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It’s almost impossible to figure out, when the term “burners” was first used; could it really go back to the first flame piece by TRACY 168 and RC 162? Probably not. Were writers burning each other back then? Absolutely! Even when writers from the sub-culture had signature pieces to offer, some writers still absolutely burned! STAYHIGH 149 burned everyone, because his signature was so tight. Some people were just geniuses. PHASE 2 has never been burned, and he has written with all of the best writers.

Years later DONDI’s scrap pieces, done with half empty cans, could take out most of a ten car train. The term, really gained momentum in the late 70’s when it became more defined. For example: a “burner” is almost exclusively, a “window- down burner”. Why was this so, when there were so many beautiful whole cars done at that time? The answer is simple, burning is almost the exclusive provenance of those with style. Furthermore, it’s extremely difficult to pull off a whole- car using wild style letters. But what about “Style Wars”? One of the greatest trains ever done was in the video. There were always exceptions to the rules, but we could also argue that most of NOC 167’s incredible lettering in that piece was from the window down; Is it a burner? We say yes! The reason we say yes, is that we believe he put as much time into the background illustrations, as he did the lettering. In most whole cars, you get the “window- down burners”, and then someone throws up some color over the rest of the car.

Are there other whole car burners? Absolutely! “Style Wars” is just the most famous of the bunch. “Throw-ups” rarely burn. Two that might be exceptions are the double decker IN whole cars and the JON 1 “softies”, that were also whole cars. Another exception is a ten car train that had just been cleaned. IZ did about 8 heavily filled throw-ups per car (80 in all), and punctuated the last half of the final cars with IZ THE WIZ. (If you have photos of these, please send them to us, we’d like to post them.)

So now you have a checklist of what doesn’t burn; So what burns? You know what......we’re going to leave that up to you. And while we're at it .....were going to post some of our favorites.

Enjoy!

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A writer could just burn with a Top-to-Bottom, as seen here with the famous FLINT 707 candy-cane piece, done in the early to mid 1970's. This piece blew many writers away and even forced few into retirement. The true originator of the Top-to-Bottom is hard to pin point; some say JAPAN 1 started it, and others say SUPER KOOL 223.

By 1973, spotting a Top-to-Bottom running became a normal event that most writers saw. In the beginning, the first Top-to-Bottoms did not take up the entire subway car, but mainly half of its length. HUNDO 1 took this idea to a new level by painting extra large thick letters, that took up the whole train. Many Top-to-Bottoms consisted of bubble letter, straight letter, western letter and block letter styles. Outside tags were becoming a thing of the past. Numerous writers started doing larger, more elaborate letters just to keep two steps ahead of the rest. To a Subway Outlaw, the Top-to-Bottom writings were about dominance. It was how he/she could take over a line with the biggest and the best, as well as the most work that could hit the public (the next day). TRACY 168 took this honor for being a total package, on what a subway writer should be. He took over the lines with stylish Top-to-Bottoms, as well as with quick letter styles. His most amazing production was writing a Top-to-Bottom on the outside of a train with CLIFF 159, and one inside of the train. That truly blew many writers minds when they saw it!

Writers like SUPER STRUT who had a very long name, executed a Top-to-Bottom with their entire name. Various artists like LEE, of the THE FABULOUS FIVE, took off where FLINT 707 left off. As a result, he did some of the most memorable Top-to-Bottoms of his era. BLADE, an all time king of the 2's and 5's, was considered by many to be one of the all time kings of the whole car Top-to-Bottoms. SEEN UA pulled off dozens of Top-to-Bottoms in the early 1980's and took over, where BLADE left off. A writer truly over looked, was MIN 1 a.k.a. NE, who pulled off the most colorful Top-to-Bottoms (along with KEL and the RTW-WOW crew), on the BMT's. One of MIN's biggest products was a Top-to-Bottom wild style done for SHY 147 (R.I.P.), which ran on the RR train in the mid 1980's. DONDI's work was always a pleasure to be seen .... as it had neat, clean, large and colorful letters, that looked like they belonged on a subway car. The following are a few photos of our favorites: