Interested in a portrait of your car? Please contact artist John Robertson.

A few weeks back I was at a street car show of about a hundred-and-fifty cars and this one I found to be the best.  And, of course, as an artist I admired the craftsmanship and artistry of the truck - and wanted to paint it.   It is a 1929 Model “A” Ford Pick-up built by Johnny Martinez.  The truck runs a small block 384 horsepower Chevrolet with a 200R overdrive.  It’s chopped 3 inches.  The interior has old style tuck-n-roll stitching.  And the exterior is a beautiful “suede” black finish.  The nickname for this machine is “Wicked in Suede” Johnny has won over 40 assorted awards with his hot rod and was a winner at the 2013 Grand National Roadster Show – the “Rod Trucks” category.  To fully appreciate this vehicle there is a great video on youtube at:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojcRkKJ_F90   The painting is 6 feet by 10 feet, ink and acrylic on unstretched canvas

I have only painted a couple of other cars large-scale, a 1949 Merc (James Dean Model) and a 1931 Model “A” roadster street rod.  This pick-up  fits perfectly into the series of three that I have now painted. 

I started painting these cars as a diversion from my other “sports” paintings.  I was always fascinated with the Model “A’s”.   As a teenager I had two Model “A’s ” a 1930 and a 1931 five window coupe.  Bought them each for $25.00 (when I was 15 a long, long time ago) and kept them for 8 years.   They were both wrecks, but derivable.  I drove one of them to high school regularly.  The object was to make one good Model “A” out of the two.  Never finished the project.  When I went into the Navy I put both of them into storage and when I got out I didn’t have- much interest in working on cars.  I did keep them for a couple of more years – again driving one of them all over the place.  In 1960 I drove one of the Model “A’s”s  from Santa Monica Ca. to Flagstaff, Arizona, along old route 66 - long before the interstate 40 was completed.  As I recall it took me about 15 hours to make the drive between Santa Monica and Flagstaff .  Top cruising speed with the “4banger” engine was about 45 mph.  And you couldn’t keep it at that speed.  Lots of hills to cross.  It sure gave me a taste of what the “John Steinbeck” migration from the east and mid-west to California was like during the 30’s.