KENNY HOWARD PT. II | THE MASTER PAINTER, STRIPER & CUSTOM FABRICATOR ALSO KNOWN AS VON DUTCH

What Ever Happened to Von Dutch? --Modern Cycle magazine, 1965

WORLD FAMOUS BODY STRIPER NOW "IN HIDING" AT SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CYCLE SHOP.

Automotive striping, whether for motorcycles or cars, was a dead art form in this country when 15-year-old Von Dutch went to work in George Beerup's motorcycle shop back in the mid forties. Six or seven years later is was a thriving trade carried on by several hundred artistically inclined body men around the country, and no self-respecting Hot Rodder would consider his customizing finished until the striping had been put on.

Few people realize that striping, even to this day is strictly a hand craft. At the Triumph factory, for instance, one elderly gentleman who appears to have been with the company for a century, spends his working day doing nothing but placing the finishing stripes o fenders and fuel tanks by hand. The same is true at the Enfield works... and the Rolls Royce works.

The last automobile hand striping by American car makers was done by General Motors cars in 1938 (excluding, of course, any special bodies created later). Then, nearly 20 years later, youthful car customers brought it back in vogue with some outlandish designs, often believing they were doing something entirely new. The man who started the vogue was a young motorcycle mechanic named Von Dutch.

Today Dutch is "in hiding" as a result of the reputation he built. Working as a mechanic once again, he'll do an occasional striping job on a fender or a tank for a friend. But he made us promise not to identify the shop where he works because "I don't want any damn kids around here trying to get me to stripe their cars."

DUTCH STRIPES WITHOUT ANY PLANNING WHATSOEVER. HE DID THIS JOB IN APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES, TALKING CONSTANTLY WITH PHOTOGRAPHER JIM SULLIVAN. DUTCH DIPS HIS DAGGER STRIPING BRUSH ON HIS FAVORITE PALET, THE TELEPHONE BOOK.

At 15, Von Dutch was what he called "the gunk boy" in George Beerup's motorcycle shop in Southern California when he took one of the bikes home, painted it and striped it with his father's brushes. (The elder Von Dutch had done some motorcycle striping and worked mostly as a sign painter.) When he brought the bike back, Beerup refused to believe he had done the striping himself. So he got the brushes and did another job. As soon as Beerup saw what he could do, he took Dutch off mechanical work and put him to painting and striping, and for the next decade he built a reputation he didn't want.

"I'm a mechanic first," he says. "If I had my way, I'd be a gunsmith, but there isn't enough of that kind of work to make a living. I like to make things out of metal, because metal is forever. When you paint something, how long does it last? A few years, and then it's gone."

ABOVE, TOP: IN CASE YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE IT, THAT'S AN M-1 DUTCH IS POLISHING. THIS IS DUTCH'S IDEA FOR A SCOTT-POWERED MACHINE USING REYNOLDS TYPE FORKS AND MODERN REAR SUSPENSION, WITH DISC BRAKES.

ABOVE RIGHT: ANOTHER OF DUTCH'S DREAMS, UTILIZING A 750cc INLINE FOUR WITH "OFFENHAUSER CHARACTERISTICS," EARLES TYPE FORKS AND THE SWING ARM OF CAST MAGNESIUM FORMING A CHAIN CASE, THE WHOLE AFAIR SWINGING ON THE AXIS OF THE COUNTERSHAFT TO ELIMINATE CHAIN DEFLECTION.

ABOVE, BOTTOM: DUTCH ON HIS BABY, A 1930 SCOTT "FLYING SQUIRREL" 600cc WATER COOLED TWO STROKER. With 5 1/:1 COMPRESSION IT DEVELOPS 33 hp AT 4500 rpm. COMPLETELY RESTORED, IT IS UNMODIFIED EXCEPT FOR A SEPARATE OIL TANK, SUPPLYING LUBRICANT UNDER PRESSURE TO MAINS AND CRANKPINS.

