Monday, November 16, 2009

Von Dutch Monday IX

Von Dutch wandering around Lance Reventlow's Scarab racing sports car pits at Riverside in '58. Dutch did all the scalloping, lettering, striping and the "Scarab" emblem on all of Reventlow's cars.

Quotes from Von Dutch:

On striping and painting, in 1958: "Too much of the same thing, and nothing new in sight. It was interesting to go from cycles to rods, then to Detroit cars, then to sports cars. Now where? About the only new things for me are bicycles, and there aren't enough of them".

On changing his name to Von Dutch: "Who'd ever remember a name like Kennith Howard? I needed something unusual - a tag the customer would only have to hear once to remember".

On what he charged, and why: " There's a struggle you have to go thru, and if you make a lot of money it doesn't make the struggle go away. It just makes it more complicated. If you keep poor, the struggle is simple".

"That's why I never overcharge anybody, and never made this thing commercial. You can't do good work if you're thinking about the money angle all the time. To me, the work is important, that's the number one".

And finally, Von Dutch just being Von Dutch: "The easy thing in life is realizing that everybody else is full of bullshit. The hard thing in life is realizing you might be full of bullshit, too".

2 comments:

drsprocket said...

That last line is a keeper!

CycleDelicCycles said...

Dr: Man, no doubt. Wise words and a great work ethic. Dude never cease to impress me, on many, many levels.