After discuss with sevral of my friends i discoverd that everybody says diffrent years(decades) when hotrod fiberglass bodys turned up on market, so this must be best place to find out. My guess was the 50´s.... So what decade did the T to B fiberglass bodys showed up?
http://www.tbucketplans.com/2010/04/03/the-real-history-of-the-fiberglass-t-bucket-body/ This may be what you are interested in. Not sure how accurate it is. Bill
"bout '59 or so T-bucket bodies started to show up in ads. THere was some stuff before that, but it was pretty much one off as far as hot rod stuff is concerned.
Thanks for the link LongT. Looks like my guess on the 50´s was right, had this guy taking about the late 40´s because hotrodders wanted lighter cars. Strange that i dident find any good info on the net, i mean since its a major thing among car builders. Just found out that it was invented by the egypts sevral thousand years ago and stuff like that...
In the late 40's there was a car called the Glassspar it was hand made for a Jeep chassis,,as I recall the guys name was Brooks. HRP
HRP, that's cool. In a time period sorta way. The windshields a little funky, but other than that, cool little ride.
Fiberglass boats started showing up in the early 60's and so did hot rod bodies, like T buckets and others. Some may have been earlier than that, but I am talking about mass production bodies as opposed to just a few being made. I remember reading an article when I was about 12 years old (1957) in a Popular Mechanics, or similar magazine, about how to build a glass body by making a wooden buck, covering it with window screen, and then laying up glass over that. At one time I owned a glass T bucket body and a glass Austin Bantam body that were really old and probably made in the very early 60's . They were horribly made. Thick and heavy with rough edges and huge parting lines. They needed a LOT of work to become usable. Fiberglass bodies have come so far since those days. Don
BIRD ENGINEERING had T bucket kit adds in most auto magazines from mid to late sixties into the seventies.. I still drive one.
jc whitney had 32 fords in the late 50's ---saw this in hot rod or hot rod deluxe complete with the ad...
I know that the first production fiberglass body was the Kaiser Darrin in 1952. A full two years before the vette.
I first saw a fiberglass car at the local Chevy dealer in Dearborn, MI in 1953. A Blue Corvette I sold fiberglass boats with fins in 1959. I remember a book featuring a little car called a Skorpion with a crosley chassis, in the early fifties.
I know that the Kaiser Darrin was the first production fiberglass car in 1952. This beat the vette by a full two years. Only problem they only made about 700. Then the doors never really caught on. But I think thet where a cool car.
Not according to my information. The Glasspar G2 was a sports car body first manufactured by Bill Tritt in 1949. It is no longer built today. It was the first production all-fiberglass sports car body built by an American fiberglass manufacturer. A few were built as complete cars (in limited numbers) but most were offered as a body, or body/chassis kit.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference">[1]</sup> The Glasspar G2 was born in 1949 when Bill Tritt helped his friend, Air Force Major Ken Brooks, design a body for the hot rod Ken was building. The car consisted of a stripped down Willys Jeep chassis with a highly modified V8 engine mounted on it. Bill Tritt, at the time, was building small fiberglass boat hulls in his Costa Mesa, California, factory and he convinced Ken that fiberglass was the ideal material for the sports car market. They were in production was only 3 years 1950-1953. HRP
Has some one started a list of these threads to prove or dis prove questionable era correct pre 1965 parts as to build and be able to converse within the proper guidelines of the HAMB?
The Glaspars first appeared in 1951 and are one of the earliest glass bodys. http://www.forgottenfiberglass.com/fiberglass-facts/ Most were built in the mid 50's by guys who wanted a Jag roadster but couldn't afford one. Geoffery Hacker has pretty well documented the early fiberglass bodies and cars on Forgotten Fiberglass
Fibreglass first made its appearance in the late 40s, as others have pointed out. Fibreglass sports cars and bodies made their appearance in the early 50s or as early as 1949. First fibreglass T bucket or hot rod was Roth's Excalibur aka Outlaw. This was his interpretation of the T bucket style, he made a mold and made a total of 4 bodies, 3 of them he sold. The mold is still in existence. He made it in 1957. At the time the supply of T buckets and Model A roadster bodies was drying up. You could no longer pick up a Model A in any junkyard for $5 or $10, or go out in the desert and scrounge a T bucket off an abandoned car. Good bodies were getting hard to find and expensive. I think the first glass T buckets appeared in 1958 and 59 and for a long time were racing only. But by the mid sixties guys had figured out how to reinforce the body, cut out the doors and install upholstery and windshield.
Wescott Auto Restyling has 32 and 34 Ford Bodys since over 30 years on the marked, some are almost 40 years old.. The Model-18 and Model-40 Glass Bodies from wescott are very good Quality. The fitment to a org. Ford Body is good ( compare to lots of other glass bodies ) I had a Model-40 3 Window Body Hot Rod with a glass Body out of the late 70ties. Over 30 years old and I had not a lot Problems with cracks, paint ect. Lots of the glass bodies rides in my local Scene are 30 years old or older. That helps to get historic Registration on a hot rod. More and more hot rod glass bodies hit the Scene in the mid/late 70ties, but the 80ties to mid 90ties was the big glass Body area in my opinion. Today, more and more new repro-steel bodies are available. --
Brown Mold Design built one of the first glass Deuce roadster bodies in the 60's and Mike Martens built the repro frames to go under them. As mentioned above, glass bodies were big in the 70's and 80's as the steel ones were scarce and expensive. I believe Archer built a Deuce also in the 60's and Andy Brizio had one. Of course, GM built a 1953 Corvette out of fiberglass and they are still building them today.
Fiberglass had time to become somewhat common by 1963. My copy of Hot Rod Magazine's hardcover special How To Build A Hot Rod (1963) has an entire chapter devoted to using fiberglass bodies including a how to on installing a body. It shows T's, Fiats, Bantams, a 32 roadster and sports car bodies by Almquist, as well as seats, body parts for Willys, and fenders for 32 and 33-34 Fords. Besides Almquist, companies mentioned include Speedway; Custom Plastics Associates , San Mateo, Ca; S&L Mfg Co of Fort Worth, Tx. I wish I had a scanner, it is an interesting book and great reference fo those of us born later.
GM never built any fiberglass bodies. They were engineered and built by MoldedFiberGlass Body Co. (MFG) in Ashtebula, Ohio. They were matched steel die molded useing a heat cured polyester resin.MFG also built a line of boats and quite a bit of industrial componet parts. edit) I met one of thier engineers who was working on his doctorate at university of toledo in 1963. He was driveing a T bucket with a carson top,430 lincoln power that he had built in the mid 50's.It was fully functional with operateing doors and deck lid. Of course it was a one off project, like my 28 chevy would be..We became friends and he is the person that mentored me thru my 28 chevy build in 63-64.
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