For the next several years, Dutch worked at nothing but motorcycle painting and striping moving from shop to shop, "saturating each area," he says. By the mid fifties he had still not touched a car, but had painted and striped thousands of bikes. After a year or so of building his reputation,

"Striping cars started as a gag when I was working Al Titus' motorcycle shop down in Lynwood," Dutch says. Then the idea ballooned. He was hired to stripe some custom jobs for one of the auto shows, an while there was approached by a man known as the Crazy Arab who thought it could be worked into a full time occupation. Dutch didn't believe it, but he tried it, and for the next three years he worked at it until "it nearly drove me out of my mind."

When Von Dutch quit striping around 1958, his talents were still in great demand. Customers all over the country had heard of him, and cars had come as far away as the East Coast to be striped. Moreover, when a car owner came to him, he didn't tell Dutch what he wanted: he just told him how much time he was willing to purchase. The designs were up to Dutch, and some of them were as wild and far out as his eccentric imagination. He had hundreds of imitators, and when you went to a body shop to inquire about such work, you didn't ask if they knew how to stripe, you asked if they knew how to "Von Dutch."

Despite this, Dutch never made any money from striping, because money is something he hates, as unorthodox as that sounds. After a year or so of building his reputation, he doubled his hourly rate just to weed out some of the customers. So many were coming to him that he couldn't stand it anymore. But the gambit didn't work. No matter how much he charged, he still did better work for less money than any competitor.

He could have charged much more. He could have charged $20 an hour and gotten away with it easily back then. Moreover, he could have done six or eight cars a day, if he really wanted to work at all. But Dutch is blissfully devoid of the driving force that motivates most Americans. He couldn't care less about material possessions.

"I make a point of staying right at the bridge of poverty. I don't have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I own are the ones I have on. I don't have anything else to put on my feet. I don't spend money on unnecessary stuff, so i don't have to have a lot of money. I don't need it. I keep as poor as I can and just get along. I like that. I believe that's the way it's meant to be. There's a struggle you have to go through, 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 overcharged anybody, or 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 number one."

Most of Dutch's custom work is now done exclusively on antique motorcycles belonging to the shop where he works. The shop is not known to have a painting department, but a fellow in North Carolina, who knew where to go, sent them a tank and fenders from a brand new Triumph to be painted as they saw fit, and Dutch did the work.

Dutch's personal motorcycle is a 1930 Scott twin, a two stroke water-cooled job that most motorcycle enthusiasts had never heard of. When something wears out on it, he manufactures the part himself. He also has a customized Honda, of which he says, "I had to paint it so I could find it. There are so many around that mine was getting lost in the crowd."

Dutch's whole life is more or less devoted to individualism, to expressing himself. He says he can no longer take paint work as a steady diet, but once you get him started on a project, you can't stop him until his imagination is temporarily worn out. He takes plain metal and turns it into a gun of his own design. Lately, he has taken to engraving designs on Aluminum fenders.

There seems to be no end to his creative aptitudes, despite his refusal to use them for profit. One of his co-workers calls him "That artistic creep," but in may ways he's the Einstein of the motor world.

HUSQVARNA | THE SCREAMIN' SWEDE SUPER-BIKE THAT STARTED A MOTORCYCLE RACING REVOLUTION

The bike that got American motocross off the ground-- the 1963 Husqvarna (Husky) Racer. This unrestored bike is No. 59 of just 100 250cc race machines Husqvarna built in ’63.

With its signature red and chrome glistening gas tank, the Husqvarna (or “Husky” as it’s affectionately known) was a stunning beauty of a bike, and a mud-slinging beast on the American motocross circuit. Back in the 1960s, the increasingly popular sport of American motocross was bogged down by clumsily modified (not to mention heavy) Harley-Davidson, Triumph & BSA road bikes. It was lumbering in antiquity and in dire need of innovation. Enter Edison Dye.

