RIP Robert "Bobbo" Dunn, a pinstripe legend has left us...copied from a message board.....
A little bit about Bobbo...
At 13 he began learning how to paint and letter at a sign shop in his hometown, Visalia, California. The owner told him he would teach him all he knew if Bobbo would work for free. Well, Bobbo worked hard but he wasn't being taught very much by the owner so he began watching very closely at what the old man did and became a fairly good sign painter by the time he was 15.
At this age his father got him a job lettering a sign for one of his personal friends who owned a plumbing company. Bobbo put his heart into that sign as it was his first and he wanted to please the customer but impress his father as well. The sign was lettered in a style to look like pipe with all the tees and elbows being airbrushed to give it a true 3-D effect. The owner was so pleased that he let Bobbo letter his trucks also. Needless to say, the owner of the sign company fired Bobbo for lettering those trucks. Seems the plumber was a customer of the sign company. Oh well, he wasn't getting paid anyway.
He practiced very hard and became very good at what he did no matter what it was. An auto dealer who he caddied for on week-ends was also the president of the local antique car club learned of his pinstriping abilities as he and Bobbo always talked about school and what Bobbo was learning (he had no son and couldn't relate much to his daughter). He lined up a lot of cars from the local club for Bobbo and pinstriping that first car was the longest and hardest time spent on any car. He became faster as each car was striped. This was 1948.
Bobbo also acquired work from other locals at the bowling alley where he worked nights setting pins and he would letter, paint and airbrush names and bowling balls and pins in 3-D on their bowling bags. After they saw what he had painted on his skate case he also painted and airbrushed winged roller skates on skate cases for his friends at the skating rink where he skated and played roller hockey. He lettered and airbrushed them for a real 3-D effect.
In the beginning years of custom painting, Bobbo was already a seasoned veteran of pinstriping and airbrush art. His beginning was in high school when schools taught commercial art classes . He majored in art, mechanical drawing and architecture. He earned a scholarship from General Motors in 1947 for designing and building a clay model in a GM contest. That drawing and model today would look a lot like some of the concept cars of the big three. He didn't use that scholarship because he had a driving urge to be one of the best artists in the US and later went on to get an AA degree in creative design to help pursue that dream.
He joined the army at the age of 17 in January l949 and after basic training was transferred to the Brooklyn Army Base in Brooklyn, NY and used his talents as a graphic artist assistant. But in early July 1950 he was transferred to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and went through training and became an airborne ranger. After training he was sent to Korea to be a moving target for the North Koreans and the Chinese during the Korean conflict. He was wounded three times and was awarded a few ribbons and then transferred to the rear to the third Logistical Command in Pusan.
There he created one of the first military sign shops in Korea. In January 1952 he was sent home on leave after his tour of duty in Korea. He worked in a military sign shop and painted lines on streets at the Presidio of San Francisco and in December 1953 he was discharged after almost five years in the service and returned home.
He worked as a truck driver, warehouse manager and managed a drive-in restaurant for the first four months after his discharge. His home town wasn't the same as it was when he went into the service so he moved to So. Calif. and got a job in a sign shop in Pomona. He quit for a better job in the display department at Sears. This would be great as he had plenty of time to work his hobby and get known for his work in Pomona. He started by painting bowling bags, skate cases and pinstriping and lettering cars and motorcycles the same as he did before entering the service. He married a local girl he had met at the roller skating rink. Soon after, he bought his first house in 1955 (for $13,675.) and set up shop in his garage.
His name "BOBBO" was given to him in 1952 by a girlfriend who was his dance partner while the two taught dancing for a dance studio in San Francisco while he was in the service. You can imagine how many Bobs are in a group of servicemen learning how to dance in a military service club. So she named him "BOBBO" to separate him from the other Bobs. This is the name he kept for signing the custom work he did from the 50's to the present.He was the original BOBBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When Kenny Howard, aka "VON DUTCH", created the new craze of auto painting and pinstriping, Bobbo already knew how to do all the things that Von Dutch started so he jumped on the band wagon (so to speak) and has been riding it ever since. The last time he saw Kenny was at the '87 "RATFINK" get together at Kim Dedic's in Anaheim.
Bobbo built a good reputation by lettering all kinds of race cars and drag cars of every sort and became well known for his lettering all over California and Arizona. It was in the 50's that he began teaching his trade to others as there weren't many doing this type of auto design work. Because of his reputation, he was called by his customers,"The Von Dutch of Pomona Valley", plus being the best known custom painter in the area and had work coming from all over the state but wouldn't do free work for magazines so he wasn't well known except by word of mouth. He was also known as the "Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries" of the Pomona Valley but painted scallops on vehicles before either one of them..
