red pepsi 81

[vendo_81]

Hello,  I am new to the SMC forum group.  Did anybody see pawn stars and american restorations with the red Pepsi 81?  I'm sure it was factory red.  I know this because I have two of them.  Both of mine have serial #'s 20 something apart and the one on the show was one # off one of mine.  They aren't actually red.  They are more of a redish orange color, definately not coke red.  I would like to know why and how many of these were made this way?  Both of mine were found about an hour from each other.   

[Kilroy]

Welcome to the boards! And I'm jealous - 2 Pepsi VMC 81's? I still haven't found my first one.

We had a discussion on the red VMC's.  No one had seen or heard of them before,and ifi recall, the general thought was they were repainted at some point years ago.
That thought has now changed with 2 more popping up.  The mystery continues

[sc1101]

I'd love to own a Pepsi 81 in red or blue. Rare red would be my first choice. As long as it was painted red originally. The more uncommon the more I want it.. It's funny how the longer you collect the items you want are harder to find and more expensive. I think I might have to go back to collecting bottles.

[MaineT]

Where were they located at? That could help in figuring this whole thing out. Is there a local reason or event for the red pepsi machine?

[vendo_81]

The machines are located in Nebraska.  I thought about Big Red Cornhuskers, but the color is pretty orangish.  A friend suggested that possibly Howard Johnson motels requested it, but their color is pure orange.  On American Restorations, Rick Dale said that his prediction was that maybe the factory had some left over unpainted in the factory when the square machines came out with the red/white/blue theme and they might have painted them red for a new look?  I have 5 Pepsi 81's and the red ones are the latest s/n's.  My oldest blue one is 101007 with single louvers.  I have two blue 104233 & 104255 blue double louver and the two red  105926 & 105953.  The one on tv was a 105927 I believe.  They showed a close up of the fake I.D. tag after restoration.  Their stamping was all wrong, way too big of numbers and sloppily done, but I would guess they remade the tag so it would look new.  The s/n had to be taken off the old tag, which falls in line with mine.  Ron Vanoveren from Omaha had one that he sold a couple of years ago, before anybody realized that VMC actually might have produced red ones, that he had listed on ebay that was painted blue over red.  There is a good chance it was originally red as well.  I contacted him and the machine was sold and he didn't give me any info on the buyer.  You would think there would be records somewhere that Vendorlator would have kept on how many of each machine they produced.  People that worked at the plant at the time must be in their 80's or older if they are still alive.  I haven't tried contacting Vendo or the local distributor yet for info.  I did call Rick's Restorations and Ron called me back.  He said that the machine they had on tv went back to Pawn Stars and to contact them.  He had little interest that I had red machines as well.  He probably thought I wass full of B.S..  I tried Pawn Stars and no answer.  No answer to e-mails either.   They probably get bomarded with a zillion calls and e-mails.   So here I am, scratching my head.  How many red ones and why?

[mznb1u]

Welcome to the board and nice machines.  I would love to have a Pepsi 81 but with my wife's Coca Cola heritage that will never happen.

  Tim

[Kilroy]

Get one Tim, and you can keep it at my place

[Creighton]

Welcome Vendo_81!!
Wow, that is a home run for a first post :-)
Regret I know nothing of Pepsi history.
Hope those that do will chime in.
Creighton

[Slapshot42]

Welcome to the Site Greg!

Jared

[sc1101]

Nice pic. Makes me want it more.

[cohammer]

I would take a red Pepsi machine but would never have a blue one in my house.

[BONOVOX]

Welcome to the board!!

I don't drink Pepsi anymore, simply because I prefer Coke.... but I have no problem having a Pepsi machine in my mancave....  having different colours and embossing makes for a nice collection.

Some friends and family already think my hobby is strange.... but to only have Coke machines, they might think I'm obsessed lol.

Seeing these red machines brings some cred to the fact that there might have really been red machines.. but why?

[MoonDawg]

         Red has always been associated with Coke.

