first things first: number two

Tamara:    Okay, story number two.
Ken:    The Dellow-
Kris:    How did the Dellow come into being for us?
Ken:    Well Ron Bradshaw mentioned that he had a friend who had one for sale. And I knew what the car was of course. You know I knew what it-
Kris:    No you didn’t. How did you know what it was?
Ken:    What a [UI] it was.
Kris:    How did you know what it was? A Dellow?
Ken:    I knew what everything was about cars. <<laughter>>
Kris:    Okay. Alright.
Ken:    And I always admired the look of that little Dellow.
Kris:    That was a good looking car.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Yeah.
Ken:    So I bought it. That was fun. It was built on a Ford ten? Wasn’t it?
Kris:    Yeah, the 100E Popular.
Ken:    With a little tiny four cylinder engine that looked like a scaled down model A engine, which it probably was.
Kris:    Remember the frame was built out of rocket tubes.
Ken:    Yes.
Kris:    Left over from the war.
Ken:    Yep. It had all unique sheet metal. A very perky looking thing with nice flyaway fenders. Had 10s truck rear wheels and tires on it. And then smaller…I guess they were standard front wheels.
Kris:    So this was typical of English car manufacturer thing. The guys want to build a trials car, competitive in competition for trial. They had not materials or money. So they bought a huge load of war surplus rocket launching tubes and that’s what they made the frames out of. They were just big like four inch diameter high carbon steel tubes they could actually get for nothing. They couldn’t get anything else. And they built the frames out of that.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    And they just stacked- you know and then they put their little car on top of that thing. And used Ford running gear. And the thing was incredibly successful.
Ken:    They’d run them in hill climbs and muddy…artificially create muddy situations and hill climbs where they used them. They were unstoppable because of the gearing. Lightweight.
Kris:    And that was one of the first cars I ever drove because dad- how did this go? How did you get me into that thing? As a kid? Remember? I mean I drove it. But you took me places.
Ken:    Well I don't remember how I got you started on that.
Kris:    We would go places and I could drive it or something. I mean before I got my license.
Ken:    Yeah. Well and the thing I remember>
Tamara:    In England?
Kris:    Yeah.
Ken:    <was teaching you to drive the Bronco.
Kris:    That’s another story. <<laughs>>
Ken:    <<laughs>> I had a Bronco that I got from the Ford racing people. It had been built for the Baja run in Mexico. It was about as high performance a vehicle as you could put on the street.
Kris:    Yeah. Imagine a 500 horsepower Ford Bronco. With no top, no side windows, a roll bar, that’s it. And huge tires.
Ken:    And the whole back…in back of the seats where normally there would be seat it was one big fuel tank. <<laughs>>
Tamara:    That sounds like a bomb.
Ken:    It was.
Lois:    On wheels.
Ken:    So I wanted Kris to know how to handle a car when it got loose and so there was a great big empty lot where they were starting- it was getting ready to build a housing development and it was muddy and wet and nobody around. So we took the Bronco out there and I had Kris run around on there and kept encouraging him to use more power.
Kris:    Put my foot into it.
Ken:    Get it to slide and what to do with it when it started to slide and that sort of thing. That’s what we did there with that. That thing was some kind of a powerhouse.
Kris:    That was an animal. I didn’t get that lesson until much later. You know later on I got that lesson.
Ken:    Oh was it?
Kris:    Yeah.
Ken:    yeah.
Kris:    I mean I didn’t do then but later on I got it. So.
Ken:    There was a club in England that was running off-road, an off-road course that was hilly and muddy and so on. And I got in touch with them and I entered the Bronco in one of their events and it started early in the morning and I had to go through London like…six o’clock in the morning. Just about daybreak and this thing thundered. That’s what it sounded like when it ran. When it was idling it would just, “Blumblumblubblum-blum-blum.” And I came up to a stop street in London and there was a bobby standing there. <<laughs>> And he came over to me and I suppose the thing was probably illegal. I don't know.
Kris:    Well plus it was like twice as high as anything in the street anywhere. Except for a double decker bus.
Ken:    And he wanted to know all about it. He let me go. Then I met this group, pulled into the area where they were having their run and the people there had…a bunch of the vehicles that they were using were war surplus British army vehicles that they had stripped down and were running in the mud. And the organizers as I pulled up they took one look at the Bronco and a guy said to me, “We’re going to let you go first because we don’t want to get in your way.” Meaning this thing looks so brutal that they figured that I would run over the top of anyone that was in front of me, you know? So they got in position at the starting line, the guys got a timer and he gives me a signal to go and I let off the clutch and the bronco just sat there. With rear wheels spinning. <<laughs>> I couldn’t move forward. It had the wrong tires for the event. I never did get out into the eventway. <<laughs>> If I had had knobbies it would have been a different story but…
Kris:    The funny part about that was it was…as I understood it the Ford design of Dunton traded cars with Ford in Dearborn.
