Dave Deal in Dirt Sports Magazine/ Update: Dave is gone/ New photos 2011

The July 2006 issue of Dirt Sports recently arrived and on page 42, with a full page photo, a wonderful story about Dave Deal begins!

Dave 'Big Deal' is best known for his years of cartoon creations featuring Baja and off road racing... The Dick Cepek catalog covers of the early 70's (big orange blazer), CarToon magazine, Downey Toyota, KC HiLites, The Baja Bush Pilots logo... and more recently, Jimmy Smith's book illustrations... the list is endless. Dave continues to work on new illustrations, his historic research on Noah's arc and man's early migration to America are more samples of the incredible mind he has. The new smash movie CARS was partly a Dave Deal inspiration.

Dave raced the Baja 500 annd 1000, holds records and also flew Baja by private plane years ago and continues to closely follow off road racing... Arnold Senterfitt had Dave illustrate his book Airports of Baja about 30 years ago.

Constantly busy on various projects, yet he is always polite and a pleasure to visit with... I admired his art work way back when I was in high school (mid 70's) and modeled my little comic strip (Se?or Baja and the Tijuana Kid) after his characters.

I got to meet Dave when Jimmy Smith invited me over to Dave's home while Jimmy was up north visiting. Now, Dave and I touch base every so often... sometimes having lunch at my favorite north county restaurant.

I asked Dave if I could do a story on him about his Baja cartoons (about a year or more ago), then we got busy... you know how things go! Well, I called Dave yesterday to tell him how nice the story in Dirt Sports was and how much Elizabeth and I enjoyed the movie CARS (twice now)! I asked again about showing his art here on Baja Nomad and he said he actually made a CD of his collection for me... So, next time I am in his neighborhood I will pick it up and share his stuff with all of you! If you do a Nomad search, I think I put links to a couple of Dave's web sites a couple years ago.

In the meantime, pick up a copy of Dirt Sports magazine and read 'Big Deal is the Real Deal'...

(illustration from the Off Road Coloring Book which featured Dave's work)






[Edited on 7-14-2011 by David K]

Dave 'Big' Deal is gone... 1938-2008

I just read the sad news in the January/ February issue of Dirt Sports Magazine... I hadn't heard that Dave left us last October after a battle with cancer.

I was introduced to Dave about 8 years ago by Jimmy Smith... I had been a fan of Dave's off road cartoon work since the 1970's when he did the cover of Dick Cepek's catalog... and ads for Jackson Wheels, Downey Toyota, as well as illustrated the cover and some stories for CarTOON Magazine. Photo of the Dave Deal illustrated book by Jimmy Smith, below...

Dave lived near me and frequented my favorite diner, Sunrise Cafe, in Vista, CA.

Besides a love of art... and creator of many of the living car charaters in the Pixar movie 'CARS'... Dave had a love of history and the mysteries of the past, including the true location of Noah's Ark. Deal traveled to Turkey and wrote books and web pages identifying the ark's resting site.

In doing some web searches, I found some nice posts on Dave and the sad news...

See this link: http://www.cruisenight.com/weblog/2008/10/dave-big-deal-my-h... ... text copied below...
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October 20, 2008
Dave "Big" Deal: My Hero (1938-2008)

by Tim Gavern
I am deeply saddened by the passing of my friend, Dave "Big" Deal.

I really enjoyed being around Dave and relished the occasional drive down the coast to his home in Vista to hang out and have lunch with him. Our conversations were always wonderful as he was knowledgeable about so many subjects. Dave will always be my hero and I will miss him terribly.

My pal, Rob Kinnan, editor of Hot Rod Magazine, allowed me to write Dave's obituary for HRM (look for it in the February 2009 issue). Dave had written an autobiographical article for a blog I used to publish and I am happy to have used it for reference. Here's what I turned in:

Dave “Big” Deal, 1938-2008


Automotive cartoonist, car enthusiast and race driver, David Allan Deal, passed away in his Vista, California, home on October 14, 2008.

For over 40-years, “Big” Deal, a moniker given to him in the Marines, injected his own brand of cartoon humor upon the automotive world.

Beginning in the ’60s, “Big” Deal illustrated magazine ads and designed logos, including Armor All’s original little viking. He also illustrated articles for many magazines including Hot Rod and covers for the long gone CARtoons Magazine.

In the ’70s, “Big” Deal’s unusual cartoon style led to a successful relationship with Revell. Together, they produced a unique series of twenty plastic model kits called "Deal's Wheels". Today, they are highly prized by collectors.

