The Gypsy Rose – A Lowrider Covered In Flowers?
Arguably one of the most influential custom cars ever built, the Gypsy Rose is a masterpiece of styling and shows how some off the wall ideas can be used to create something absolutely amazing. Say the idea to any car enthusiast that you are going to build a really nice Impala based lowrider and they will say yeah that sounds good. If you then say ‘… and I’m going to paint in pink and cover it in flower artwork’, I can guarantee you will get some very odd looks indeed.
The Original 1963 Gypsy Rose Impala
But yet two incarnations of the ‘Gypsy Rose’ both did exactly that. The first version of it was so popular that the original ’63 Impala won awards at every show it went to, it even got so well known that a rival car club smashed it up out of jealousy. Thankfully though the owner, Jesse Valadez, quickly made Gypsy Rose mk2 with a ’64 Impala, which was also pink and covered in flowers like the original. He got ace painter Walt Prey to do the amazing and iconic artwork again and I think he, along with tattoo artists, made flowers a much more popular image and style for men of the time.
The 1964 mk2 Gypsy Rose Impala
The massively Iconic car came back out to wow crowds again in 2007 at the Peterson Automotive Museum for an exhibit called ‘La Vida Lowrider: Crusing The City Of Angels’. Jesse Valadez still owns the car and he along with the car are both legends of the scene now.
Comments
[...] However I do have a corner that is just begging for a plant of some kind to sit in it. Obviously it has to fit in with the ‘manly’ theme though so we will need something badass like a cactus or a Venus flytrap! Failing that we could do flowers but to make it manly have pictures of tattoo art style flowers or a shrine to the famous Gypsy Rose Lowrider. [...]