Roth was born March 4, 1932, in Beverly Hills to German Lutheran parents. He took what he inherited from Von Dutch and, between them, they created an American art form.” “But he got absolutely no academic recognition. “He was a very singular figure and probably one of the best-known American artists in the country,” Robert Williams, who worked as Roth’s art director from 1965 to 1970, said Thursday. In the last two decades, as art museums and other institutions have begun taking a closer look at pop culture, Roth and his peers gained more respect from the academics who had long dismissed their works as lowbrow. His fans admired the energy and anti-establishment attitude he carried throughout his life. “I know what I am,” Roth told The Times in 1973. The company canceled his contract in 1967. Revell, however, lost its love for Roth when he began hanging out with members of the Hells Angels as his interest in customizing motorcycles grew. Roth, who was 6 feet 4, mentioned that he had been called “Big Ed” in high school, so the publicist suggested “Big Daddy,” which Roth loved. It was a Revell publicity man who came up with Roth’s nickname after telling him, “We can’t put ‘Beatnik Bandit by Ed Roth’ on the box.” The Revell company sold millions of Big Daddy Roth model car kits, from which Roth received a royalty of 1 cent each. The character’s wise-guy, street smart attitude lives on in such descendants as Bart Simpson, Ren & Stimpy and the foulmouthed “South Park” kids. Rat Fink’s sinister glare, razor-sharp teeth and bulging, bloodshot eyes became ubiquitous on T-shirts, posters and car decals in the ‘60s. Roth developed Rat Fink in the ‘50s as the underground culture’s response to Mickey Mouse. “His stuff was all outrageous,” said Dick Messer at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, where the Outlaw car now resides. Nora Donnelly, who organized the “Customized” exhibition for the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, where it premiered last fall, said: “An enormous amount of people have been influenced by him, in the hot rod art world as well as in the contemporary art world.” “He and Von Dutch and Robert Williams represent the trio of legendary figures who really shaped the aesthetics of hot rod culture and the art that came from it.” “He really is the Big Daddy,” Fleurov said. His influence on the culture of Southern California was huge, said Ellen Fleurov, museum director at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, where Roth’s works are on display in “Customized: Art Inspired by Hot Rods, Lowriders and American Car Culture.” He had first gained fame with the Beatnik Bandit in 1958 and a fiberglass hot rod called the Outlaw in 1959. In fact, Roth had been at work Wednesday morning on the latest in a long line of custom vehicles. The cause of death had not been determined, Chodosh said Thursday, but he said Roth had been in good health.
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Roth’s wife, Ilene, found him dead Wednesday in his workshop near their home in Manti, Utah, said his business associate and friend, David Chodosh.
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The hot rod community has now been subdivided into two main groups: street rodders and hot rodders.Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, the sign painter turned car designer whose outrageous automotive creations and grungy cartoon alter ego, Rat Fink, made him an outlaw icon of Southern California pop culture of the 1950s and ‘60s, has died. There is still a vibrant hot rod culture worldwide, especially in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Sweden. According to the Hot Rod Industry Alliance (HRIA) the term changes in meaning over the years, but "hot rodding has less to do with the vehicle and more to do with an attitude and lifestyle." For example, hot rods were favorites for greasers.
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Other origin stories include replacing the engine's camshaft or "rod" with a higher performance version. For example, some say that the term "hot" refers to the vehicle's being stolen. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. Many are intended for exhibition rather than for racing or everyday driving. Most often they are individually designed and constructed using components from many makes of old or new cars, and are most prevalent in the United States and Canada. One definition is: "a car that's been stripped down, souped up and made to go much faster." However, there is no definition of the term that is universally accepted and the term is attached to a wide range of vehicles. Hot rods are typically American cars that might be old, classic, or modern and that have been rebuilt or modified with large engines optimised for speed and acceleration.