While on a motorcycle tour of Europe, Dye took particular note of European motocross and the lighter-weight, nimble, two-stroke bikes that were in stark contrast to the American scene. Swedish maker Husqvarna particulary stood out with their alloy engine components, and distinctive exhaust. He asked motorcycling legend Malcolm Smith (Steve McQueen’s riding chum in “On Any Sunday”) to take a Husky and put it through its paces for him. Upon Smith’s glowing review, Edison Dye decided to sign on as Husqvarna’s U.S. importer. The Screamin’ Swede was about to take American motocross by storm.

Heikki Mikkola, the “Flyin’ Finn” was one of the most popular and feared motocross racers of the 1970s. During his illustrious career, Mikkola collected four World Grand Prix Motocross Championship titles. In 1974 he won the World Grand Prix 500cc Championship on a Husqvarna.

In the early 1970s, Steve McQueen was the man (still is). He was the highest-paid star of the silver screen, a major sex symbol and an obsessed motorhead with a staggering collection of sports cars, four-wheelers and of course– bikes. So when McQueen dropped his trusty Triumph in favor of the new Husqvarna 400 Cross – overnight Husky became the only off-road bike that seemed to matter. The Husky also got a starring role alongside Steve McQueen (as well as riding legends Mert Lawwill and Malcolm Smith) in Director Bruce Brown’s classic– ”On Any Sunday”.

Bruce Brown recounts working with McQueen and the significant impact the film had–

“I remember going to Ascot Park and watching the dirt track races,” Brown said. “I met a few of the racers and was struck by how approachable and how nice most of these guys were. It wasn’t at all like the image a lot of people had about motorcycle riders in those days. I just thought it would be neat to do a movie about motorcycle racing and the people involved.”

Even though Brown already had a successful movie to his credit, he found that financing a film on motorcycling wasn’t going to be easy.

The Husqvarna 400 Cross-- The bike Steve McQueen made an overnight legend, and highly collectible.

“I talked to a few folks and knew that Steve McQueen was a rider,” Brown said. “Even though I’d never met him, I set up a meeting to talk about doing ‘On Any Sunday.’ We talked about the concept of the film, which he really liked. Then he asked what I wanted him to do in the film. I told him I wanted him to finance it. He laughed and told me he acted in films, he didn’t finance them. I then jokingly told him, ‘Alright, then, you can’t be in the movie.’

“The next day after the meeting, I got a call and it was McQueen. He told me to go ahead and get the ball rolling with movie — he’d back it.”

At one point, Brown found a perfect location for a sunset beach riding shot — Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.

“I figured there would be no way to get approval to film on the Marine base,” Brown recalls. “Steve McQueen said he’d see what he could find out. The next day he called and told to contact some General and the next thing you know we are shooting the beach sequences. It was pretty amazing the doors he was able to open.”

“On Any Sunday” seemed to strike a chord with youngsters. Kids would hide in movie theater bathrooms between showings so they could watch the film two or three times in one day. Thousands of kids across the country started saving money from their paper routes and summer jobs to buy a minibike after being inspired by the movie.

1970 Husqvarna 250 eight-speed, just like the one ridden by Malcolm Smith in”On Any Sunday”. “The Husky 250 eight-speed was just a really easy bike to ride,” Smith recalls. “It wasn’t super powerful, but on the fast roads of Elsinore, I could go over 100 mph. And because of the eight-speed gearbox, I could easily negotiate the tight stuff.”

“I think many people changed their minds about motorcyclists after watching the movie,” Brown said. “One particularly funny story was told by Mert Lawwill. Being a motorcycle racer he was sort of considered the Black Sheep of the family. The old patriarch of the family, Lawwill’s grandmother-in-law, went to see the movie and in the middle of one of the scenes featuring Lawwill she stood up and shouted, ‘That’s my grandson!’ Suddenly he was the big hero of the family.”

Malcolm Smith flat-out gettin’ after it, Husqvarna style.

