10/10/2025
Earl Bruce/Von Dutch 300SL Gullwing Kustom
A brand-new Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing (’55 model year) owned by Hollywood hot-rodder Earl (often styled “Earle”) Bruce. It became the lightning-rod crossover between European sports-car royalty and California kustom culture when Bruce asked Kenneth Howard—aka Von Dutch—to flame it. 
Bruce first had the car resprayed Candy Root Beer. The lower panels blotched as the lacquer cured, so he took it to Von Dutch to “cover the bad spots” with flames. Dutch knocked out a full-body flame job after “two cases of beer, a few jugs of wine and ~20 rolls of masking tape,” per Hot Rod’s retelling. The flames read as white/cream licks over the deep maroon base, with the motif wrapping the hood, roof, quarters and even the gullwing doors.
Period sports-car purists were furious. Dutch later said: “After I turned this thing loose on the world it caused accidents… They thought I’d desecrated a shrine,” and he half-joked he thought they were going to “lynch” him. That outrage is a big part of why this car is legendary. 
Contemporary photos place the car at mid-’50s SoCal shows—Norwalk Motorcade (’55/’56) and the 1957 Long Beach Renegades show at Bellflower High School. Kustomrama’s archives and the Bob Stephenson / George Contaoi photo collections carry multiple images with the doors up showing the full layout of the flames.
Dutch didn’t invent flames, but this full-car flame job on a halo European sports car was pivotal—helping popularise big, high-contrast licks beyond the subtle nose-only treatments common earlier. It became one of the most cited flame jobs in print and later retrospectives of hot-rod graphics. 
Was it the first U.S. Gullwing?
Hot-rod lore often repeats that Bruce’s car was the first 300SL stateside—you’ll see that claim in H.A.M.B. features—though period-accurate factory import records aren’t cited. Treat that as enthusiast lore rather than hard documentation. 
• Best references & visuals
• Kustomrama’s dedicated page on Earl Bruce’s 1955 300SL (images + show notes). 
• Hot Rod’s feature “The Most Notorious Custom Paint Job Ever Sprayed” (the candy-root-beer/blotch backstory and Dutch’s beer-and-tape session). 
• Jalopy Journal / The H.A.M.B. history post (context and Dutch quotes). 
• Hagerty’s flame-history piece (how this job shifted the flame-job playbook). 
Early NON Conformity at its best….
CK
