Backstage Past Part 10:1963

This Glendale, California, photo session produced the Bob D’Olivo (behind camera, right) transparency that became one of HOT ROD’s most-artistic covers.

- Dave Wallace

Ever the perfectionist, Petersen Publishing Company’s longtime lead photographer still regrets one oversight: “Looking at the ‘chromes after the shoot, I thought a bunch of decals on the window would have been a nice touch—Mooneyes, Isky, Edelbrock.” Big Bob also revealed that the convincing wooden prop was custom-built by Randy Holt Sr., Robert E. Petersen’s brother-in-law. HRM Editor Bob Greene (squatting) is shown directing cover models Bob Runyon, proprietor of Runyon Marine and Automotive, and Bill Johansen. This previously unseen scene was captured by another staff photographer, Pat Brollier.

BEST YET.

Starting in 1955, employees whose Petersen Publishing Co. duties involved cameras were required to submit a brief description and location for each roll or batch of exposed film turned in for processing. Someone on the small lab staff assigned each roll a file number and transferred the information by hand onto one line of notebook paper inside of a three-ring binder. After that particular strip of film dried, technicians cut it into sections for folding into a number-matching paper sleeve for filing behind locked doors, accessible only to department head Bob D’Olivo and a handful of trusted lab workers. Whoever shot the film got back a numbered proof sheet, only, from which to order prints for publication. Not even editors expected to ever see actual negatives.

Even after Xerox machines became commonplace in Petersen’s early Hollywood buildings, nobody bothered to photocopy the only set of directions to millions of B&W negatives stored since D’Olivo initiated the archiving system with his own film of Palm Springs road racers (including five action shots of a nondescript Porsche entered by an unknown newcomer, name of Dean).