The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Blog Post

Connections, connections, (you know how this goes by now…).

I’m currently reading Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’ [1.], and enjoying it immensely.  It’s significant for a few reasons, not least because it offers an excuse to put up some more photos of this beautiful orange hot rod.  It particularly caught my eye, amongst exotic vehicles of all shapes and sizes, when I went to watch some drag racing, a few weeks back.  The car won the Best At Show award in the ‘Show & Shine’ section at Santa Pod Raceway’s ‘Dragstalgia 2014’ event, but I’m ashamed to say I don’t know the owner’s name. Anyway, it's a marvelous example of the breed (’34 Ford Coupe), and the kind of thing that elevates car bodywork to the level of fetishism.  It’s not technically metal-flake, but that paint job absolutely shimmers.   In most respects, the car could be an illustration of Wolfe’s title.  It looks like  Pop Art made real.

1934 Ford Coupe

Which leads me to reflect on how, maybe at the age of 12 or 13, I picked up a copy of the book in a shop one day, no doubt attracted by the cover image, (another orange Ford, if I remember rightly) [2.], and that delightful, Rococo title.  As already mentioned, I was fascinated by hot rods and custom cars back then and, actually, these occasional automotive diversions from the real intent of this blog might just be about indulging in a little enjoyable, mid-life juvenilia.  I had no real insight into the book’s true nature and, lacking the funds to purchase it anyway, I just put it down and moved on.  I’ve thought about it every now and then, over the years whenever Tom Wolfe’s name came up, and his cultural significance became more apparent. Up until now though, I just never got round to doing anything about it.

Tom Wolfe In Full Country Gent/Literary Dandy Mode

Published in 1965, ‘TKKTFSB’ was the author’s first book and represents a collection of his journalistic essays on the social mores, status displays and sub-cultural currents running through America at the time.  It covers a range of topics and is by no means a book all about cars.  Nevertheless, in addition to the title essay, which contextualises the ‘Kustom Kar’ scene of the era as essentially a youth cult, he also includes one on stock car racing, (now usually known as NASCAR), and another on the bizarre spectacle of the Demolition Derby [3.].  It’s important to remember that cars are massively important as American cultural signifiers, at least as much as they are a simple means of transport.

Demolition Derby:  The Point At Which American Car Culture Effectively Eats Itself.

Wolfe was a doyen of what became known as The New Journalism, an approach in which the conventions of fiction were mixed, often experimentally, with objective, factual reportage.  His style is more refined than the simulant-fuelled psychosis of Hunter S Thompson, but he does employ an insouciant hipsterism that still conveys an air of delight in his often-outlandish subject matter.  He’s also capable of genuine human insights.  The title essay details the complexities of the hot car scene, and the history and sociological elements that shaped it.  It then goes on to profile, often in their own words, two of the leading lights of the sub-culture, George Barris and Ed Roth.  Beyond merely describing their exploits, he attempts psychological insights into their motivations and is quite moving on the relationship between them and the oddball lieutenants who attach themselves to their respective workshops.

George Barris, Dodge Deoria Pickup.  Channelling The Pop Futurism Of The Era.

Ed Roth, 'Outlaw'.  A Typical Fusion Of The Retro And The Streamlined

If the Californian car scene was ultimately based on the idea of making cars go very fast in straight lines, Stock Car Racing was all about going round and round in circles at similarly suicidal speeds.  Its genesis was largely located in the southern states and grew from the attempts of bootleggers of moonshine whiskey to outrun the Police in surreptitiously over-tuned cars.  Wolfe covers this in interesting detail in ‘The Last American Hero’.  It’s worth noting that he’s very good on those differing regional aethetics and sensibilities.  He posits the Kustomizer’s urge towards the streamlined and curvilinear as an essentially west coast, Dionysian impulse, and at odds with the Apollonian sensibility of Detroit’s more rectilinear mainstream styling of the period [4.].  This ability to apply those aesthetic considerations normally allocated with 'High Art', to commercial products or popular expressions lies at the heart of Pop Art. 'TKKTFSB' might be seen as one of its seminal texts. 

Junior Johnson In His Heyday

The real subject of his Stock Car piece is Junior Johnson, a renegade star of the sport, and a man with Bootlegging in his DNA.  Wolfe’s close quarters observations of Johnson brings a wealth of picturesque detail, but also, serious insights into the clan loyalties, physical courage and anti-authoritarianism of Appalachian mountain communities.  He also manages to draw a picture of fully fleshed-out personality, rather than a mere 'Good Ol' Boy' stereotype.  Johnson also has a clearly defined code of personal ethics and a nuanced hinterland to back it up.

Photos:  Erik Bartlam

The final piece in this little jigsaw is an explanation of why I finally got round to purchasing a copy of ‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’.  It was mentioned to me in an email by one of my regular readers, Erik Bartlam.  Erik’s another part-time Artist and blogger, based in Mississippi, whose own blog you can read here.  He’s left various positive comments on here, over the months and had kindly sent me a few of his own photographs to look at.  There are definite correspondences in the kind of subjects that draw our respective lenses and we found ourselves exchanging views on William Eggleston, - a photographer, (and another southerner), who clearly influences us both.  Erik gave me a few interesting insights into the Southern mindset and, in passing, mentioned Wolfe’s book, (in the light of my drag racing post).  There seemed nothing left to do but order myself a copy.

Photos: Erik Bartlam

It’s hardly an original observation, but I really like the way that having an online presence, and blogging in particular, allow one to make this kind of creative connection over thousands of miles.  I suppose I should have got over my pleasant surprise at what the rest of the world takes for granted by now, but I’ve always been a pretty late adopter.  Anyway, as ever, it just proves again that it’s all about making the connections.

Photos: Erik Bartlam

In conclusion, I’ve included Erik’s photos here.  I know he doesn’t take his photographs too seriously as images in their own right (although I think these stand up well enough) so I hope he doesn’t mind.  (Let me know if you’d rather I removed them again, Erik).

[1.]:  Tom Wolfe, ‘The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby’, New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965

[2.]:  ‘Interestingly’, the actual car described in the text is a ‘kustomized’ Chevrolet, but you can’t always make everything join up.

[3.]:  Demolition Derbies are, it transpires one of those strange, decadent examples of an existing form turning in on itself.  In this case, it marks an attempt to distill the more extreme aspects of Stock Car Racing into a bastard form that’s purely about the crashes.  There’s a cheerful nihilism about that, which we can all appreciate - surely?

[4.]:  I suspect one could extrapolate this idea further to imagine a contrast between the Catholic/Latinate and the Protestant/European strands of American consciousness.  Certainly, the influence of Latin America on the southern Pacific States shouldn’t be overlooked.