Sure … we know what you must be thinking, this is suppose to be a custom car editorial, so why are we talking about haircuts and barbershops? Good question and we think you’re going to like the response. If you’ve ever seen a James Dean, Marlon Brando or an Elvis movie, and who hasn’t? Then you know these movies included hot cars, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. There were a couple of things that every one of these hep cats had, and that was cool hair, cool cars or bikes.

Let’s talk about how this barber thing got started. No, it didn’t start with Floyd the barber from the Andy Griffith show. It is interesting to point out that Floyd’s barber shop was the center of the Mayberry cultural world too. Barber comes from the word “Barba”, which means beard in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. In ancient Asian and Egyptian civilizations, they believed that evil spirits entered people through their facial hair and the hair on their heads. The belief was the only way to get rid of these evil spirits was to cut their hair. Thus the barber held a position that was respected and revered.

Barbers were held in such high esteem that they were allowed to perform religious and marriage ceremonies. In preparation for their marriage a bride and groom were encouraged to grow their hair so that the barber could then perform a religious ceremony of cutting their hair short to rid them of any evil spirits and ensure a happy life together.

Why do Barber shops display a red and white barber pole?

In addition to cutting hair, barbers performed many other duties such as acting as surgeons, dentist, and religious officials. The red and white pole that still exists today is in reference to a time when barbers were engaged in “Bloodletting” in order to heal people. The ribbons represent two bandages with one being red for the color of blood and the other being white to represent the color of the bandage to stop the bleeding.

Around the year 1094 the first barber organization was formed. At that time barbers were referred as Barbers/surgeons as we mentioned before, they performed a wide array of services like teeth extractions, cupping and leeching, bloodletting, surgery and enemas. Yes … we said enemas. We’re sure they washed their hands before giving a razor shave, or maybe not who knows? There wasn’t any indoor plumbing at that time (yuck). This was all in addition to the more modern duties of today’s barbers of a cut and a shave.

From our experience of going to a good barbershop, the wait to get your hair cut can be long. We can only imagine how long the wait was back in the day when you had to share “Barber” time with customers with tooth aches, and constipation.

As time went by, those type of medical procedures were left to real doctors and medical personnel leaving the barber to perform the more cosmetic duties for their customers. Beginning in the early 1900’s barbershops became a meeting place for men to socialize and hear local news and gossip. In those early years the shops were set up in storefronts to attract customers who could watch the transformation of a rough mangy haired patron into a clean cut dapper individual with a simple cut and a shave.

Hippies use the back door
Now let’s jump a few years to 1970 when the Vietnam war was about over and soldiers are coming home and the anti-war hippies were causing havoc in the streets! The one thing these two groups had in common is that they both started growing long hair. The style was long beautiful hair for both men and women. The poor barbers, what were they to do? Well don’t fret, because there were plenty of dudes still around who sported short hair and congregated at these barber shops to get a cut and a shave and complain about the long haired hippies.

The big hair bands of the 80’s were in full swing and then punk started coming into view and the big hair bands died. One prominent punk band was the Clash. Lead vocalist Joe Strummer sported a slicked back pompadour hairstyle and sang songs like “Brand new Cadillac.” Do you see a pattern here?

Present day Barbers 

Now it’s present day and barbershops are everywhere. Not just any barbershops but custom cut shops that specialize in old school style haircuts and classic razor shaves. The trend has slowly been building but in the rockabilly world it’s pretty much always been there, as most car guys and rockabilly bands have been rockin’ that style for years.

With the help of GQ and other mainstream men’s magazines the fifties clean cut hairstyle and clean shaven look are creeping into law firms, banks and restaurants. Those dudes may not know crap about hot rods but they look like they kinda do. Just kidding white collar dudes.

The list is too great to mention all of them but there is a barbershop in every town across the country and they range from the old classic shop of yesteryear to the more upscale shops with multiple services. The shops I like to hit are the barbershops that cater to the hot rod/rockabilly crowd.

Shops like Hawleywood’s in Costa Mesa, California, Geno’s Custom Cuts in Orange California, and Johnny’s Barbershop in Castleroy Ireland. Yeah, we said Ireland. These types of shops are for the dapper guy in all of us and if you’re in the rat rod/rockabilly scene you’ve been to one of these establishments that not only cut hair, but at some shops you can enjoy a cold beer and most likely see a badass rat rod or old school chopper parked out front.

So there you have it boys and girls, the evolution of the barber and the hot rod connection. Now don’t get me wrong I know there are some of you who like to wrench on cars or bikes and rock the Joe Dirt look, which is cool too. It’s cool until you roll over those golden locks on the wheels of the creeper while your under a car changing transmission fluid by yourself at night in the garage, and there is no one there to help you.

So you roll off the creeper onto the spilled tranny fluid and now your long hair is soaked in that red oily mess, and you have to pull your tangled wet hair from the wheels as you lie on the cold shop floor. Finally you break free losing about a 6-inches of hair and the weeks following this “don’t tell anyone incident”, and you still can’t wash the transmission fluid out of your hair. Out of desperation you go the local barber and say, cut it all off dude!

That has never happened to us, but we heard it could happen. So whether you have long hair or short, stay greasy!

Yes, she is a model and a barber – an interesting and rare combination outside of the kustom car culture.