This is the 1992 Roth Fink Mobile, it’s a six-wheeler with the same fundamental front-end layout as the 1976 Tyrrell P34 six-wheeled F1 car, but on a much smaller platform with power provided by a Honda motorcycle engine turning the single rear wheel.
This machine was designed and built by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, one of the most legendary “Kustom Kulture” artists and show car builders of his time. He built a remarkable array of vehicles over the decades, almost all recognizable on sight due top his distinctive style.
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth was one of the most legendary “Kustom Kulture” artists and show car builders of his time. He built a remarkable array of vehicles over the decades, almost all recognizable on sight due top his distinctive style. Image courtesy of the Ed Roth Archives.
History Speedrun: Ed “Big Daddy” Roth
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth was born in Beverly Hills, California, on March the 4th, 1932. He was the son of Henry and Marie Bauer Roth, he grew up in a German-speaking household in nearby Bell, where he attended Bell High School and split his time between auto shop and art class – two disciplines that would come to define the rest of his life.
His father, a cabinet maker by trade, kept Ed and his younger brother Gordon busy in the family workshop, and it was there that Roth first learned to build things from scratch. He bought his first car, a 1933 Ford coupe, at the age of 14. After high school he studied engineering at a Los Angeles college, then served in the United States Air Force before returning to civilian life and beginning to experiment with fiberglass modeling in the early 1950s.
Roth first made a name for himself in the late 1950s by airbrushing “Weirdo” t-shirts – these were grotesque, bug-eyed monsters typically driving outlandish hot rods – and selling them at car shows and through the pages of Car Craft magazine.
The shirts were an absolute sensation, and the revenue they generated helped bankroll his real passion – building custom cars that existed in a netherworld somewhere between artistic sculpture and automotive engineering. Standing 6 ft 4 in tall, Roth was given the nickname “Big Daddy” by a corporate publicist, and it stuck like glue for the rest of his life. The average height of an American male at the time was 5 ft 9 in, so Roth would have towered over almost everyone.
His first major show car was the Outlaw, a fiberglass-bodied custom built on 1929 Ford Model A underpinnings and powered by a Cadillac V8, which debuted in 1959 and was featured in the January 1960 issue of Car Craft.
From there, Roth’s output became increasingly wild. The Beatnik Bandit followed in 1961, with a clear bubble canopy (famously said to have been shaped using a plexiglass sheet heated in a pizza oven) and a central joystick that controlled steering, acceleration, braking, and shifting. It was painted by the legendary Larry Watson, with Roth trading a supply of Rat Fink t-shirts for the work.
Then came the twin-Ford-engined Mysterion in 1963, the space-age Orbitron in 1964, the surf-culture Surfite in 1965, and the Dodge-powered Druid Princess in 1966, with its gas tank and battery housed in a child-sized coffin at the rear. They were show cars first and practical vehicles a distant (very, very distant) second, though Roth usually built them as fully-functioning machines rather than static sculptures.
Up front you’ll find four wheels, all of which steer, and they’re all fitted to live axles with coil springs and rocker arms. The dramatically swept-back seat has a fan at the top to suck in air for the engine’s radiator, and between the driver’s legs sits a small steering wheel.
Roth’s cars caught the attention of toy company Revell, which began producing plastic model kits of his builds under license in 1962. The partnership was enormously lucrative, in 1963 alone, Revell paid Roth a one-cent-per-kit royalty that totaled $32,000 USD (the equivalent to $353,000 USD today), meaning 3.2 million kits were sold in a single year. The Beatnik Bandit, meanwhile, was chosen as one of the original 16 Hot Wheels cars when Mattel launched the line in 1968.
But ultimately it was Rat Fink, the drooling, bloodshot, anti-Mickey Mouse, that truly established Roth’s place in popular culture. Commercially launched in 1963, the character spawned a merchandising empire of model kits, t-shirts, and even a series of novelty records by a band called Mr. Gasser and the Weirdos.
Roth also created an entire supporting cast of monsters including Drag Nut, Mother’s Worry, and Mr. Gasser. The imagery was later adopted by punk and alternative bands including The Cramps and Rob Zombie.
In the mid-1960s, Roth turned his attention to motorcycles, launching Choppers magazine, the first publication dedicated exclusively to custom motorcycles, and building what’s now believed to be the first VW-powered trike.
He converted to Mormonism in 1974, shaved off his trademark goatee, and spent much of the next decade working as a sign painter at Knott’s Berry Farm. He returned to car building in the late 1980s producing a handful of later creations, including the Roth Fink Mobile in 1992, the Beatnik Bandit II in 1995 and his final build, the Stealth 2000.
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth died of a heart attack on April the 4th, 2001, in Manti, Utah. An annual Rat Fink Reunion is still held there each summer in his honor.
The Roth Fink Mobile From 1992
This is the original Roth Fink Mobile From 1992, it’s one of the last of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s creations, and despite its size it’s also one of the most memorable. It’s built around a 153cc Honda motorcycle engine which is mounted in the rear, powering the rear wheel via a Honda CVT transmission.
Up front you’ll find four wheels, all of which steer, and they’re all fitted to live axles with coil springs and rocker arms. The dramatically swept-back seat has a fan at the top to suck in air for the engine’s radiator, and between the driver’s legs sits a small steering wheel.
This is the original Roth Fink Mobile From 1992, it’s one of the last of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s creations, and despite its size it’s also one of the most memorable. It’s built around a 153cc Honda motorcycle engine which is mounted in the rear, powering the rear wheel via a Honda CVT transmission.
The Roth Fink Mobile has a steel frame and a fiberglass body finished in red with pinstriping, a single rear fin, a single front headlight, and a rear brake light assembly with blinkers. The rear tire wheel was sourced from the Honda donor bike, and the front wheels and tires all look like they were borrowed from the world of go karts.
This unusual five-wheeled creation is now due to be offered for sale as part of the National Automobile Museum auction which is being held by Bonhams on site in Reno. If you’d like to read more or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bonhams
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
