Lookin for Tex Collins info? California racer?

I bought a nice package of barn fresh hot rods, and some of the extra fenders on the 31 two door sedan are glass with business cards embossed in them, I am doing a little reasearch before peddlin this stuff. Any help will be great, someone said the fenders are pre 63 because of the hollywood address.

 

I belive he is dead.Back in the eighties,I tried to locate him or family to buy his fiberglass molds.All the leads I received did not go anywhere.

 

I got a call from a friend who said he was shot in the back over a deal gone bad, he was some sort of hot rodder, who built glass drag bodies for drag and street. I will try a pic of the inside of a fender.

 

Tex the owners of Cal Automotive. He was one of the first guys to start building fiberglass Model A and T bodies and other parts in the 60's. It was a company at one time in No. Hollywood CA. Think he was also a member of the L.A. Roadsters and he had a hotrod repair shop in Glendale, CA. Just read a story on him that Dave Wallace wrote about Tex buying a 4 Allison engined drag car: http://www.dragracingonline.com/nowthen/viii_8-1.html

He also says Tex was shot.

 

Tex Collins was shot over a horse deal gone bad. I believe Mike Guffey in Indiana now has the chassis for the Quad Fiat.

 

My Old Roadster has a body from Cal Autmotive made in 1968 and bought from Competition Sales in Pasadena TX for $150.

 

Bud Lang and Curt Hamilton (not Schultz, as I noted earlier) were the founders of Cal Automotive and the first guys to build production T-Bucket bodies. They later sold the company to Tex Collins.
http://yblock.blogspot.com/search?q=cal+automotive

 

If my memory serves me correctly,I visited Tex at his place of business
in Calif..got set up as a dist of his glass "T's..He was also a bit player in some movies.....and an Old Hot rod magazine says that he bought Cal Automotive from Curt Hamilton...... Tex was also a very funny guy.....
would give you the shirt off his back....I did sell lots of his stuff....

After reading the blogspot...Dont know where the name Curt Schultz came from as it was definately Curt Hamilton

 

My flub -- should be Curt Hamilton, not Schultz

 

What ever happened to Curt Hamilton. I know he went on to own his own company, Hamilton Automotive Industries. He built a lot of t roadster chassis. He built one for a fellow in Pa. named John Bianco. It was a really well proportioned car.

 

my '27 body was built in '68, from what I've found that was the last year of
cal automotive.
All had the card glassed inside.

 

Tex's son Frank is a HAMBer......CAL-AUTOMOTIVE.

 

http://yblock.blogspot.com/2009/01/brief-history-of-fiberglass-t-bucket.html

 

My Cal body has the ducktails like real steel T roadsters.

 

This is a Tex Collins deal that he purchased from Jim Lytle The Bad Brama Bull

 

That sure looks like the inside your shop Mike. How did you get ahold of that big monster?

 

The original bodies were molded with the lower piece, but most folks who bought them for drag cars cut them off. Later molds were made without them to save production cost. I had 3 different T bucket molds over the years, none with the lower piece.

 

If memory is correct, that COE was sitting at the PDQ wrecking yard for years in Sun valley, CA..

 

Quote:
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My Cal body has the ducktails like real steel T roadsters.
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I don't want to stir things up, but I don't believe the original Cal Automotive T-Buckets had the ducktails, horns, or whatever you call them. From http://yblock.blogspot.com/search?q=cal+automotive with info from the story as told by Bud Lang in Rod & Custom in the 70s of how he and Curt founded Cal Automotive:

Bud Lang and his partner Curt Hamilton shelled out $25 to rent a steel '23 T roadster body and had legendary painter and customizer Dean Jeffries clear up any imperfections in the then almost 40 year old skin, along with whacking off the unsightly rear "horns" on the body and substituting a nice rolled pan, which became the standard look for virtually all fiberglass T-bucket bodies thereafter.


With the Jefffies' cherried body, which still had to be returned to its original owner after its use, Bud and Curt hired the equally legendary Nat Reeder, "The Glass Man" to produce their first body mold at his Fiberglass Auto Body on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Nat had earned his reputation as the country's premier Corvette fiberglass repair and custom body panel molder. It has been said that Dean Jeffries was the Rembrandt of painting and Nat Reeder was the Rodin of fiberglass structure. Bud Lang and Curt Hamilton had chosen wisely for what would become their budding business venture.

That body mold became the foundation for Cal Automotive, Bud and Curt's company that offered the first mass production T-bucket body. Initially, their bodies were grabbed up by drag racers who were in a constant quest to improve E.T.'s through weight reduction.



P.S. As far as fiberglass T-Buckets with horns/ducktails, as I seem to recall the old Almquist bodies were unique in that they had them.