        Maybe Pepsi put out a few red machines before the Coca Cola police stopped them?

[vendo_81]

Can you own a color?  That would be like Ford saying I made the first black car, so no one else can make a black car.  Also, the color is very much different than Coca Cola red.  It's really in the middle of red and orange.  There is no doubt in my mind that these were done at the factory.  I'd be curious to hear from from Pepsi VMC81 owners if anyone has a machine with a later s/n than mine that is painted factory blue.  If so, it lessens the chance that the red ones were done at the tail end of production of these machines.  My earlier post has my s/n's.  Let's solve this mystery!

[jukeboxdon70]

I love the red machine! I have a Pepsi 81 VMC serial # 101118B41, but it is blue. This gives me something to look for in the future. Welcome to the club!

[vendo_81]

Your s/n is close to my oldest blue one.  Does yours have the big wide single louvers on the sides?

[johnieG]

I'd like to see the inside of the front door myself...

I did own at one time a red Pepsi Ice chest embossed double-dot, the gent I bought it from had had it in his family for years & it used to sit outside of their 1930's roadside gasoline service center & general store, he told me that for a while, Pepsi had made some red machines to draw people to the machine in heavy Coke sales areas to "break the Ice" so to speak and to get people to at least try a Pepsi. I believe he told me it had something to due with when Coke owned Pepsi in the depression era and were buying up other brands of soda bottlers & converting the plants to Coke production or dissolving them

..Interesting though.

[BONOVOX]

When I was a kid, Pepsi brought out their new line called "Pepsi Free".  I wish I kept their cans because I clearly remember Pepsi having that brand in a all RED can.  They changed it to BLUE a while later, but for the longest time they sold both the RED and BLUE together (separate in cases).

This is from Wikipedia:

"When it was first introduced, Caffeine Free Pepsi's label background was originally red, but to avoid any confusion with Coca-Cola, the background color was changed to gold in 1987"

So with this, it's not unlikely at all that Pepsi at that time might have thought about changing their colours on their machines to suit what the public wanted.  I mean, a RED or REDDISH machine catches the eye much better than a dark blue.  Once feedback was coming back to the bosses at Pepsi that their machines looked way too much like Coke machines, they were ordered to paint them blue, thus the double colours on some machines.  Because detailed info wasn't kept on ALL the machines they delivered etc... some machines simply were left as RED.

What do you all think of that?  I like playing detective lol.
It's a theory

[vendo_81]

Here's a pic of inside the door.  The one on American restorations looked the same.  They painted the metal on the back side of the embossing.  I don't believe they did this on regular machines produced.  I found on the internet a site that I could watch the episode of American Restorations for free where they tear the machine down and discover that it was all red inside.  You type in American Restorations series 2 episode 38 and it said something like free tv on the website heading.  I personally think they made a mistake changing the color to blue, but Rick said that it would bring more money that way.  I don't how you would know that, since I've never seen a red one for sale.  Plus, without knowing which s/n machines were produced red, once stripped and repainted, how do you prove that it was originally red?  Maybe being red is no big deal?  Maybe it adds no value?  It does add rarity.  If they made even 10% of them red from the factory, we would see them here and there.  What would really be something would be if Coca Cola made a factory blue Coke machine!  I tried to attach a pic of the inside of the red pepsi door, but it said my file was too large.  I used the same camara that I used before?  I'll try again

[Slapshot42]

I think the biggest mistake is when they put the drinking fountain back on the machine!

 

[vendo_81]

I can't get my pics to attach.  Says the file is too large.  Did it like I always did?

[Slapshot42]

Pictures

[MoonDawg]

         No doubt it is original orange paint.

         Here is where it started out 

[Slapshot42]

Sweet picture!  Where did you find that?

Jared

[Eric]

Love that picture... would like to see all the other machines color schemes they had....
Nice 81 you have there....

