4/27/2005 11:24:00 AM Donn Trethewey known for hot rod detailing
Donn Trethewey painted the flames on Bret Sukert's 1963 Mercury Colony Park station wagon. In the world of hot rods and custom cars, this beautiful and unusual ride gets a lot of attention. – Photo by Barney Burke
As artists go, it's hard to meet one as modest about his own talents as Donn Trethewey.
"I have no idea how to really do this," he says of painting flames and pinstripes on hot rods and other custom cars.
That said, Port Townsend's Trethewey is featured in the new book "How to Paint Flames" by Bruce Caldwell, a former editor of Car Craft magazine. The first printing sold out quickly, so publisher Motorbooks is doing a second printing.
Meanwhile, several cars painted by Trethewey were featured in last weekend's Mild to Wild show in Tacoma, where cars are allowed on an invitation-only basis.
Pretty good for a guy who's been reading Hot Rod magazine since the third grade. Trethewey, 65, grew up in the classic hot rod era, graduating from Everett High School in 1958.
So how did he learn the trade? "I just did," he says, starting with pinstriping before mastering the higher art of painting flames that are de rigueur for the quintessential hot rod look.
"It's very methodical," Trethewey says of the many steps required to paint flames on a car. But designing the flames is quite creative, he notes, and it's not something that can be done on a drawing of a car because a design can only be evaluated when it's outlined in three dimensions.
Trethewey is skilled at laying down quarter-inch-wide masking tape to create the design. Once the car's owner is happy with the pattern, the design is copied on a large sheet of paper and laid out symmetrically on both sides of the car and the hood.
Caldwell's book enumerates all the intricacies in the process, where flames are often multi-colored and trimmed with pinstripes.
The first car Trethewey pinstriped was a neighbor's four-door Model A Ford. "I don't know why he didn't wipe it off," he says of that early attempt.
Pinstripes
His first paid pinstripe gig was the dashboard and trunk of a 1937 Olds "with loud pipes," Trethewey says, recalling that he worked all day to earn three bucks. That amount, he made clear, was enough money for three dates in the era when movie tickets cost 50 cents.
By 1957, he says, he was pretty good at it. "Word got around," he says, and when he came home on leave from the U.S. Army, Trethewey was asked to pinstripe a hemi-powered race car with the body of a 1925 Model T Ford. It was featured in the April 1959 issue of Hot Rod.
Sounding as if he painted it a week ago, Trethewey recalls that he used cream and lime green paint on the maroon Model T body. "I thought at the time that was really modern," he says. "Now, you can buy a new Toyota that color."
So how much did that gig pay? Trethewey says the owner of that car had an awesome Triumph motorcycle, so he agreed to do the work in return for having use of it for a day. "I took my girlfriend for a ride in it," he says. "I don't know why her mom let her do that."
Trethewey soon graduated from pinstripes to flames. "You ever paint flames?" he recalls being asked. "I of course said 'yes,'" he laughed. At the time, he figured, "If Von Dutch can do it, I can do it." Von Dutch [Kenneth Howard] was a nationally known painter of hot rod flames in the 1950s.
And though he's never painted cars full-time, Trethewey is in demand among those who want that essential feature of a hot rod. "It's always just been a hobby – that's why I like to do it."
Trethewey has a graphic design business, Graphiti, with business partner Cindy Wolpin. Some might recall that in 1973-74, Trethewey was Centrum's first artist in residence. A sculptor at the time, he worked in wood, brass and copper. He moved here for good in 1987.
Mercury wagon
Being the soft-spoken, unassuming person that he is, a lot of locals might not know of Trethewey's painting skills even if they're into hot rods and classic cars.
Take Bret Sukert, for instance. He never met Trethewey until he started looking for someone to paint flames on a car he customized.
Sukert rescued a sad-looking 1963 Mercury Colony Park station wagon from Mac's Auto Wrecking just outside of Port Townsend. It had always been a local car, Sukert says, but a forklift was required to remove it from the spot where it had become anchored in vines. It was a week from being sent to the crusher, says Trethewey.
Sukert spent an estimated 1,500 hours restoring the black Merc with the unbelievably shiny stainless steel and chrome. Both men say that the Merc wagon is a real head-turner at car shows because fiberglass-bodied three-window Ford coupes are so common.
Trethewey designed the flames to flow around the Merc's trim pieces that, in its stock configuration, had been meant to accent wood body panel appliqués. He says it took him five or six days to complete the job.
Talent in demand
Although his name is often misspelled on signs accompanying the cars he's done at hot rod shows, Trethewey's talents are in demand. He's done flames for the well-known team of car-customizing brothers Scott and Tim Divers of Startup, Wash. One of those is Lowla, a 1948 Buick Roadmaster.
Another Divers car that Trethewey flamed is a 1933 Ford Speedster rated at 700 horsepower. That car made the top five when it debuted at the Pleasanton, Calif., hot rod show and is featured in Caldwell's book.
In fact, Divers' shop is where Caldwell met Trethewey two years ago. Next, Caldwell is working on a book on pinstriping.
As for his own ride, Trethewey's pride and joy is a 1968 Triumph racing bike that he modified for street-legal use. Paint wasn't the only enhancement he added to the motorcycle. Until 1969, Trethewey notes, brakes weren't required on racing motorcycles.
(Contact Barney Burke at bburke@ptleader.com.)
Reader Comments
Posted: Sunday, November 08, 2009
Article comment by:
Bob Summers
This is amazing!
my first job was working for Don Thretheway at the Bon Marche in Everett. Please find a way to get my e-mail to Don! I would love to hear from him
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