The iconic “Mudflap Girl”, long seen on America’s highways, finally has an identity. Ed Allen of Washington, D.C. says that it’s his mother. Allen’s father, a trucker, kept a photo of his wife wearing a swimsuit in his rig.
"Dad kept the photo in the cab of his truck, which always bore mom's name on the hood," said Allen.
When a new corporate owner forbade Stewart from decorating a company-owned vehicle, Stewart put his wife’s silhouette on his trailer’s mudflaps so his boss couldn’t see her when the truck was backed up to a loading dock.
In 1967, Ed Allen said that a local truck-accessories manufacturer named Bill Zinda saw the design. He liked it and, with Allen's permission, started selling it. No one ever trademarked the image, and Mudflap Girl got around a lot during the freewheeling ’70s.
No comments:
Post a Comment