Herb Martinez Talks...It's Greek To Me...

I might have mentioned a name earlier in my articles about Tommy the Greek teardrops.

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These were designs that were formed in the late 1920’s and resembled water drops moving on the surface from the wind blowing them away. The story goes that after Tommy washed his car one day and drove it back to the shop, he noticed that the water had formed, what looked like a teardrops, from the wind blowing it, and he designed teardrops from there. Whatever happened, he left us with a style that will be used for many years to come.

Tommy’s real last name was Hrones, and you don’t get much more Greek than that. His style of striping and scallops were synonymous with the San Francisco Bay Area custom car and hot rod scene. His style grew to epic proportions by the 1950’s and 60’s. “You weren’t nuthin if you didn’t have Tommy’s work on your car”, or at least that’s what all the locals said. Since Tommy was my first real contact with a professional striper, my practice style quickly changed from Von Dutch to Tommy the Greek.