Bobbo painted, lettered and pinstriped more dragsters, streamliners, lakesters competition coupes, roadsters and street rods than anyone in the area. An auto dealer in Pomona hired him to paint a lot of cars similar to Von Dutch's so he could sell them as the originals. This dealer also sponsored many of the race cars Bobbo painted and lettered for the local racers and even held car shows on his used car lot to bring in customers.
Some of the cars were Shelton Shmidt's 34 coupe featured on the cover of Popular hot Rodding and Hot Rod Magazines, October 1962, Herb Reis's Dragster, Danylo and Pennington and Danylo and Reid's dragsters. Ed Taylor's 8 second roadster three times, Four of the five '65 Mustangs raced in 1965 and were shown in many magazines, Ron Root's Dodge Dart in '62, Bill Adair's "Dark Horse" dragster, Bill Casler's "Hooker Headers" cars and many others.
He has lettered and painted hundreds of different race cars for big named racers in his career. Ron Rivero and Norm Weekly's competition coupe,("The Isky Bandit"), Fox and Holding's Roadster featured on the cover of Rod and Custom, March 1961, before the four joined and became "The Frantic Four". He painted all but one of their cars that went on to upset some of the biggest names in drag racing.
Bobbo knew and visited the big name custom painters and even had the opportunity to work with a couple of them during the years of this new age of painting. He was one of the originals that kept the whole thing going. After all they were all friends. Von Dutch, Larry Watson, Dean Jeffries, George and Sam Barris, and of course his close friend who he helped create "RAT FINK" with, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and close local friend Ron Foreman. He would visit to see if the new ideas they were creating would work for him.
Yep, they sure did!! Learning to paint pearl was one of the best learning experiences as nothing is as pretty as a very good pearl paint job and Larry Watson was the best. With all the painting and striping he was doing, Bobbo ruled the Pomona Valley with two of the valley's best custom painters and stripers, Ron Foreman and Jim Regan.
In 1962 a local sign painter knew of Bobbo's talents and wanted him to manage his shop and merge the two businesses together. Bobbo agreed and they worked together for two and a half years. An agreement made between them was not kept so Bobbo left. He was asked by another sign company in Corona to work with him for more money so Bobbo went there to work but it only lasted six months. He just didn't like working with anyone who didn't pay or reneged on agreements so he opened his first real shop outside of his garage in 1965. It was only 1250 sq. ft. but that was big in 1965.
He worked in his shop until 1974 and decided to move to Grand Junction, Colorado. He moved and opened a custom paint shop and began building and painting vans as the craze was just growing and vans were in demand. He began building interiors and selling accessories so he named the business "The Van Man". In 1978 that fizzled and the van business craze died out and he moved back to So. Cal. and re-established his business. He worked steadily and happily at his job until 1990.
He sold his shop to a student and friend of his, Tim McColgan and moved back to Colorado to retire. But as time would have it, in 1992, Bobbo was called by Sign Business Magazine as he had won the first Auto Art Contest with his van. They had showcased some of his work in 1989 and 1990. The editor, Terry Wike wanted to feature Bobbo in an article and had to spend a whole day getting all the information he needed and returned to Broomfield, Colorado to work on getting it into print
Terry found Bobbo to be very versatile in every aspect of sign lettering, custom auto painting, pinstriping and work pertaining to it and asked Bobbo if he would write some step-by-step articles for the magazine so he wrote a few for them. Terry wrote Bobbo a nice letter of praise which he cherished to this day.
He had written step-by-step articles for trade magazines such Airbrush magazine, Airbrush Action, Auto Graphics, Sign Business, Custom Painting, Mini Truck Kit Cars and Auto Art and had been showcased in many of them. He was featured in the first issue of Truckin' magazine, summer 1975, Mini Truck 1981, Kit Car and Custom Painting in 1981, Airbrush magazine in 1994, Sign Business in 1994 and Auto Graphics in 1998.
In 1993, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he pursued his love of design and painting. He spent many hours working and added web pages to his resume but still took time to visit friends in the industry and called them as he hated to write letters. By enjoying the brush bashes and the panel jams he met some of the greatest talents in the world and was honored to know them. Their friendships had given him the opportunity to keep up with the new ideas and techniques. He believed that "you can teach an old dog new tricks", especially in this business, and the rest was history.
Rest in Peace, Bobbo!
A little bit about Bobbo...
