LAT 18 "rally jacket"

A couple of years back i managed to acquire an original LAT 18 "rally jacket". The ones offered by dealers as part of the LAT options. Despite it being adult Medium size it was to small for me (i gather americans must have got bigger in the last 45 years?) I could fit into it but it was like a T-shirt. The jacket also has 2 owner placed patches (1 US navy and another some dog owners club) which i have kept on it but may now remove.



Anyway I started doing some research into the jackets. The jackets were made in California by a company that did many sporting teams/college/club jackets and the LAT jacket was a variation on that. They used a poplin fabric (its like a cotton canvas) and talon zips. they also had 2 stripes down the front in a quite textured vertical grain ribbon in black and orange.

Not wanting to cut up the original jacket to get a pattern i started searching out a larger jacket by the same manufacturer. After about 3 months i picked one up in the internet in japan.. it was a medium as well but at least i could pull it part to have a pattern made for a larger size.

After mucking around trying to get a close match on the fabric and source talon brand zips I found materials that were close enough to what i needed.

A tailor was finally convinced to grade the pattern and make a reproduction of the jacket. They were not happy about the "old style" detilaing and the fact "nobody makes the jackets like that anymore" and "why not tailor it".. but i wanted it as close as possible to the correct item..

so here we are almost 2.5 years later.. I still need to make the front LAT patch but its almost complete!

original jacket:


repro jacket:

Mr. King,

growing up in Southern California in the sixties I know the jacket style very well.

All the cool surf guys (me)wore them. In fact if you look at early Beach Boys album cover you will see some of the fellows wearing the non form fitting jackets.

Like someone cut out a paper tee and sewed it together...........with a zipper.

LAT jacket..............who da' thunk..............

Not sure if you kept the surfing jacket.. but i hope you did. In my serach to find one to cut up and make the pattern i saw a surfing one on ebay.. sold for $1400!!!! I pdf'ed the auction page after i was so amazed!

Tiger Jackets???

Also a 60's wild child (but cool) I had a bright orange Tiger Jacket with the correct patch from an unknown manufacturer. Unknown because we didn't pay attention to that stuff in the 60's. However, the bride says that the darn thing is stowed in the attic (like what ain't, woman?). Sooooo, after several decades of waistline maturity, the search is on. more news later . . . . . .

Since I still live at the beach, I will hunt the local old clothes shops.

My jacket is long gone, along with my ability to ride a wave.

Nice.
I like the idea af staying with the original style for the correct look...it does matter.
You and your tailor should take a few orders and make some more. Also ask Rick as Sunbeam Specialties if he might want to try and sell them. I think you may find many will purchase as long as they are offered in "experienced" sizes.