The Cal-look Lounge

After the one and only photo of the old Deano Dyno-Soars building surfaced last year, we began to wonder what ever happened to the very first wooden sign that Richard McPeak did back in 1969. That sign hung on the outside of the building, and has since disappeared, probably thrown away. The only known Deano sign(s) that still exists came from Dean Lowry's building on both Walnut and Chestnut Streets in Santa Ana during the mid-eighties. The signs are completely different from one another, as Richard McPeak did not do the second sign for Dean Lowry. So, with that information, I decided to re-create the original sign, using that photo, and a lot of homework. And here is the results.... Richard McPeek did two of them, one for the Schleys and the other for me. They are an exact duplicate of the original sign, in both shape, color and overall size. I cut them out of a piece of 1/2-inch thick Birch smooth plywood, shaped them and primed them in flat white. From there, I had a digital pattern made, which we gave Richard to do his thing. As you can see, they are 4-ft wide, just like the original sign was. And true to form, McPeak did his usually trademark on them.... Can you spot it?

very cool dean 8)

    Man that would look kool in my living room next to Dean's collection !!!!!!!!


    Frenchy

That poor guy !
To be a sign painter by trade and not know how to spell "originally".
 :-[

Good eye, Richard. Yes, you don't even have to pay extra to get the full McPeak treatment.... At least you know, he did it for real!

Thanks!
I couldn't bring myself to say anything about THAT!
LOL!

Oh, and Dean, it's MC PEAK !
 ::) ;D

Was he also responsible for "Ingle"? ::)

You look at both signs and it's somewhat like a game of "spot the differences". It's possible to see subtile changes between the two. Tell tale indication that they are not scanned clones of one another.  Nicely done Dean!

I just received a package with two Deano catalogs, along with some older VW magazines, and I ran across this story on the Tera-Soar before it was even run! But what caught my attention was the lead shot, showing the now famous Deano building on Borchard Ave, in Santa Ana. This photo really shows the original Deano sign in place. Note how the sign does not have the name or address, like the stickers did. The 4x4 Dyno-Soars sign was wooden, while the other one was painted on the front of the (concrete) building.

Any chance I can get a signed/numbered print of the original?   ;)

Very cool Deano. So it was you who sniped those DDS catalogs out from under me on Samba. :D

I was at VW Goldmine in Whittier recently and found out that Ralph has a piece of the original car. He said he happened to be at the body shop when they towed the wreck back and started cutting it up. He asked for a souvenir and this is what he got...
[attachment=1]

Cool!  Where on the car do you think this is from?

He said it's part of the of the roof just above the crease or feature line. It only has the last word of the lettering, which went across each side of the car. 
 

I have "drooled' ...Oops.. I mean "seen"  that quite a few times !..It's really Kool...!

bruce that's awesome  :o :o

mmmmm, IT problem

Now i love replicas.......but always prefer the real thing.

Did you know that the first sign hung sideways outside the building and was two sided, this was then placed inside the building in the window, also it only had Deano on the door pannel, also only a border on one side..........

see below, also the sign that hung inside behind a great photo of Paul, that he still has.

 

HOLY CRAP!!!! Where did you ever find those?  ;)

Russell are those from deano de tuscon or the shop dean opened afterwards?

Most interesting. I had no idea that the wooden sign found in Dean's backyard (in Glendale, AZ), was two sided! Puzzling why it was two sided. Russell, what do you mean it was mounted sideways? How sideways. I can see where Dean cut it down to fit into the window frame at his shops on Chestnut and Walnut streets. I still am not convinced that your sign was ever used on Borchard Street, as shown above with the Tera-Soar parked out front...  It just does not look like the same artwork.

And here is a close up photo of the original sign from the Borchard Building.... You make the call.

Deano

Your maybe right, it wasnt used there, but it looks like it was hung as below at some time as you can see where it was hung from, Im sure there has been a photo of this before, I will check...... dont home your breath  ;)

PS Steve, its amazing one mans junk is another man's treasure, see you soon (shifters looked out, dont worry)

Cheers Russell

 ;)

Fabs, that photo of Dean and Marla shows Russell's two signs at the Chestnut Street, Santa Ana location. When Dean returned to California in 1983ish, he begun to reuse the Deano Dyno-Soars... name, but made a slight change, making it Deano Dyno-Soar Parts. This was done to avoid the lawsuit that NPR had with the Lowrys and Deano Dyno-Soars/DDS company.