Steve McQueen on his Husqvarna 1971 400cc Cross. This is the bike that Steve rode on screen -- "On Any Sunday".

Steve McQueen romping on his Husqvarna 400 Cross –Sports Illustrated, 1971.

The legendary motorcyclist and Husqvarna rider– Malcolm Smith.

Wrenchmonkees’ insane flat track inspired Harley Davidson Sportster with an old Husqvarna tank.

"REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE" CURSE |THE CURIOUS CAST OF CHARACTERS AND TRAGIC DEATHS BEHIND THE 1955 FILM

James Dean as Jim Stark in "Rebel Without a Cause"

The 1950s were a very cool time, I only wish I could have experienced them for myself. It is a time in American pop culture that is highly idealized for it’s music, fashion, style and culture. Everyone looked incredible, and seemed so squeaky clean– but you just knew there had to be much more going on behind the scenes. Rebel Without a Cause is one of the most iconic films from that era, and the stories behind the making of the James Dean classic are as incredible as the movie itself. And truth be told, Dean was not the only rebel on the set. Nicholas Ray, Dennis Hopper, Nick Adams and Natalie Wood definitely held there own. There is a great article from the Vanity Fair archives that is definitely required reading if you’re a fan of the film. They get into some of the details about the Rebel wardrobe and off-screen shenanigans that I have excerpted and added to–

Natalie Wood, James Dean, and Nick Ray

Striving for authenticity in every detail, Ray turned his attention to the high-school gang members who surround and threaten Jim Stark. One of the actors he interviewed was Frank Mazzola, the leader of a real gang called the Athenians. Mazzola had been weeded out by the casting director but muscled his way in to see Ray anyway. “They thought that because I was in a gang, I might create problems on the set. I came out of the Depression, really,” Mazzola explains in a West Hollywood restaurant, his hair, still jet black, tied back in a ponytail. “We didn’t have any pop culture. The guys that we loved flew, like my uncle, a pilot in the Second World War. Everybody I knew wanted to grow up and fly P-38s.… And so these clubs started forming—ours was called the Athenians. We defended our turf. You’d probably get in two or three fights a night just defending Hollywood. It was like a sport.”

James Dean and Natalie Wood on the set of "Rebel Without a Cause"

Ray not only cast Mazzola, he gave him an office on the Warner lot, from which he could serve as technical adviser on gang behavior. Ray instructed him to hang out with Dean and take him to meetings of the Athenians. “I want you to get us the cars, tell us what kind of clothes we should be wearing,” Ray told him. Mazzola had the wardrobe department buy the gang’s clothes at Matson’s, on Hollywood Boulevard, where the Athenians bought their club jackets. The wardrobe department then soiled and laundered more than 400 pairs of Levi 501s for the cast. –I would love to get my hands on those old selvedge jeans.

The iconic Baracuta jacket is often credited as the famous red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause -- but some say it was a McGregor or fabricated by the film’s costume designer Moss Mabry, as he himself claims. There are accounts from staffers that it was bought at Matson’s men’s store for use in the 1955 film, but costume designer Moss Mabry has insisted all along that he made three of the jackets from a bolt of red nylon, and painstakingly worked on the size of the collar and the placement of the pockets. “Even though the jacket looked simple,” Mabry said, “it wasn’t.” Mabry even designed a special bra for Natalie Wood for the film Rebel, which became known as the “Natalie Wood bra,” though he declined to reveal the secret of its design.

