By now you've been able to peel your eyes off our cover with that gorgeous 2010 Camaro and its stunning orange custom paint
job - yes, that paint is a waterborne finish. The obvious questions now are: Who did it and how can I produce the same finish?
Let us introduce you to Crazy Painters, a custom shop that operates on many of the same principles that guide any successful
bodyshop.
In the automotive service market, custom paint shops are in the unique and enviable position of having customers that are
almost always happy to see them. It's rare that anyone willingly goes to a collision repair shop; your customers are there
because they just wrecked their cars. At a custom shop, the customer is there because he loves his car.
At Kelly & Son – Crazy Painters in Bellflower, Calif., – the customers also show up because of the reputation of Tom and Mitch
Kelly, a father/son duo with decades of custom paint experience between them.
"Our business is strictly word of mouth," says Mitch Kelly. "The customers see our name on the work, and that brings them
in." Mitch is carrying on a family legacy that began at the turn of the century. His great-grandfather started pin striping in
the early days of the automobile (first for Studebaker, then for Ford), and his father, Tom Kelly, is a legend in the business.
The elder Kelly began his career in southern California in the 1950s and 1960s, ground zero for the modern custom culture
and worked with the legendary Von Dutch and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.
Mitch got his start painting wheels on conversion vans during the 1970s, working alongside his father. Since then he's established
his own reputation in the custom world, raising the shop's profile even higher.
There was never any question that he'd follow in his father's footsteps. "My junior year in high school I was working at a
cabinet shop for six hours after school and four hours at the paint shop," Kelly says. "I realized I was making more money
in four hours at the paint shop than I was at the cabinet shop. After my senior year it was non-stop."
Tom Kelly (who was in Norway teaching an airbrush class this fall) is still actively involved in the shop at age 70, and the
father-and-son team paint side by side. "He's still very talented, very steady and does really great work," the younger Kelly
says. "I go to him for inspiration on all the art. He's the one we go to for color choices, and we ask his opinion on what
has to be done to make sure the job is done right. The raw talent here is my dad. He's got all my talent in his thumb."