“Big” Deal was a true car enthusiast. He owned many fascinating cars that ranged from chopped ’34 Ford 5-window coupes to Porsche Speedsters and Spyders to rare Ferraris. His well-known green ’41 Hupmobile resto-rod, with its Pontiac 6-cylinder overhead-cam engine, a Porsche RSK replica, a V-12 Jaguar and a Meyers Manxster were among his last cars.

Dave was also a serious racer. In 1973, he and co-driver, Don Ernst, set a trans-peninsular Baja speed record racing from Tijuana to La Paz in 19 hours and 58 minutes. Dave and Don raced together for several years in many of the Baja races and Dave and Jim Smith raced in the Mexican 1000 race in 1968.

More recently, Academy-Award®-winning director John Lasseter called upon “Big” Deal to design the majority of the primary characters for the Pixar feature film Cars. The cars look the way they do because of “Big” Deal’s design influence. John Lasseter, the late, great Joe Ranft, and Bob Pauley, had all tried to draw like “Big” Deal back in their high school days.

Only days before he died, “Big” Deal delivered a few new car characters to Pixar for the upcoming Cars sequel, “Cars 2”. Dave was very proud of his work for Pixar and once told me “It was a gas.” He even held a drawing class at Pixar. At that class, after “Big” Deal drew a pomegranate and quickly transformed it into a Porsche 911, he got a standing ovation from the overfilled room of Pixar animators.

As the oversized slicks on his Camaro rocket him away, we bid our friend and inspiration, “Good Bye”.

Nov. 30, 2007

At Sunrise Cafe, I introduced Dave Deal (center) to 'steekers' who is writing a book about the history of Rancho Santa Ynez and the off road racing years... Dave Deal was a big part of the old days of Baja racing.

Great stuff... Thanks Dave Deal for all you have done! Have fun up there with Jimmy and you other amigos in heaven!







and the NOMAD Camero...

Dave Deal Books

Dave was a history/ Biblical researcher and gave me two of his books regarding the mysteries of the past...



Dave's detailed examination of continental drift and other early earth mysteries... explained! 1999 edition pictured




Dave's proof that Hebrew speaking explorers were in North America 600 years before Columbus, detailed from Los Lunas, New Mexico petroglyphs is detailed in this book(c1984/ 1999 edition).

[Edited on 1-30-2009 by David K]

Noah's Ark Discovery

Dave's greatest passion seemed to me his quest for the truth about Noah's Ark. In his studio at home, he had a large satellite image of the ark remains with diagrams explaining every detail.

Dave's ark web page is very detailed and worth a look!
>>> http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/


Here'a photo of Dave in Turkey, at one of the ark's anchor stones... (where it waited, overhead, for the water level to drop)



In the large photo: David Deal and Professor M. Salih Baraktutan stand, with a small local friend, next to the most prominent of the anchors.

This slide show is very informative showing Dave's thoughts and proof: http://www.noahsark-naxuan.com/Slide1.htm

Deal's map for Jimmy's book...

I was shocked as well... that the word hadn't spread to the Baja Nomad forums! The hot rod and artist forums were aware right away in October.

Sara, if you ever feel like it, I would sure like to hear of those stories from years ago when you were hanging around your dad, Dave and other amigos!!!

I was going through my files of old Baja stuff, and I found the membership application for Baja Bush Pilots (from 1972) $15.... included the $5 initiation fee.

Anyway, on the back side is the logo drawn by Dave Deal...

So much great stuff! Here's a few more from Dave:

Anyone use ArmorAll???

Dave Deal's Studio

Last week, I repaied a broken sprinkler valve at 'Rancho No Tengo' and visited with Vicki Deal. She permitted me to take photos inside Dave's studio to share with you... It has been left as it was when Dave Deal last drew in it, before he passed away nearly 3 years ago...































The guys at Pixar made him this get well poster, when Dave was sick...













Vicki told me that he often would pick up a rock, and turn it into a car...

This artwork is incredible! Thanks for sharing.

HE WAS SUCH A TALENT!! Sad that such a talent has passed!

BUT....IT'S GREAT THAT HE HAS A LEGACY IN PRINT...WHICH CAN BE SHARED WITH ALL FOREVER!!!


MIGUELAMO

Quote:

Originally posted by AmoPescar HE WAS SUCH A TALENT!! Sad that such a talent has passed! BUT....IT'S GREAT THAT HE HAS A LEGACY IN PRINT...WHICH CAN BE SHARED WITH ALL FOREVER!!! MIGUELAMO

i met Dave once. When Jimmy was in La Jolla. I think... i met so many people visiting him when he was in the hospital. can't recall all who.

Ed Roth?? no - i was just a wacky 10-12 year old kid building rat fink models then and driving my mother nutz.