Dennis Hopper and Nick Ray many years after "Rebel Without a Cause"

Natalie Wood, who was only 16 at the time, soon became involved with director Nicholas Ray. Wood’s affair with Ray awakened her sexuality—and emboldened her to initiate another love affair, this one with Dennis Hopper, who had been cast as Goon. “I was astonished,” Hopper later said. “I came from a very conventional, middle-class family in San Diego … and this was the 1950s, when girls who’d turned sixteen only a few months earlier just didn’t do things like that.” The sexually charged situation created ill will between Ray and Hopper. Maria Gurdin, having found out about both affairs, complained to Warner Bros. that Hopper was involved with her daughter; ever ambitious for Natalie, she didn’t mention that Ray was as well. “I was furious with [Nick Ray],” Hopper said about the incident. “The studio came down on me, and he came out of it as pure as snow.” The two ran into each other years later at a Grateful Dead concert and buried the hatchet. Hopper went as far as to help the grizzled Ray get back on his feet, and even helped him land a job teaching film students at Binghamton University. Nicholas Ray is a fascinating character and some of the details of his life are pretty heavy stuff– read the Vanity Fair article and find out more.

James Dean and Sal Mineo

Sal Mineo—so affecting as the essentially fatherless outcast Plato—later commented that he had portrayed the first gay teenager on film. There are little clues: the photograph of Alan Ladd taped to his locker door, his longing looks at Jim Stark, his disguised declaration of love in the abandoned mansion. Ray was aware of Dean’s bisexuality and encouraged the actor to use it in certain scenes. Dean instructed Mineo, “Look at me the way I look at Natalie,” for their intimate scene in the Getty mansion. It had to be subtle. A Production Code officer had written in a memo to Jack L. Warner on March 22, “It is of course vital that there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship between Plato and Jim.” In real life Mineo was gay, and it is even rumored that he and Ray (who was bisexual) also had a tryst while filming Rebel.

Dennis Hopper and James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause"

The real life drama behind "Rebel Without a Cause" is still a riddle wrapped in mystery. James Dean's fatal car crash one month before the film's release resulted in the beginning of the "Rebel death curse" theories, which were further fueled when Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo and Nick Adams also suffered eerie, premature deaths. There's still plenty of talk and speculation about who actually slept with whom -- and the controversy that clouds the issue of who was the true voice behind "Rebel Without a Cause" — Nicholas Ray or James Dean?

ART ICON JACKSON POLLOCK | THE LEGENDARY AND MISUNDERSTOOD PAINTER ALSO KNOWN AS "JACK THE DRIPPER"

Painter Jackson Pollock (seated R) sitting on the steps of painter Thomas Hart Benton's summer home w. Rita Benton (sitting, in white hat) and author Coburn Gilman (standing). Martha's Vineyard, ca. 1937.

THE ORIGINAL POST ON JACKSON POLLOCK, DONE WITHIN THE FIRST WEEK OF THESELVEDGEYARD's INCEPTION, CONTINUES TO BE ONE OF TSY's TOP POSTS EVER. I THINK IT SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT POLLOCK'S RELEVANCE, TIMELESSNESS, AND MYSTIQUE. OBVIOUSLY THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN AND HIS LEGENDARY WORK THAT KEEPS PEOPLE COMING BACK DAY AFTER DAY, YEARS AFTER HIS PASSING.

Artist Jackson Pollock painting in his Springs, NY studio, ca. 1949.

ART ICON JACKSON POLLOCK WAS A MAJOR FORCE IN THE ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM MOVEMENT, AND KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE ART WORLD AS A DARK AND MOODY MAVERICK. HE WAS UNDENIABLY AN OBSESSED AND INNOVATIVE GENIUS, AND MUCH MORE. POLLOCK'S TECHNIQUE HAS BEEN CAREFULLY STUDIED OVER THE YEARS, AND IT'S THOUGHT BY MANY THAT SOME OF HIS WORKS CONTAIN PROPERTIES SPECIFIC TO MATHEMATIC FRACTALS, AND THAT THE WORKS AS A WHOLE BECOME MORE FRACTAL-LIKE CHRONOLOGICALLY. SOME EVEN GO SO FAR AS TO SPECULATE THAT POLLOCK MAY HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THE NATURE OF CHAOTIC MOTION, AND THROUGH HIS PAINTINGS WAS CREATING WHAT HE PERCEIVED AS PERFECT REPRESENTATIONS OF MATHEMATICAL CHAOS -- AND ALL THIS MORE THAN 10 YEARS BEFORE CHAOS THEORY WAS DISCOVERED. SO I ASK YOU -- IS IT ARTISTIC INSPIRATION, MATHEMATICAL GENIUS, RANDOM DRIPPINGS, OR ALL OF THE ABOVE?

