The Original Rat Fink

A year after building Outlaw, Roth unveiled the Beatnik Bandit. Featuring an aircraft style bubble-top canopy, the Beatnik Bandit was a sleek roadster with a fiberglass body, built on an Oldsmobile chassis. Continuing the jet-age aviation theme, Ed created a single "joystick" control for the car that incorporated steering, acceleration, and braking. The Beatnik Bandit appeared in "Car Craft" in May 1961.


In 1962, Roth built Rotar (for Roth Air Car), a bubble-topped fiberglass vehicle that, much to the amazement of car-show-goers, was not a car at all, but an aircraft. Rotar hovered on a cushion of air produced by the downdraft of two large fan blades, each of which was powered by a 650cc Triumph motorcycle engine.


Roth's Mysterion debuted in 1963. Built on a custom frame, Mysterion was an experiment in asymmetrical design. One year later, Roth introduced the Road Agent, which until then was a slang term for a bounty hunter or hit man. A 1960 Chevrolet flat-six Corvair engine powered the mid-engine, bubble-topped roadster. Between 1964 and 1968 other Roth cars followed in rapid succession, including Orbitron, Surfite, Druid Princess, Bike Truck, Wishbone, and Yellow Fang.


In Tom Wolfe's celebrated narrative The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, Roth is quoted as saying, "Detroit is beginning to understand that there are just a hell of a lot of these bad kids in the United States and they are growing up. And they want a better car. They don't want an old man's car." Roth was building the counter-culture cars for those Detroit neglected.

The Demise of Roth Studios
As the 1960s came to a close, Roth saw his success begin to wane. He blamed the Beatles for the decline of hot rodding and custom car culture believing that "guys were spending more money on music—records and guitars and sound equipment—than they were spending on cars." Although he continued to sell monster shirts and Revell-licensed models to kids across America, Ed Roth shifted his creative direction.


Having already experimented with building a small number of custom trikes, Roth moved away from V-8 powered customs to more economical vehicles powered by Volkswagen, and, later, Honda engines. He saw a future in smaller, more fuel-efficient customs, but because most popular periodicals did not normally cover diminutive three-wheelers, Roth self-published "Choppers Magazine" from 1967 to 1970 in order to spread the word about his activities. His publication showcased the trikes and custom motorcycles that he hoped would appeal to the rebellious side of motorcycling. But after numerous squabbles with members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang at his studio, Roth decided to leave the business that he founded. He sold the assets and closed both Roth Studios and "Choppers Magazine" in 1970 and returned to custom painting, taking a job alongside Von Dutch as a pinstriper, letterer, and sign painter at Movie World in Buena Park.


Seeking new meaning in his life, Roth converted to Mormonism in 1974. He looked back on the 1960s and regretted selling ugly monsters to children, endorsing unlawful street racing, and exposing himself to harm through confrontations with dangerous thugs. Yet, Roth never stopped building custom vehicles, and turned out numerous trikes such as Globehopper and Rubber Ducky and smaller creations like Conestoga Star (a motorized Radio Flyer wagon) and Finkmobile (a tiny five-wheeler with seating for one). By 1983, he had reconciled his past with his faith and began printing T-shirts again. He also self-published books on painting and working with fiberglass.


Endowed with an unremittingly youthful spirit, Roth captured the imagination of millions of young Americans during the 1960s who, as adults today, fondly remember his legacy: monsters and wild cars that captured their imaginations. Beginning in 1977 at Movie World, Rat Fink Reunions have brought together Roth fans and fanatics, and even Ed Roth himself. Once disdained, his vehicles are now carefully preserved and command prices that Roth would have thought absurd.

Long Live Big Daddy
For many years the arts that Roth embraced (drawing cartoons, pinstriping, and sculpting fiberglass) were not appreciated in the mainstream art world. His style of low-brow art with its working class roots, focus on individualizing mass produced products, and garish and grotesque anti-authoritarian aesthetic, was never fully accepted. But during the last two decades, the talents displayed by Ed Roth and his counter culture collaborators have become the focus of museum exhibits and art auctions. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth died in 2000, but his works live on to remind us of an important period of social change, and inspire those who seek to embrace their own spirit of nonconformity.