Inspired by Roth and Barris Kustoms (whose shirts were airbrushed by Dean Jeffries), Detroit native Stanley Miller, a.k.a. The article featured Roth along with fellow Kustom Kulture pioneers Dean Jeffries and Pete Millar. By the August 1959 issue of Car Craft 'Weirdo shirts' had become a full-blown craze with Roth at the forefront of the movement. Roth began airbrushing and selling 'Weirdo' T-shirts at car shows and in the pages of Car Craft magazine as early as July 1958. Roth is best known for his grotesque caricatures-typified by Rat Fink-depicting imaginary, out-sized monsters driving representations of the hot rods that he and his contemporaries built. Career The 1961 Beatnik Bandit hot rod at the National Automobile Museum, Reno, Nevada The 1962 Mysterion at Stahls Automotive Collection Orbitron 1964. He studied engineering at a Los Angeles college, then served in the United States air force, and, by the early '50s, was experimenting with fibreglass modelling. He grew up in Bell, California, attending Bell High School, where his classes included auto shop and art.Īt age 14 Roth acquired his first car, a 1933 Ford coupe. He was the son of Marie (Bauer) and Henry Roth.

Roth was born in Beverly Hills, California. Roth was a key figure in Southern California's Kustom Kulture and hot rod movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth (March 4, 1932 – April 4, 2001) was an American artist, cartoonist, illustrator, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot rod icon Rat Fink and other characters.

Rat fink models outlaw