Jackson Pollock's "One: Number 31", painted 1950.

CLICK HERE TO SEE AN AMAZING OLD FILM ON THE ARTIST, STARRING AND NARRATED BY NONE OTHER THAN JACKSON POLLOCK HIMSELF. WATCHING THE FILM, IT STRUCK ME THROUGH HIS STIFF VOICE AND PHRASING THAT THIS WAS DEFINITELY A SOCIALLY AWKWARD MAN, WHO FELT MORE COMFORTABLE IN HIS ART THAN AROUND PEOPLE. ALL THE TALES AND ACCOUNTS THAT SURROUND HIS LIFE, AND THE AMAZING PORTRAYAL IN FILM BY ED HARRIS, DEFINITELY SUPPORT THIS AS WELL.

Painter Jackson Pollock, master of chaos, in his Springs, NY studio.

SADLY IN 1955, THE WORLD LOST A LEGEND. AFTER A LONG AND TUMULTUOUS STRUGGLE WITH ALCOHOLISM, EVER DEEPENED BY THE PRESSURES OF FAME AND HIS AUDIENCE'S EXPECTATIONS, POLLOCK CRASHED HIS CAR LESS THAN A MILE FROM HIS EAST HAMPTON HOME AND WAS KILLED. HIS INFLUENCE LIVES ON TODAY IN ANOTHER WAY, AS HE WAS NOT JUST A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR PAINTERS, ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS WHO EMULATE HIS STYLE -- BUT ALSO THE COUNTLESS FASHION DESIGNERS AND VINTAGE CLOTHING NUTS WHO FOR YEARS HAVE CAREFULLY STUDIED OLD PHOTOS OF POLLOCK. THEY SCRUTINIZE EVERY DETAIL OF HIS WORN & SPLATTERED DENIM AND WORKWEAR -- AN INSPIRATION AND LEGACY THAT EVEN JACKSON POLLOCK HIMSELF CERTAINLY NEVER IMAGINED HE'D HAVE.

Painter Jackson Pollock, also a huge inspiration to men's workwear designers, in his Springs, East Hampton, NY studio.

Jackson Pollock in his Springs, NY painting studio, ca. 1949.

Jackson Pollock with a Long Island neighbor, amateur artist Mary Monteverdi, looking over her works, ca. 1949.

Painter Jackson Pollock, and wife Lee Krasner, talking with a guest at their East Hampton home, ca. 1949.

Husband & wife artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner walking outside on Long Island with their dog, ca. 1949.

Group portrait of American Abstract Expressionists, "The Irascibles." From left, rear: Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottleib, Ad Reinhardt, Hedda Sterne;(next row) Richard Pousette-Dart, William Baziotes, Jimmy Ernst (w. bow tie), Jackson Pollock (in striped jacket), James Brooks, Clyfford Still (leaning on knee), Robert Motherwell, Bradley Walker Tomlin; (in foreground) Theodoros Stamos (on bench), Barnett Newman (on stool), Mark Rothko (with glasses), NY, NY, ca. 1950.

