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                                As told to Thomas Voehringer by Harry Bentley Bradley

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.

THE TRUCK

In 1964 $10,000 could buy you a pair of sporty new Mustangs or a couple of stripped down luxo-cruisers like the Chrysler New Yorker....... or if you felt really industrious you could spend it restyling Chrysler's A-100 into the Deora. The money and effort spent on this project nearly sucked the life out of the Alexander Brothers.

Pictures of the build-up show the tremendous fabrication necessary to achieve the final result. The profile saw a drastic reduction in surface area dropping from over 6' to a mere 4' 9". The stock cab sheetmetal was cropped right down to the floor board. When the first of the new parts, the roof section was tacked on, it nearly rested on top of the stock steering column. Originally the front windshield frame and lower fascia was to be a one-piece affair made to open as today's lift gates do. But in this configuration the front hatch weighed so much that it became unmanageable and possibly dangerous. Modern gas-piston technology was not available and the layout was revised to consider safety concerns. The final design utilized an electric motor and chrome hinged-arm to open and support the windshield section and a center-pivoting lower fascia to allow passenger and driver entry. The interior required radical surgery in order to squeeze two human occupants into the limited cab space between the front wheel wells. Moving the stock Slant-Six aft 15" allowed for more useable interior accommodations. Two occupants could now sit semi-reclined in a pair of specially contoured seats. There was no more steering column per se. The steering wheel was attached to a hinged horizontal strut extending from the left side panel. Directional input was transferred from the small butterfly-shaped steering wheel through a chain and sprocket arrangement in the arm to a vertical input shaft located in the Deora's driver's side-panel. This whole affair could be unlocked to swing to the side to avoid hindering front entry. Everything south of the Ford endgate was scratch-built: new headlight houses, parastyle opening lower fascia and front pan. At the back of the cab is a rear window and roof surround plucked from a '64 Ford sedan. The clutch, brake and gas pedals were pretty much left intact since they came up from the floorboard. Gauges were integrated into a left side-panel display as well as a center console. Interior lighting came from an overhead mounted fluorescent tube!

The bed was covered by a hard tonneau because it housed many of the vital structures that were moved to accommodate the new look. The tonneau was secured to the bed with chrome hood-lock pins. The radiator, a casualty in the interior-space-wars, was moved out of the "doghouse" and into the bed, aft of the rear axle. Air ducts cut in the bottom of the bed and an electric fan were used to bring air through the cooling fins. The gas tank was also moved from behind the axle into the bed behind the cab. The pop-up filler cap poked through the hard tonneau on the passenger side just behind the B-pillar. The slant six sitting partially underneath the cover pushed its stock 100 horses through a three-speed manual gearbox. Hurst engineers charted a course for the special linkage required to connect the new floor-mounted Hurst shifter to the remote trans.

The exhaust system is a 1 into 2 arrangement that heads rearward and doubles back to exit each side of the Deora through the most famous FoMoCo part used, and the most obvious once it's been pointed out: Mustang taillight bezels. Baffles behind the bezels helped to diffuse exhaust gasses.

The back of the bed lost its original drop gate for obvious reasons. This allowed the entire rear fascia to become a design pallet. And here is where some of Bradley's most unusual ideas reside. Having a distaste for the visual combination of red taillight lens on a gold backdrop Bradley decided to hide the taillights. This might seem odd (and dangerous) until you find out how it was accomplished. A large chrome structure was the centerpiece of the Deora's rounded rear end. It is divided into two major elements. The top portion is covered in woodgrain and housed a set of mechanical sequential turn signals from the Ford Thunderbird that faces straight down. The bottom half served as a reflective surface that directs the light from the taillights above toward the rear. To avoid the red and gold clashing when the taillights were off they were covered by a sheet of perforated steel that allows light to beam out but appears solid when not in use.

Firestone climbed on board the project by creating a set of prototype tires unique to the Deora. Photos show the tires bereft of any size markings on the sidewalls. Recently the engineering drawings for these tires were uncovered at Firestone. Unfortunately the dies were destroyed long ago.

The A Brothers received plenty of press on the customizing aspect of their creation but not many writers explored the useability of the design. The Deora wasn't just some impractical trailer queen. The A's customs were known for their go as well as their show. One of the most enjoyable stories about the Deora's road-going abilities appeared in the September 1967 issue of Rod and Custom. Writer Spence Murray got behind the wheel of the Deora and put it through its paces. No not doing circles in some empty parking lot: Murray pilots the pickup through city traffic (AAARRRGGGHH!) for a day in the countryside. Great article with lots of photos. My knuckles were white just reading about it.

Everything Old is New Again......

Bradley ended our conversation with an exciting "By-The-Way": The family that purchased the Deora from the A's for $500 still owns it. Oh, I'm kidding about the price..... They have been prepping it for another go at the Show circuit in late 1999 or 2000! I'll keep you up to date.