Ken:    Yeah well-
Kris:    And there was a trade that made this crazy unlikely bronco from Baja California geared to go like 120 miles an hour in Essex. You know in Dunton.
Ken:    Well the way it started was that Walter Hayes built a formula Ford racing car and shipped it to Henry Ford as a gift. To Henry Ford personally. Well Henry Ford had no use for it. <<laughs>> He probably couldn’t even have gotten into the thing. But he had to reciprocate so he had us get a hold of…who was it? The guy that was building those things.
Kris:    Bill Stroff.
Ken:    Bill Stroff. And build a car for to send to Walter Hayes. Bill Stroff spent some time in our studio. We got to know him pretty well in fact. Anyway he put this car together and we shipped it over to Walter Hayes and Walter Hayes had about as much use for it as Henry Ford had for the formula Ford. <<laughs>> And so they sent it up to special vehicles-
Kris:    It’s pretty cool though these guys went back and forth with totally like in your face. Like “Try this.”
Ken:    They were excited to try and use it as a rally car and they took it to an English- to a rally in Ireland and they couldn’t finish the rally because some of the gates they had to go through were too narrow. It wouldn’t go through the gates.
Kris:    The bronco wouldn’t. <<laughter>>
Ken:    So they brought it back and special vehicles had it in storage and I went up there- I was helping them with graphics for their cars. They had no budget for it but I offered to do it voluntarily, which I did. So I went up to their facility to do some graphics for them and I saw the Bronco sitting there. It had a flat tire. And I asked him, “What are you doing with a Bronco?” and they told me the story and they said they couldn’t find a use for it. So I said to them, “Well how about if I take it and find a use for it?” and they said sure.
Kris:    Really? You just put that out there and they said yeah?
Ken:    Yeah. So they pumped up the tire and I took the Bronco home. <<laughs>>
Kris:    I’ve got pictures of that an that was a crazy thing to drive.
Ken:    When I returned to-
Kris:    I wasn’t ready for that thing.
Ken:    When I was getting ready to go home-
Kris:    To appreciate it.
Ken:    And I had to return it to the special vehicles Ron Bradshaw went with me to bring me home. And we’re cruising down the A1 and when we got there I said to Ron, “How fast are we going?” because that thing had no speedometer, you know. And he said, “Well you were hitting 100 with it.” <<laughs>> But you couldn’t tell.
Kris:    This thing’s got no top, no sides, nothing.
Ken:    It was noisy and…
Kris:    Big air cleaner right in the dash. Right in the middle of the dash.
Ken:    I had no idea I was going that fast with it. The windshield frame was a rollbar. Was made out of steel tubing.
Lois:    It did have a windshield though.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Yeah. This is how I was brought up. And there’s more stories beyond this. <<laughs>>
Ken:    That was fun. And then when it came time to take it back they said to me, “We’re going to offer this up for bid for anyone who wants it. If you’d like to have it we’ll accept whatever bid you want to make for it.” And I didn’t want it, I wish I had. But one of the guys in the design center bid for it and got it.
Kris:    Imagine having that today.
Ken:    Yep.
Tamara:    You're still talking about the bronco?
Kris:    Yeah. It’d be amazing. A Baja 1000 Bronco. Bill Stroff prepared. The thing was 351. Like you said geared for like 120 miles an hour.
Ken:    We had a lot to do with-
Kris:    It would have had the…
Ken:    With the first Bronco that he built for the Baja run. He came there to help us with this and I had been give the job of doing a Ford dune buggy and naturally we chose the Bronco as a candidate for that and it had four wheel drive and of course it was a clunk. I mean mechanically it was a clunk. Really brutal engineering.
Kris:    Oh yeah. Just basic four wheel drive stuff you mean?
Ken:    Yeah. And you couldn’t have that front wheel drive system on a dune buggy so we were wondering what to do and I said to Bill Stroff, “Well why don’t we take an F100 front axle and put under it?” You know it had the dual axle thing. And he said, “Yeah, that’ll work.” SO we put it on. And then made this rear wheel drive version out of it and we’d cut all the sheet metal off of it, cut away the doors and things like that. And then the project died and he took that car back to California with him. That became the first of his Baja Broncos.
Kris:    Which included the fiberglass cutout door and the fiberglass wheel wells. That was all Bill Stroff right?
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Really? Wow. You don’t see many with the cutout door but you see all of them with the fiberglass flares.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Yeah. That was an amazing vehicle.