VINTAGE SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ca. 1966 | STEVE McQUEEN REVIEWS THE HOTTEST NEW GT's

I STILL GET GOOSE PIMPLES

BY STEVE McQUEEN WITH KEN RUDEEN

A STAR AMONG FAST FRIENDS

STEVE McQUEEN IS SOMEWHAT BETTER KNOWN AS A MOVIE ACTOR ("THE GREAT ESCAPE," "NEVADA SMITH") THAN AS A DRIVER OF FAST CARS. BUT AS HE DEMONSTRATES BELOW, CORNERING SMARTLY IN THE NEW JAGUAR 2+2, AND AS HE SAYS IN THE STORY BEGINNING ON PAGE 39, HE "AIN'T A BAD DRIVER, EITHER." FORMERLY A SPORTS CAR RACER OF PROMISE, McQUEEN WAS ORDERED OFF THE TRACKS BY HIS STUDIO, ON THE THEORY HIS BEAUTIFULLY BATTERED FACE NEEDS NO FURTHER CORRUGATIONS. HE HAS NOT LOST HIS ENTHUSIASM FOR SWIFT MOTORING, HOWEVER, AND WHEN SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ASKED HIM TO DRIVE EIGHT OF THE WORLD'S MOST DISTINGUISHED GRAND TOURING CARS ON THE RACE COURSE AT RIVERSIDE, CALIF., HE WAS, AS THEY SAY, FLAT OUT. KEEP READING FOR PICTURES OF STEVE IN A REAL-LIFE ROLE, AND FOR HIS ANALYSIS OF THE STATE OF THE GRAND TOURING ART IN THIS MIDSUMMER 1966.

SIZING UP THE NEW JAGUAR 2+2, DRIVER McQUEEN FOUND IT "VERY SMOOTH DOWN THE BACK STRAIGHT AT 110 MPH," YET STILL SUITABLE FOR TRIPS WITH THE FAMILY. MRS. McQUEEN, HE REPORTED, WAS "KIND OF KEEN ON IT."

THE CORVETTE STING RAY (ABOVE) IMPRESSED McQUEEN -- AND SURPRISED HIM A LITTLE -- WITH ITS POWER, FINE HANDLING AND ACCURATE STEERING. TOP MODEL ($5,538) HAS A BIG 427-INCH V-8 ENGINE AND HEAVY DUTY SUSPENSION.

THE FERRARI 275 GTS WITH A 3.3-LITER V-12 ENGINE, REAR-MOUNTED FIVE SPEED GEARBOX AND PININFARINA COACHWORK DREW A WORSHIPFUL "WOW!" FROM STEVE, WHO REGARDS FERRARI AS A SUPREME ENGINEER. PRICE: $14,500.

THE ALFA ROMEO SPIDER (ABOVE), THE LATEST MODEL FROM SMALL, DISTINGUISHED MILAN WORKS, CORNERED BRILLIANTLY, AND HAD SUPERIOR BRAKES. McQUEEN ALSO ADMIRED ITS LOOKS, BUT WOULD HAVE LIKED MORE POWER IN A $4,000 CAR.

THE PORSCHE 911 DELIGHTED McQUEEN WITH PREDICTABLE HANDLING IN FURIOUS CORNERING, PROVING THAT PORSCHE HAS SOLVED THE OVERSTEER PROBLEMS STEVE REMEMBERED FROM HIS RACING DAYS. THIS REAR-ENGINED 6 COSTS: $6,450.

THE ASTON MARTIN DB6 (ABOVE), THE MOST EXPENSIVE MODEL TESTED ($15,400), STRUCK McQUEEN AS A "GENTLEMAN'S CAR" IN ITS CLEAN DESIGN, LUXURIOUS APPOINTMENTS, AND VIRILE PERFORMANCE, BUT FIFTH GEAR WAS DISAPPOINTING.

THE SHELBY COBRA 427 WAS "A REAL STOPLIGHT BANDIT" ON ACCELERATION, ATTESTING TO THE STRENGTH OF ITS 7-LITER PUSHROD V-8. McQUEEN WAS LESS PLEASED WITH ITS HANDLING, AND FELT THE SEAT BELT POSITIONING SHOULD BE IMPROVED. PRICE: $7,495.

