Recently I had the great pleasure to speak with automotive legend Harry Bentley Bradley. You may not recognize his name but I'll lay odds that you know his ideas and have seen his influence: In GM cars/trucks that pass you on the street, in small cars you pass in the aisle of your local toy store, in the automotive press spanning three decades - most recently being the featured '47 Ford in April's Rodder's Journal. He's a witty, articulate spokesman and teacher of automotive design working at Pasadena's famous Art Center College of Design since 1969.
Beyond that he is also a gentleman. He patiently answered a number of my questions regarding a vehicle to which he is inextricably linked; the Dodge Deora. You see, before the Deora was the Deora it was a spark in Harry Bradley's imagination. While it is closely associated with its builders, Larry and Mike Alexander, the original design came from Harry Bradley. The Alexanders deserve every kudo for its fabrication but my interest was in the story behind the design. More than a mere show truck, the image of the Deora (Aura de Deora?) became an icon for the era.
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Bradley grew up in La Jolla, California, in the 1950s during the exciting dawn of the custom car and hot rod scene. He cruised to high school in a friends' Barris chopped and channeled '40 Merc. His interest in cars was not restrained to the work bench. It stepped onto the drawing board as well. He had been drawing cars regularly since he was about 7 with ever increasing ability, right through high school. Deciding on a career in design, Bradley was accepted at Pratt Institute, the foremost design college in the country at that time. With a degree in automotive design Bradley garnered offers from the major auto companies (Chrysler, Ford, GM & AMC). He accepted a position at the GM Design Staff in '62 and continued with GM through most of the '60s doing work in the Advanced Design Studios, Chevrolet, Pontiac and Cadillac Studios as well as GM's Commercial Vehicle Studio working on the El Camino, Chevy van, 12-cylinder diesel rigs and gas turbine show trucks. In the late '60s a strategic and lucrative job change brought Bradley's design talents to a company that would under his tutelage produce more autos and trucks then the Big Three combined: Mattel. But that's another story......
The first meeting of Bradley (or more correctly his designs) and the "A" Brothers happened while at he was still at Pratt. Bradley was a regular contributor to the auto customizing press (Rodding & Restyling, Customs Illustrated, Rod & Custom, etc.) through their "sketchpad" departments. These pages often featured design ideas from little-known designers like Tom Daniel and William A Moore. Mike and Larry Alexander, in Detroit, noticed Bradley's work and liked what they saw. They had apparently kept track of Bradley's progress at Pratt, surprising him with an invitation to meet with them within a few weeks of his arrival at GM. He agreed. It was the fall of '62. In the ensuing years Bradley provided the prolific brothers with 10-12 custom designs in a semi-clandestine way (a necessity given Bradley's employment). Collaboration stopped in '70 when the "A" Brothers' new shop was on a collision course with City Hall and the newly proposed highway. Afterward, both Bradley and the "A" Brothers continued their individual commitment to their respective crafts. Mike Alexander went on to American Sunroof while Larry went to Ford's prototype fabrication department.
But before the break, one colossal project exacted the most from the Bradley/Alexander Brothers collaboration. It made an indelible impression with the public and the A's bank account. Its modest beginnings belied the projects later complexity. What at first glance was a simple makeover quickly became a total revamp testing the talents and the patience of the team. The test subject? The latest in rolling shoeboxes; an innocuous Dodge A-100 economy pickup. Similar vehicles like the Ford Econoline and Chevy Greenbriar were already on the market. Chrysler wanted to create a distinct identity for its entry with the "A" Brothers help. They presented a little design proposal: we'll give you the truck, you customize it a bit, give it back, we show it around and you get the credit. Chrysler was specific about the customizing... MODEST......maybe lower it a bit...."modest" being the operative word. After all it's a new vehicle.