Ken:    Yeah it would have been fun-
Kris:     I can still recall it. You know how it feels. I just didn’t have nuts to do it to it. You know? Which was what it needed. You had to runt hat thing hard to make it work.
Ken:    You could feel like you were in charge when you were driving it.
Kris:    Yeah you had to- yeah. You had to put your foot down and go.
<<about some  pictures he has>>
Kris:     Cool vents.
Ken:    A year end project. Designed by a fellow named Jack Didion at Art Center. We were getting ready to graduate and at the last minute he needed a lot of help and so I came in and helped him build some of the stuff for his model.
Kris:    Like that fully compounded windshield?
Ken:    No, I didn’t do that but I built- I did the radio compass-head on it. <<laughs>> And the moldings on the…well I don't remember what all I did on it but…
Kris:    It’s cool looking.
Ken:    But this is 1950. Not a bad design for that period.
Kris:    No. there again this [UI] on the roof, the compound windshield.
Tamara:    Alright.
Kris:    Cool. Rails all the way out the back. Nice. Fins instead of forward facing transom. Pretty hot.
Ken:    This was a drawing I did for the XP 300 which was a kind of a running mate to the LeSaber.
Kris:    Yeah.
Ken:    That was for the owner’s manual.
Kris:    You did this drawing?
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    With what?
Ken:    While I was at GM.
Kris:    I mean what’d you draw it with?
Ken:    Oh, ink mostly. Pen and ink.
Kris:    So how did you do this shading? Is that airbrush or is it…?
Ken:    Oh, airbrush, yes. When we came out of Art Center you know we could use the airbrush and most of the guys at GM Design Center weren’t that familiar with the airbrush.
Kris:     So the delicate ink work is everything else and then the airbrush did the fade in and out. That’s…
Ken:    This was a…we did some cars for the New York Auto Show. Some 1/8th sized models. I didn’t’ have anything to do with either one of those, I don't know. But these are some drawing I did for the-
Kris:    This was what? Which auto show?
Ken:    New York.
Kris:    What year?
Ken:    1950, 51. 50 I guess.
Kris:     So this would be like their futuristic design studio area.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Okay.
Ken:    These are- I was taken on at Buick Studio to do these kind of mechanical illustrations for the owner’s manual on the LeSaber. And that’s what these are. My drawings for those. They published about a dozen of these manuals. They were covered with a blue leather, they had chrome plated LeSaber script set into the leather then they were sent to GM locations around the world where the LeSaber might someday appear. So if they needed to work on them they’d have all the information they needed.
Kris:    Well the thing is I’ve done exactly the same illustrations for boat stuff.
Ken:    Oh yeah.
Kris:     No I mean yeah. They’re 3D fully working pencil sketch mechanical drawings. I didn’t know that. Wow.
Ken:    This is where I’m working on Jack’s boat. This is a fellow named Dick Collier and that was our Clay modeling instructor, Joe Thompson. Here we are working on the car that got me my job at GM.
Kris:    And how did that happen?
Ken:    This is Bob Bartholomew and that’s me and that’s Joe Thompson again. This was a car that Bob and I designed together. It’s a 3/8th size.
Kris:     And your instructor was black.
Ken:    Hmm?
Kris:    This dude. He looks black. Your instructor.
Ken:    The what?
Kris:    Never occurred to you, huh?
Ken:    What?
Kris:    He’s black.
Ken:    No he’s not.
Kris:    Yes he is.
Ken:    No.
Kris:    Look at him.
Ken:    <<laughs>> He’s not.
Kris:     He totally is.
Ken:    Those are views you hadn’t seen of this car.
Kris:    No. Wow.
Ken:    This is a car-
Kris:    Well wait a minute now. What year was this?
Ken:    1950. Year I graduated.
Kris:    So you're doing the wraparound windshield. Your doing pontoon fender with scoop elements. And cool stuff out the back. Big chrome whatevers out the back.
Ken:    And enough designed features for three or four cars.
Kris:    <<laughs>> Yeah, but still. That’s what those were for, right?
Ken:    Then when I was working at my first job at the design center GM, working at Plant 8, designed some 1/8th model cars for the NY Auto Show. This was one that I did. And [notice] this tail lamp design.
Kris:    Mercury.
Ken:    Yeah. Fellow [UI] stole that. <<laughs>> Yeah. This is 1950. He had plenty of time to get that on the Mercury.
Kris:    It’s totally Mercury.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    And that was shown at the show, huh?
Ken:    Yeah. We had a series of 1/8th size models at the show.
Kris:    So 1/8th size, how big is that?
Ken:    It’s…oh a 1/8th model would be about that long.
Kris:    Oh, okay.
Ken:    The instrument panel that I designed here later was used in a  Cadillac. Full size Cadillac show car.