At 13 he began learning how to paint and letter at a sign shop in his hometown, Visalia, California. The owner told him he would teach him all he knew if Bobbo would work for free. Well, Bobbo worked hard but he wasn't being taught very much by the owner so he began watching very closely at what the old man did and became a fairly good sign painter by the time he was 15.
At this age his father got him a job lettering a sign for one of his personal friends who owned a plumbing company. Bobbo put his heart into that sign as it was his first and he wanted to please the customer but impress his father as well. The sign was lettered in a style to look like pipe with all the tees and elbows being airbrushed to give it a true 3-D effect. The owner was so pleased that he let Bobbo letter his trucks also. Needless to say, the owner of the sign company fired Bobbo for lettering those trucks. Seems the plumber was a customer of the sign company. Oh well, he wasn't getting paid anyway.
He practiced very hard and became very good at what he did no matter what it was. An auto dealer who he caddied for on week-ends was also the president of the local antique car club learned of his pinstriping abilities as he and Bobbo always talked about school and what Bobbo was learning (he had no son and couldn't relate much to his daughter). He lined up a lot of cars from the local club for Bobbo and pinstriping that first car was the longest and hardest time spent on any car. He became faster as each car was striped. This was 1948.
Bobbo also acquired work from other locals at the bowling alley where he worked nights setting pins and he would letter, paint and airbrush names and bowling balls and pins in 3-D on their bowling bags. After they saw what he had painted on his skate case he also painted and airbrushed winged roller skates on skate cases for his friends at the skating rink where he skated and played roller hockey. He lettered and airbrushed them for a real 3-D effect.
In the beginning years of custom painting, Bobbo was already a seasoned veteran of pinstriping and airbrush art. His beginning was in high school when schools taught commercial art classes . He majored in art, mechanical drawing and architecture. He earned a scholarship from General Motors in 1947 for designing and building a clay model in a GM contest. That drawing and model today would look a lot like some of the concept cars of the big three. He didn't use that scholarship because he had a driving urge to be one of the best artists in the US and later went on to get an AA degree in creative design to help pursue that dream.
He joined the army at the age of 17 in January l949 and after basic training was transferred to the Brooklyn Army Base in Brooklyn, NY and used his talents as a graphic artist assistant. But in early July 1950 he was transferred to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina and went through training and became an airborne ranger. After training he was sent to Korea to be a moving target for the North Koreans and the Chinese during the Korean conflict. He was wounded three times and was awarded a few ribbons and then transferred to the rear to the third Logistical Command in Pusan.
There he created one of the first military sign shops in Korea. In January 1952 he was sent home on leave after his tour of duty in Korea. He worked in a military sign shop and painted lines on streets at the Presidio of San Francisco and in December 1953 he was discharged after almost five years in the service and returned home.
He worked as a truck driver, warehouse manager and managed a drive-in restaurant for the first four months after his discharge. His home town wasn't the same as it was when he went into the service so he moved to So. Calif. and got a job in a sign shop in Pomona. He quit for a better job in the display department at Sears. This would be great as he had plenty of time to work his hobby and get known for his work in Pomona. He started by painting bowling bags, skate cases and pinstriping and lettering cars and motorcycles the same as he did before entering the service. He married a local girl he had met at the roller skating rink. Soon after, he bought his first house in 1955 (for $13,675.) and set up shop in his garage.
His name "BOBBO" was given to him in 1952 by a girlfriend who was his dance partner while the two taught dancing for a dance studio in San Francisco while he was in the service. You can imagine how many Bobs are in a group of servicemen learning how to dance in a military service club. So she named him "BOBBO" to separate him from the other Bobs. This is the name he kept for signing the custom work he did from the 50's to the present.He was the original BOBBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When Kenny Howard, aka "VON DUTCH", created the new craze of auto painting and pinstriping, Bobbo already knew how to do all the things that Von Dutch started so he jumped on the band wagon (so to speak) and has been riding it ever since. The last time he saw Kenny was at the '87 "RATFINK" get together at Kim Dedic's in Anaheim.
Bobbo built a good reputation by lettering all kinds of race cars and drag cars of every sort and became well known for his lettering all over California and Arizona. It was in the 50's that he began teaching his trade to others as there weren't many doing this type of auto design work. Because of his reputation, he was called by his customers,"The Von Dutch of Pomona Valley", plus being the best known custom painter in the area and had work coming from all over the state but wouldn't do free work for magazines so he wasn't well known except by word of mouth. He was also known as the "Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries" of the Pomona Valley but painted scallops on vehicles before either one of them..
