My first job as a teenager was making Grant and Ansen steering wheels at a company called Covilon in La Verne, California. We would get center section from Grant. We would roll tube and weld the pieces together. I remember mixing the different colors of metal flake in liguid viynl, coating the wheel then trimming the excess plastic. I must of made a gazillion or bazillion of the things. But they sure were popular, even today I see them being manufactured and sold at local part stores. I had a classic Covico thirteen inch, foam covered deep dish hanging in my garage for decades. But it disapeared one day. Hope it found a good home.
Sorry, no photos. It was just a job then and only thought of payday LOL. I remember the wheels were stacked on another wheel with 1/2 inch rod welded to it and about 48 inches tall. When you see twenty five or thirty stackes of wheels ( 40 to the stack) everyday for months on end you get kinda numb, zoombie like. But the best part of the job was the owner Bob Anderson. No matter what me and some of my friends ( Jack Lowe included )screwed up, he never got mad at us. What a Gentleman. Wish he was still with us. Enough stories of the deeds committed at Covilon to start another thread. Best days of my youth
That's cool... any chance that you have some tips someone who wanted to make a homemade wheel might appreciate?
Gigantor, the only tip I have is to buy it. It would cost an arm and a leg to get all the equipment you need to build that wheel. Muttley, all the wheels we made had holes and no slots. Mayby they were made after I left the company. Besides I can see the weld that is around the tube ( bottom spoke) and I was a better welder than that, damn near fused them so they would look smooth. Wonder where they are made now??? For awhile in the mid seventies I contracted welding the Covico wheel for a guy named Jack, can't remember his last name. Seems like there were alot of copycat wheels over the years. I still think the blue green flake mix was the best looking.
Hey Mark, tell 'em about the night you and Jack were screwing off with the fork lift and knocked down the steel frame for the new building, and blamed it on the Cubans!! Bet you didn't know I knew about that!!
Whoops. Like I said Bob Anderson was a great guy and didn't even get mad at me for bending his not yet completed new building.He once told me " If I got mad at everything that went wrong around here I would be dead". Dean you had a front seat to see some of the stupid thing I did. Hope you don't hold it against me now, I have grow up a little since then. Didn't you ever do anything stupid?????
Yes, Mark, I did. I climbed into s '53 Studebaker at El Mirage in May of '62, and have been paying the price ever since. And, apparently, by your own admission, I was dumb enough to leave my roadster unattended so you and my little brother could climb in, and drool all over the seats!
I'll take the black three hole, gold four hole, white four hole and the aqua three hole to go please.
Yep, sure is. You can see the building north of Arrow Hwy and east of San Dimas Canyon Rd. in La Verne. Big green steel building.
My friend, Jim Thomas, had a bunch of parts stored in the Covilon building for years. Then, when Bob died, his son got to be a real dick, and told Jim to get his shit out, he wanted to rent the building. Don't think Bob was even cold yet.
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