The "A" Brothers passed the design baton to Bradley as food for thought on his 2500-mile road trip to Stanford University where he planned to pick up his Masters degree on a GM Fellowship. A couple thousand miles of asphalt speeding under your wheels can create a fertile playground for the creative mind. From the pilot's seat of his custom '64 El Camino (with custom '57 Vette in tow), Harry poured over the design problem at hand. Before many miles passed he knew that modest was just not going to happen. The possibilities here should not be limited to the scope of the Corporate mentality. So from a plain shoebox Bradley created a stunning stiletto shoe! This truck was going to have a low, sleek stance and an aggressive forward-leaning front end with a front-opening cab. But designs never get past the idea stage without answering some pragmatic engineering questions. A front opening cab is certainly striking but could it be done? Yes, with the rear endgate of a station wagon. Hmmmmm. By the time he reached Stanford he knew what he was looking for. In the late evening light Bradley prowled the used car lots of Palo Alto until crossing paths with a '60 Ford Station Wagon. With a couple of measurements his ideas were solidified. Unfortunately Bradley's nocturnal activities attracted the attention of anxious Stanford Police that arrested first and asked questions later. Luckily, through his GM identification and an very early morning call (Detroit time) to his boss, Bradley's personal integrity was begrudgingly confirmed and he was released. After a short pit stop, customizing history was once again back on the track.
Over the next two weeks Bradley put pencil to paper, melding the various design ingredients into a cohesive form. In this time the A-100 was transformed from a stodgy beast of burden to a svelte, sleek custom that was lower, leaner and visually meaner. He posted the design proposals off to the waiting "A" Brothers. Mike and Larry loved what they saw. Upon viewing it Chrysler too gave it an equally enthusiastic nod; in spite of the fact the proposal represented a 180-degree shift from Chrysler's original design criteria. The design had that kind of charisma. Of course there was no mention about the numerous Ford donor parts. The design revealed none of these. No one saw the individual parts that made up the whole. Each part Bradley chose for his machine was mainstreamed into a completely seamless package.
As the first sparks flew in the "A" Brothers' shop, engineering had to be sorted out and some changes were made. This would be no weekend project. The metamorphosis took much longer then the A's ever anticipated.
As the "A" Brothers were nearing completion on the A-100 project, AMT approached them, wanting to do a kit of the finished vehicle. What is it called? Hmmmmm. They didn't have an immediate response. Bradley had suggested the project be known as the XTAB for eXperimental Truck by the Alexander Brothers. However, seeing the opportunity in a nameless truck someone suggested a marketing ploy that would spur interest in the new kit: a contest, where modelers could send in possible names for the custom truck. Entries could be reviewed by a panel of celebrity judges. The deal was struck and an ad calling for entries ran in the September 1965 issue of "Car Model" magazine accompanied by Bradley's renderings and in-progress photos of the project. A panel of judges was made up of Chrysler's quarter-miler Don Garlits, Auto World's Oscar Koveleski, Car Model magazine Co-Publisher Bob MacLeod, AMT's Director of Marketing Len Bolton, and of course the Alexander Brothers. The contest results were announced in the February 1966 issue of Car Modeler. 13-year-young David Hagedorn's entry topped all the others. It was short and suitably exotic......DEORA. David explained that it meant "Golden" in Spanish (which is technically not correct, but .....). Since Bradley's original proposal called for finishing the project in gold, this name had it all. David not only gave an identity to one of the most famous customs ever built but he got the first AMT kit made of the Deora plus 40 other current AMT releases of 1966 (including the Ala Kart, the Silhouette, the Munster Koach, Surf Rod...).
So, after almost two years in the shop, the "Deora" was ready for its debut. The reaction was instant and overwhelmingly favorable. Chrysler went on record exclaiming that the Deora represented a vehicular styling advance. Bradley and his colleagues at GM had been designing sleek cab-forward commercial vehicles on paper but this one made the difficult transition into three dimensions for everyone to see. Despite its fame, Bradley says that the Deora project had little effect on his career in the scheme of things. It's safe to say it has affected many Baby-Boomers to a much greater extent.
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