[cohammer]

I have to believe that some how these machines that are painted red have some thing to do with the fact vendo merged with vendorlator in 1956 and were just painted red not ment to be public.

[collecture]

I tend to go along with Vendo 81. The early 56 ST's were red, white and blue and I think this was a transitional trial scheme/color.
I wouldn't value it any higher though - I personally think the blue with white lettering looks better.

[vendo_81]

I'd like to see one of those early squaretops and see if you can see the unfaded red inside anywhere and see if it matches the orangish red on mine.  If it matches, I'll bet they are transitional machines.  I collect a little music/guitar gear and I've got a Fender amp that is a transitional model.  On a Fender Champ, the old chassis design had the knobs on the top and tweed fabric covering, through the 50's and early 60's.  In 63'  they made a small # with knobs on the top and switched to black tolex covering, which is what I have.  Then they switched to the new chassis with knobs on the front with black again and kept that design for a long time after that.  I'm thinking that if the s/n's of the Red Pepsi 81's are at the end of production of the round tops, the transitional paint theory makes sense.  I don't know if it makes them worth any more?  Probably not.  But I think it is cool!    

[Kilroy]

I am leaning toward a way to get a customer thinking they are walking up to a  Coke machine. If it were a mistake in painting, they would have sent them through again.

If I found one, i'd have it redone in Pepsi blue, Rare? yes, more valuable? Doubtful

[Creighton]

Any year Fender Champs are top notch. Still upset that I traded my tweed 1956 for a Princeton Reverb and then sold that.
Can't afford to replace either now. Live and learn. I play badly so the SS Marshall and Fender amps with pedals are good enough :-)

What guitars are you liking of late? My Fender Lone Star Strat and Alvariz Dana Scoop get the most play. The Dana had the typical carbon fiber neck meltdown so I replaced it with a strat neck, fun.

Your red 81's are interesting and very cool. Hope someone can help with the "rest of the story" :-)
Creighton


 

[collecture]

Don't have the machine anymore, but the paint scheme is fairly common I believe.

[Larry]

figured out why it was red.  That was when they hired the color blind painter.

[vendo_81]

That red on the squaretop looks pretty orangy.  Then they used light blue.  I've seen roundtops repainted light blue and white 2 tone.  That was probably done in the 60's to give the machine a new look.  Off topic, but for Creighton, here's a pic of a couple of my favorite amps that I have.  A 63' Fender Tremolux and a 65' or so Supro Thunderbolt.  I've got a 69' and 70' Marshall basketweave bottom cab with original pre-rola speakers, one 30w and one 25w.  Should have kept my 73' 100w plexi head!

[SIGNGUY]

Somewhere there are a couple of old guys who used to work for Vendo/VMC in the Paint Department Laughing.. Saying..
"Hey Earl, remember that time we got drunk while on the job and started painted those Pepsi coolers a different color as a joke to piss off the boss"...
"yeah Hank, I remember.. Glad we didn't get fired" but was sure funny"

"yeah Earl, those were the good ol days"

"but Gee Hank, I sure hope that now in the year 2013 when these machines are so rare and people are paying 6,000-7,000 restored for them, they don't get confused and think it was some huge plot to overthrow the competitor"...

 

[cokemachinesandmore]

Hey Larry was that color blind painter named dan lol

[Larry]

Hey Larry was that color blind painter named dan lol

 

That's funny.

[sbcroix]

Somewhere there are a couple of old guys who used to work for Vendo/VMC in the Paint Department Laughing.. Saying..
"Hey Earl, remember that time we got drunk while on the job and started painted those Pepsi coolers a different color as a joke to piss off the boss"...
"yeah Hank, I remember.. Glad we didn't get fired" but was sure funny"

"yeah Earl, those were the good ol days"

"but Gee Hank, I sure hope that now in the year 2013 when these machines are so rare and people are paying 6,000-7,000 restored for them, they don't get confused and think it was some huge plot to overthrow the competitor"...

 

Ha!  Great theory