Designer Times
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Designer Times is a continuing column by legendary Imagineer Bob Gurr on his experiences in the early days of Disneyland. If you missed any previous columns, click here for the list.
4. Autopia Testing
By April 1955, the first Autopia car body was finished and mounted on the hand-built production test chassis. The Disney Studio Machine Shop now had a complete car ready for test driving, but without any bumpers. Kaiser Aluminum was to be a sponsor of Disneyland, and their salesperson, Mel Tilley, suggested we use their aluminum for the Autopia wrap-around bumpers. WRONG! I was to find out too late that this material was not going to work. Not being an “engineer”, I didn’t know any better.
We added an aluminum prototype bumper to the test car and I began some curb crash tests. But the studio folks soon took a dim view of this since my “assistant test driver” was then 12 year old Michael Broggie, son of Studio Machine Shop Manager, Roger Broggie, and we looked like a pair of out-of-control kids on the back lot. So further testing was deferred until later.....too much later.
Glaspar up in Costa Mesa delivered the first production body down to Hutchinson’s Auto Paint in Newport Beach where it was painted red then delivered to MAMECO for installation on the first production chassis. Ed Martindale and I took the first new Autopia car out for a spin on the local streets of Newport Beach. I got carried away showing how the car could lay rubber with the speed governor disconnected. I soon lost it and smashed into a parked car behind the Police Station. The fiberglass body just exploded all over us in a shower of little red bits.....whahappen?
This was not supposed to happen to fiberglass. Bill Tritt of Glaspar said they tried a “new” plastic resin for the production bodies. This was the first and last use of “new”. Our crash turned out to be a savior of what would have been a disastrous Disneyland debut! All the Autopia car bodies were then made from the old resin.
Soon a steady flow of Autopia cars were arriving at Disneyland where the aluminum bumpers were late being delivered. In a circus tent set up in the backstage area, the new Autopia ride operators helped me install the bumpers. Now we could resume the crash tests that the studio had told us to stop. With the availability of multiple cars, the ride operators could simulate actual ride bumping. I quickly observed that the aluminum bumper material deforms and does not return to it’s original position, such as a steel spring would. Oh my gosh, now what are we gonna do?
The bumper crash testing looked like a bunch of wild kids smashing cars in clouds of dust to the other Disneyland workers. We were reported! Admiral Joe Fowler, VP of Construction, drove his ugly old ‘54 Plymouth all the way from the administration building out to our test area to personally order a stop to our perceived mischief. So the Autopia ride would open without further company testing.
As the completed Autopia cars were installed on the Autopia ride, I confirmed that the bumpers indeed were going to be a disaster. The aluminum, besides not being spring-like, dragged on the curbs leaving great streaks of aluminum scrapings behind. Soon these bumpers would be worn thin and collapse even faster. Opening day was imminent, and thousands of real test drivers were going to do our REAL testing.
Next month: opening day turns the new Autopia cars into one big wreck.
Related Links
- Flight of the Imagineer
Guest column by Bob Gurr - Interview with Bob Gurr on the Autopia
- Space Mountain's 25th
Anniversary
Includes comments from Bob Gurr
Bob Gurr began working with Disney in 1954. He retired in 1981 but occassionally consults for the Company. Since Disney he's worked on the sinking ship at Las Vegas' Treasure Island, Universal Studios' King Kong, Godzilla for the film by the same name and much more. Among his proudest accomplishments he lists "making Walt tickled pink that some of the things he wanted to build actually worked. You could tell how proud he was when he would show off things to his friends and the press. Lincoln and the Monorail were two big ones for him."
Designer Times is normally posted the second Wednesday of each month.
The opinions expressed by Bob Gurr, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
-- Posted August 9, 2000
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