Stripes & Graphics: Brad King

From the time he was about nine, Brad King wanted to be a pinstriper. His parents made sure he had the tools and materials he needed—and let him practice on the family car. Pinstriping led him to want to learn to letter.

“Boy was that hard!” says Brad. “But when I got frustrated and ready to quit my mother would tell me to stick with it, because ‘one day you may count on this stuff to make a living.’ She was right.”

By the time he was in high school, he was painting cars. After graduation, he got a job painting in a body shop, but his heart was in working on custom cars and racecars. He went to work for Tom Stratton, one of the West Coast’s premier funny car painters. He spent a couple of years there and got to meet a lot of heavy hitters of the pinstriping and custom paint world.