom.... right? :-)

I am a child of the sixties, having graduated high school in '66, and running with my buddies until I got married in '71. We were all car maniacs, but we were also teenagers. Long haired, beer drinkin' fools who worked on our cars all week...and on the weekends we cruised, chased girls, street raced, went to the drags, or put on our tie dyed T-shirts and partied!!! We listened to Santana, The Doors, Grand Funk Railroad, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, and many others. It was a great time!...and I will always treasure it.

I recently did a Doors bike job for a guy on the East Coast, and thought I could not have more fun painting (and listening to old music), but I just got in a job that will be more fun!

The job is a lowered 1958 VW van, with a pumped up motor, and EMPI wheels. The plan is to do a tribute paintjob based on the psychedelic vans of the era. The changes will be to improve on the crude, mostly do-it-yourself graphics of the era, using paints and art styles of today.... but keeping enough of the old symbolic art, and colorful "hallucinogenic" look of those early paint jobs to make it's inspiration obvious.

Fortunately for me, I did enough chemical research in those days, to still be able to recall the inspiration of the Hippie art movement. :-)~

The first major decision was the multicolored background, on which to place all of those imaginative bits of art, flowing patterns, and graffiti. We are going with today's answer to "multi-color", and will start with Kameleon base color(s).

This should be fun for others who enjoyed those times. If you want to follow along, just say so, and I will see if I can clear it with the owner.

Time to have fun.....and I'm "trippin" over it. LOL! :-)~

Don't forget to paint the "Zig Zag Man" on it somewhere...

This sounds like a lot of fun,,, ah the good 'ol days. Need some pics too.
Larry M.

Originally Posted by 26Tudor

Don't forget to paint the "Zig Zag Man" on it somewhere...

and..................

Originally Posted by TooMany2count

and..................

Yahoo..havent seen that in a while..

We've got a long list of things that showed up often. Some were well known, like the peace sign. Some I didn't notice at the time, but now I see they were common...like the yin & yang sign, which looked like a black and a white teardrop. swimming in a circle.

We are finding commercial stuff from businesses, even new computer generated art. (Remember, this will be a somewhat "new & improve" interpretation, with a more professional look.)

Some were minimal ...some were over the top... some were refined... some were crude.... and some we found are just weird...like this Staue Of Liberty on a guitar coming out of the roof!

Lots of ideas to choose from, and we are just starting to discuss the art. It is slowly taking shape. "So many ideas.... so little acreage". :-)

Dont "Bogart" that airbrush man !!!!
This is KOOL !!!