Kris:    Intellectual property.
Ken:    Yep.
Kris:    Wow look at that. That’s crazy.
Ken:     <<laughs>> Isn’t it though? Just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Kris:    Yeah. You didn’t see this when you saw it from the side view, like I’ve got outside there. You didn’t see the double. But you predicted what was going to happen.
Lois:     Looks like you need to plug it in.
Ken:    What, love?
Lois:    Looks like it needs to be plugged in.
Ken:    Oh. <<laughs>>
Kris:     Yeah, just took a few years to get there. Interesting though like things like these sail panels, you know? The idea of a backlight that is angled normally but the sail panels come out.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    That kind of stuff. It came- you know.
Ken:    Yeah. It got us jobs.
Kris:    Oh man these are originals.
Ken:    Yeah, original sketches. I did these, I think, when I was in the Buick studio.
Tamara:     Wow, those are pretty space age.
Kris:    Check it out. That’s pencil, right? And what? Gouache?
Ken:    Prismacolor.
Tamara:     Wow.
Ken:    Yeah, and a little watercolor.
Tamara:     We should frame those, Ken. Those are beautiful.
Lois:     Yeah, really. Those would make a neat series.
Tamara:    Yeah. Ooo, with the jets sweeping through. Those are great.
Lois:    Yeah, we’ve got to get frames for those. Those are cool.
Ken:    <<laughs>> They’re…
Kris:     Nice- you know I mean nice color on the top. This really stands out. And plus this sort of backlighting on the bottom. What was the idea behind that? So you lit the bottom as well as the top?
Ken:    Well the bottom would be reflected light. Normally it would be a warm color but-
Kris:    Not this time.
Ken:    If your on a different planet-
Kris:    It doesn’t matter.
Tamara:    <<laughs>> If your on a different planet.
Kris:     your on a different planet because look at all this stuff.
Ken:    And look at it now. It seems so crude.
Kris:    Well on the other hand it’s very juicy compared to a lot of stuff you see now. You know? This is very-
Ken:    I like the rear fender eating the front fender there.
Kris:    Yeah, whatever but I mean, you know. It’s pretty juicy. And look at this back here. You put in the cantilevered house and that kind of stuff in the background.
Ken:    You noticed the airplanes in this one.
Kris:    Yeah. You bet I did. With winged tanks? Actually Canard- well it was more than tanks because it’s actually an early Rutan design because you’ve got winglets on the…
Ken:    Yeah, it’s like his current spaceship.
Kris:    Exactly.
Ken:    <<laughs>>
Kris:     <<laughs>> He obviously saw this.
Ken:    This one got a little better.
Kris:    You’ve got T-tails on those.
Ken:    More normal jets in the background there.
Tamara:    <<laughs>>
Kris:     But still that’s pretty dynamic. I mean these huge peaks. And that’s all- I mean that’s your pencil right there.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:     And you just kicked it with some black stuff in there. And it rode off to the top of the mountain.
Lois:     It looks like a mouth. It looks like it’s eating the wheels.
Kris:    Wow, so you put the vent-a-ports on the bottom.
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    Were you-? 1950. Were you at Buick?
Ken:    We were working.
Kris:    Where were you in 1950?
Ken:    Buick studio.
Kris:     So you put them down there just for the fun of it? Or…?
Ken:    Yeah.
Kris:    It’s so cool to crank it over like that to show all the dimension. Okay.
Ken:    Some time ago when Art Center was announcing the 60th anniversary of transportation design at Art Center and giving [Strother McMinn] credit for being the first one to teach there I was incensed because it was not right. We did all this way before he arrived there. But I couldn’t find these photos. I wanted to send them to him. Too late now but I may still do it. Just to show them.
Kris:    Still do it. Yeah.
Ken:    These were-
Kris:    Because they always- everybody’s doing that stuff, you know?
<<pause>>
Kris:    The people that own this now would love to see this kind of stuff. So you're just like me. You just kept all this weird stuff as you found it over the years, right?
Ken:    Yep.
Kris:    Oh god that’s an ugly car. Still. Significant but not attractive.
Ken:    <<laughs>> Yeah.
Kris:     You took these at the Ford museum.
Ken:    Uh huh.
Kris:     These are from the Ford museum. Where you took these.
Ken:    Yeah. Yeah. It was a show they had there.
Kris:     We’ve still got that dashboard downstairs. I can bring you that back. Because you’ve got the Allard gages out of this thing. As I remember. A couple of them. I think is why you bought that thing in the first place. But we’ve got that in Inkster. The whole dashboard assembly.
Ken:    Oh, I didn’t know that.
Kris:    Yeah. Minus the gages you bought it for which were…whatever they were. Yeah. What’s that for?