I spent the afternoon with Thomas Hartel, whose father, Al Hartel, made the famous “Surfrite” surfboard Guitars for Mosrite in the 1960s. Thomas contacted me recently after seeing a video I shot at Norman’s Rare Guitars. I was thrilled to find out that he still had in his possession one of his dad’s surfboard guitars.
The story on these is that a salesman named John Gregory who sold paint and painting equipment to Mosrite pitched Semie Moseley the idea of the surfboard-shaped guitars. Semie gave him a truckload of Mosrite wood, pickups, and parts, and told him to make some prototypes.
Gregory contacted his friend Al Hartel in Los Angeles, an expert woodworker who made his own ukuleles. Hartel crafted these instruments to be prototypes for a model that Mosrite would sell, called the “Surfrite.” A total of eight instruments were made: three guitars, three basses, and two twelve-strings.
A trio of these instruments were shown to the psychedelic group the Strawberry Alarm Clock in 1967. Ed King of the SAC (and later, Lynyrd Skynyrd) wrote to Steve Soest in 1990 that the band did play Mosrite instruments, and he remembered being shown the surfboard model guitars, but related that they never took possession of the instruments that have become synonymous with the band’s name.
The other bit of misinformation that has been repeated multiple times is that Von Dutch, the famous pinstripe artist, did the pinstriping on the guitars. Al Hartel revealed in his interview with Steve Soest that the guitars were pinstriped by a guy at a local Pico Rivera auto shop in Los Angeles. Von Dutch became so synonymous with pinstriping that people would call any type of pinstriping “Von Dutch.” It’s an easy mistake to make, because Von Dutch became almost like a generic term in that era.
So, let’s set the story straight: These guitars were not made by Mosrite; they were made by Al Hartel with Mosrite parts as a potential prototype for Mosrite. The Strawberry Alarm Clock never played these instruments. And, lastly, the pinstriping is done in the Von Dutch style, but not by Von Dutch himself.
The Mosrite book I’m writing seeks to set the record straight on these instruments. They are super cool and credit should be given to Al Hartel! A real visionary!
Thanks Thomas, for driving in today and letting me photograph the Surfrite guitar for the book!