Bobbo painted, lettered and pinstriped more dragsters, streamliners, lakesters competition coupes, roadsters and street rods than anyone in the area. An auto dealer in Pomona hired him to paint a lot of cars similar to Von Dutch's so he could sell them as the originals. This dealer also sponsored many of the race cars Bobbo painted and lettered for the local racers and even held car shows on his used car lot to bring in customers.
Some of the cars were Shelton Shmidt's 34 coupe featured on the cover of Popular hot Rodding and Hot Rod Magazines, October 1962, Herb Reis's Dragster, Danylo and Pennington and Danylo and Reid's dragsters. Ed Taylor's 8 second roadster three times, Four of the five '65 Mustangs raced in 1965 and were shown in many magazines, Ron Root's Dodge Dart in '62, Bill Adair's "Dark Horse" dragster, Bill Casler's "Hooker Headers" cars and many others.
He has lettered and painted hundreds of different race cars for big named racers in his career. Ron Rivero and Norm Weekly's competition coupe,("The Isky Bandit"), Fox and Holding's Roadster featured on the cover of Rod and Custom, March 1961, before the four joined and became "The Frantic Four". He painted all but one of their cars that went on to upset some of the biggest names in drag racing.
Bobbo knew and visited the big name custom painters and even had the opportunity to work with a couple of them during the years of this new age of painting. He was one of the originals that kept the whole thing going. After all they were all friends. Von Dutch, Larry Watson, Dean Jeffries, George and Sam Barris, and of course his close friend who he helped create "RAT FINK" with, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and close local friend Ron Foreman. He would visit to see if the new ideas they were creating would work for him.
Yep, they sure did!! Learning to paint pearl was one of the best learning experiences as nothing is as pretty as a very good pearl paint job and Larry Watson was the best. With all the painting and striping he was doing, Bobbo ruled the Pomona Valley with two of the valley's best custom painters and stripers, Ron Foreman and Jim Regan.
In 1962 a local sign painter knew of Bobbo's talents and wanted him to manage his shop and merge the two businesses together. Bobbo agreed and they worked together for two and a half years. An agreement made between them was not kept so Bobbo left. He was asked by another sign company in Corona to work with him for more money so Bobbo went there to work but it only lasted six months. He just didn't like working with anyone who didn't pay or reneged on agreements so he opened his first real shop outside of his garage in 1965. It was only 1250 sq. ft. but that was big in 1965.
He worked in his shop until 1974 and decided to move to Grand Junction, Colorado. He moved and opened a custom paint shop and began building and painting vans as the craze was just growing and vans were in demand. He began building interiors and selling accessories so he named the business "The Van Man". In 1978 that fizzled and the van business craze died out and he moved back to So. Cal. and re-established his business. He worked steadily and happily at his job until 1990.
He sold his shop to a student and friend of his, Tim McColgan and moved back to Colorado to retire. But as time would have it, in 1992, Bobbo was called by Sign Business Magazine as he had won the first Auto Art Contest with his van. They had showcased some of his work in 1989 and 1990. The editor, Terry Wike wanted to feature Bobbo in an article and had to spend a whole day getting all the information he needed and returned to Broomfield, Colorado to work on getting it into print
Terry found Bobbo to be very versatile in every aspect of sign lettering, custom auto painting, pinstriping and work pertaining to it and asked Bobbo if he would write some step-by-step articles for the magazine so he wrote a few for them. Terry wrote Bobbo a nice letter of praise which he cherished to this day.
He had written step-by-step articles for trade magazines such Airbrush magazine, Airbrush Action, Auto Graphics, Sign Business, Custom Painting, Mini Truck Kit Cars and Auto Art and had been showcased in many of them. He was featured in the first issue of Truckin' magazine, summer 1975, Mini Truck 1981, Kit Car and Custom Painting in 1981, Airbrush magazine in 1994, Sign Business in 1994 and Auto Graphics in 1998.
In 1993, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where he pursued his love of design and painting. He spent many hours working and added web pages to his resume but still took time to visit friends in the industry and called them as he hated to write letters. By enjoying the brush bashes and the panel jams he met some of the greatest talents in the world and was honored to know them. Their friendships had given him the opportunity to keep up with the new ideas and techniques. He believed that "you can teach an old dog new tricks", especially in this business, and the rest was history.
Rest in Peace, Bobbo!
toxic:
sadness may he RIP!
sadness may he RIP!
dorsal:
Its Hollywood babe 
lol just kidding. i love big sunglasses too 
lol just kidding. i love big sunglasses too