 

I knew Tex when I was in high school, actually, I knew his kids better than I knew him. I used to hang around his shop and help out on the ranch he had once owned.
I remember one of his daily drivers, had a stage coach body and a cowboy hat as an aircleaner. In the showroom was the 4 alison powered dragster that I used to sit in sometimes. It was featured in one of the the old "beach" movies with Frankie Avalon.
In the back was parked some interesting contraptions, a 50's 'white" garbage truck that was alison powered was one I remember.
He was very well known for his Mustang funny car that was alison powered.
I was close to Frank at the time, lost touch with them after Tex's death though. Sometimes, I think about the family and wonder how they are doing. Someone mentioned the Frank is a member here, I would like to say hi.

 

I recall Tex's shop on Lankershim with the Quad Al sitting in the showroom window. There was also a rodded "T" C cab shop truck usually parked in front. The White truck was parked on his property in La Tuna Canyon along side of the house. My failing memory also recalls an earlier shop on Tujunga Ave., near Oxnard called Ford Duplicators. My friend and I went there one day and bought two 26/27 roadster doors for a failed project of his. Under the name of Ford Duplicators, they also built a complete, running 26/27 "T" touring with all stock running gear and all glass "sheetmetal". Even the taillight mount was fiberglass. A guy at my high school, Mike Hamilton, drove it, and the C cab, in a few times. He is, somehow, related to Curt Hamilton, a nephew I think. Somewhere in my stash of old stuff, I think I still have a Ford Duplicators catalog. I'll have to dig it out.

 

I saw the 4-engine car (or something really similar) out front of his shop on Lankershim, with 8 badly deteriorating slicks, some flat, in the Summer of 69 (or was it in 68 while visiting?), when I moved here from New York. Pretty awesome sight for something on the street (not in a magazine picture) for a 14 yr old. I musta stared at that thing forever, while my non-car cousin looked at me like I was Forrest Gump

 

Tex sent his White allison truck, Tommy Ivo's glass surround van to Scottsdale Speed Sp. back in 1970 [I had just gotten out of the service,I worked there a short time] to be painted by Tweety,Von Dutch was living in his old bus in the parking lot. Tweety painted the truck as seen in the pictures in this thread. After all the years, The White garbage truck was up for sale in Pomona about 6-12 months ago,motor was gone. I stopped and checked it out. It still had Tex Collins on the side and the same paint job Tweety painted. Don't know if it sold.

 

I had the pleasure of watching this White Truck run at the Old San Fernando Dragstrip back in the 60's, as I recall, Tex also ran a Mustang Fastback with the same Air Plane
Engine in it, saw him blow a rear tire and take out half the body on one run...Those
were the days....Les in Minnesota

 

I know Frank Collins. And talk to him all the time. We go back to 1969. What do you want? Miles Gleason......

 

I knew Tex. I helped build the clutch for the Mustang when I worked at Vanover Engineering. Ask Frank if any of Tex's cars are still around. The street Mustang with the straight front axel ( his wife used to drive that ), the T stake bed truck ( my favorite ), the ex Chuck Finders A/Gas Supercharged Willys that Tex had Jerry Demille replace the pick up body with the first all glass 33 coupe body.I helped with that. We then took it to San Fernando and ran it.

Jay

 

The Model T stake bed still exists but is in pieces. The truck was accidentally backed over a (small) cliff which bent the frame. A friend bought the truck in this condition and has never put it back together. He still has the body but sold the engine to another one of our friends - who still has it.

 

I am aware of Cal Automotive and Tex Collins, as a matter of fact, if I really dig around my magazine collection, I might have a catalog from Cal automotive from about '66 or so. Always dug the '26 '27 coupe body they did. Too bad no one else followed suite with that one.
The main reason I am adding to this thread is that some one mentioned a T bucket body with the "flip" or frame horns on the back. I just ended up with one of these this last week, and imediatly started digging for manufacturers. As close as I have come is that these buckets were primarily done by Kellison. They also show up in adds for Almquist in the sixties too. Sorry to highjack, just thought I would add that. If I can get to my old stuff and find that catalog, I'll scan it and add it here.

 

My dad worked part time for Tex in the late 60's running the glass shop in the evenings. Back in 68 or 69 I was at Fernando and they push started his Allison powered 34 Sedan drag car backwards down the strip "That's how they did it" and the throttle stuck and it went through the plywood billboards and chainlink fence and into the wash!
I remember it like it was yesterday!
Dan Ruth

 

Wasn't the T stake bed on the cover of Rod and Custom in 1966? It also appeared with the ZZR in the movie "Out of Sight". Love that truck!!!!