Paint by Molly RIP

[deano]

Rollin Sanders, better known as Molly, passed away this past April 19 of cancer. He was 66. He was best known for creating Kawaski Green and Yamaha yellow and black paint schemes, but for us VW people, he designed the paint job on the Inch Pincher II sedan for Darrell Vittone. He grew up in La Habra, California and opened by Paint by Molly in 1965. I met him in '67. He then went on to open Molly Designs and is credited for coming up with the Lexus logo for To#¤ta.....

[danny gabbard]

He also did a lot of stuff for AAR when I was there. Great guy

[dyno don]

died way too young...im finding a lot of painters i knew from the days gone by came down with a variety of health issues.....Darrel's race car paint job was "PURE WILD"....and "PURE MOLLY"...

[Geoff P DVKK]

Sad news for sure, He went way to early, RIP!

[Frenchy Dehoux]

      Working for To#¤ta for the last 33 years I use to work with Molly when he came by the office and we would be working on the Long Beach Grand Prix stripes and logos . He also did a lot of work for To#¤ta with the Celicas and Tacoma stripes as well. Molly was a great guy sure will be miss.

    Frenchy

[Sarge]

Sad to read about Molly in the obits.  Seems like yesterday... early '70's, cruising around La Habra in a '63 bug with an 1835, IDA's and a close ratio gearbox trying to sell life insurance.  There was Bob's Muffler at Central and Cypress... a young guy who worked there had a '67 bug so it was fun to round the corner and stab it through the gears on Cypress slowing to a stop in front of Molly's shop.  Some high school friends worked there and it was cool to see what they were working on plus, getting to know Molly.  Countless motorcycle tanks and fenders, drag cars, customs, and Inch Pincher, Too.  RIP

[deano]

Sarge and I have a friend in common, who worked with Molly in his original metal building on Imperial Hwy in La Habra, Harvey Weidman, who now does exotic wheel repair and polishing in Orville, CA. Harvey was the one who wrote me about Molly's passing of lung cancer.

I used to (try) and paint cars and motorcycyles when I was younger, and looked up to guys like Molly, paint by Carter, paint by Cerney and others. Incredible talent.

[beatnik beetle]

The passing of another great custom painter, sad news - after creating a Molly "esq" paintjob on Dyno Pincher it really made us realise how talented he was , sadly missed and he will never know the impact his work made on The Paintbox in a shed on the other side of the pond...RIP Molly.

[empicolector]

 

[.]

Very sad news indeed.
My condolences go out to all his friends and family.
Too many people are going too soon.
 

[deano]

Thinking about Molly's impact, I recalled that in La Habra, there used to be a Union76 gas station on the corner of Euclid and Whittier Blvd, that had a Molly painted Coke Machine. That was the coolest Vendor ever made. You could see it from the street, with the typical Molly flare, metalflake red, silver, blue, and Coke air brushed too wild for words. I wonder if someone saved that machine before the station went out of business. It was there for years.....

[Zach Gomulka]

RIP

Anyone have pictures of his other work?

[.]

http://www.mollydesigns.com/history.html

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=paint+by+molly&FORM=BIFD#focal=7c01586dde75a000082ced73e6559850&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bikerhotline.com%2Fguestcolumnists%2F2008%2F08aeechallenge%2Fassets%2Fimages%2Fshovelhead1.jpg

[Sarge]

Thinking about Molly's impact, I recalled that in La Habra, there used to be a Union76 gas station on the corner of Euclid and Whittier Blvd, that had a Molly painted Coke Machine. That was the coolest Vendor ever made. You could see it from the street, with the typical Molly flare, metalflake red, silver, blue, and Coke air brushed too wild for words. I wonder if someone saved that machine before the station went out of business. It was there for years.....

Molly's dad owned that 76 station, Deano... I bet that Coke machine is still around.

[johnl]

My first exposure to Molly was through DKP I member Mike Mendenhall who had his car painted by him.  It was a dark burgundy and was beautiful.  Molly's work put most others to shame.  To young and to talented to loose so soon.   

[nicolas]

he will be missed.

the things he did (on inch pincher) must have blown minds at the time. but he was right to do so, as it has been one of the designs that is unmistakeble to recognise, and it looks just too good to booth.

RIP.

[deano]

Thinking about Molly's impact, I recalled that in La Habra, there used to be a Union76 gas station on the corner of Euclid and Whittier Blvd, that had a Molly painted Coke Machine. That was the coolest Vendor ever made. You could see it from the street, with the typical Molly flare, metalflake red, silver, blue, and Coke air brushed too wild for words. I wonder if someone saved that machine before the station went out of business. It was there for years.....

Molly's dad owned that 76 station, Deano... I bet that Coke machine is still around.

Yep, now I remember Sanders Union....

[Nico86]

RIP, Inch Pincher Too was a piece of art.

[TexasTom]

Rest in Peace.

Thanks for that Deano.
Didn't realize the scope of his work ... I knew it from his work on the infamous 1978 Kawasaki Z1-R TCs ... beautiful work & highly coveted by a lucky few.

[deano]

Former Paint by Molly employee, and long-time friend of Molly, Harvey Weidman, sent me this early business card from the late-sixties... I remember having one of these cards many years ago....

[speedwell]

inch pincher was the only one i knew from molly
RIP molly

[Sarge]

 Looks like K S Pitman's Gasser had a Molly job, too....

[beatnik beetle]

Nice to see more of his work turning up on here, a nice tribute to a very talented man. I did a little search and turned this up, please forgive me for being RUBBISH with computers....http://dextrafrankel.com/paint_by_molly.htm seems like Dextra put on an exhibition of his work and that there was an NBC news special about him shown in january 1971, I didn't realise how much he had done in his too short life - let's hope there is still some of his work out there.

[Chingus Khan]

Wow; just saw the news R.I.P. Molly was cool, he also did the Chingus Chan VW of DKP fame. I remember going to his shop and asking him to do my flames and Khingus charcater............and he said YES. I was in heaven.

Thank you Molly.

Chingus KIhan
Roy Jimenez
DPK 1