THE MERCEDES 230SL WAS HANDSOME AND HANDLED WELL. "I DROVE IT HARD AND GOT IT OUT OF SHAPE A BIT," McQUEEN NOTED, "AND IT BEHAVED VERY NICELY, NEVER TRIED TO BITE ME." THE MERCEDES AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION WAS THE BEST FROM EUROPE HE HAD SEEN, "VERY SUITABLE FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE TO SHIFT."

VIA STEVE McQUEEN ONLINE

ANITA PALLENBERG | THE ROLLING STONES BOHEMIAN STYLE MUSE AND SENSUAL SOULMATE

Anita Pallenberg entered The Rolling Stones’ lives when in 1965 a friend took her to Munich for one of their concerts, and they worked their way backstage. Anita offered The Stones some hash, but they said they couldn’t smoke before a concert– though Brian Jones was ‘kind enough’ to invite her to his hotel room afterwards. They stayed together for two years but he was increasingly abusive, drunk and paranoid. On holiday in Morocco in 1967, Keith saw Brian beating Anita up and grabbed her, threw her in his car and took her back to England. She from then on lived with Keith Richards.

Life with the Stones was fun at the beginning, Pallenberg says, because they were always playing music– but soured once they became a huge money-making machine. She says she didn’t even see them that much, “because at that time no girls were allowed in the studio when they were recording. You weren’t allowed even to ring. I did other things, I didn’t sit at home.”

What she did do– a few films, lots of drugs and tons of screwing around…

Sexy, insatiable Anita Pallenberg with son Marlon Richards.

Author A. E. Hotchner has this to say about Pallenberg’s influence on the development and presentation of The Rolling Stones from the late 1960s and through the 1970s– She played an unusual role in the male-dominated world of rock music in the late 1960s, acting as much more than just a groupie or partner of a band member. Mick Jagger apparently respected her opinion enough that tracks on Beggars Banquet were remixed when Pallenberg criticised them. In the 2002 compilation release of Forty Licks, Pallenberg is credited as singing background vocals on Sympathy for the Devil.

Throughout the decade that she was Richards’ companion in vice, her interest in the occult was a featured style component that marked The Stones concerts and public presentation. Tony Sanchez’s account of his time as Richards’ bodyguard and drug dealer mentions Pallenberg’s strange spiritual practices– ”She was obsessed with black magic and began to carry a string of garlic with her everywhere — even to bed—to ward off vampires. She also had a strange mysterious old shaker for holy water which she used for some of her rituals. Her ceremonies became increasingly secret, and she warned me never to interrupt her when she was working on a spell.”

Anita Pallenberg more than shared Richards’ drug addiction and was charged in the 1977 Toronto heroin arrest that almost destroyed The Rolling Stones. A warrant for her arrest was the reason that police came to search Richards and Pallenberg’s hotel rooms; she pled guilty to marijuana possession and was fined, several weeks after Richards’ headline-grabbing arrest. Richards and Pallenberg separated on the advice of Richards’ lawyers, who believed that if they stayed together, they would end up in more serious trouble. Richards stated that he still loved Anita and saw her as much as he ever did, despite his relationship with his future wife Patti Hansen. In a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, Mick Jagger claimed that Pallenberg “nearly killed me“, when he was asked whether The Rolling Stones had any responsibility for the personal drug addictions of people close to the band.

There were persisting rumors that Anita Pallenburg also had a brief affair with Keith Richards’ band-mate Mick Jagger while the two worked together during the filming of Performance, although Pallenberg denies this. Personally, I wouldn’t put it past either of them, if you know what I mean. They both were easy pickin’ back then .

Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg BK-- Before Keith.

Wild and insatiable Anita Pallenberg proved to be a handful, even for Keith Richards.

Anita Pallenberg's personal style was said to rub off on The Stones and influenced the bands look. I kind of look at her as an early, "dirty" version of Tory Burch.

Often cited as The Rolling Stones' style muse-- Anita Pallenberg is seen here showing the boys how 1970s Bohemian chic is done.