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Designer Times
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19. Autopia Mk V - Gurrini ¹s Edsel

When I was a 20-year old young auto stylist at the Ford Motor Company Styling Center in Dearborn Michigan in 1952, the sports car was a rarity. Along with my fellow stylists who were supposed to be drawing future Lincoln sedans, sketching up wild new sports cars was more fun. Since the hottest sports around were all Italian, we naturally authored our designs in the Italian manner.....Stablimenti Such & Such. My designs were signed "Stablimenti Gurrini". The name has stuck with me to this day.

After designing Disneyland ¹s first Autopia Car, the Mk I, modified the next few years into the Mk IV, I was all hot to design an all new Autopia Car for the big Tomorrowland Summer of 1959. By the spring of 1958, Disneyland operations folks had several years of Autopia experience and had a lot of ideas as to what they felt should be designed into the (80) new Mk V Autopia cars. These included a one-piece fiberglas body, non-upholstered seats, shock absorbing bumpers, softer ride, etc.

And I wanted to style a hot new "Stablimenti Gurrini" sports car body over the all new chassis. As I started laying out the overall design, more ideas were added to the mix by Disneyland operations such as heavier side bumpers, bigger side running boards for the ride operators, etc. The General Motors Motorama Show Cars were all the rage in those days and were a big influence on my designs. Unfortunately we now look back four decades to that styling era as being the worst ever. (Remember how ugly the 1958 Buick and Oldsmobile looked?).

So the Autopia Mk V featured a deep sculptured rear quarter, plunging hood line, and big scallops on the front corners. These scallops were filled with real heavy chrome plated bumper "bombs" from the 1957 Buick. The local Buick dealer wondered what I was going to do with (160) Buick bumper guards!

The chassis design featured a 4" square steel central backbone frame to which were connected the front and rear bumpers with horizontally mounted Monroe automotive shock absorbers. The front suspension was independent using cast aluminum swing arms pivoting with Timken bearings on large spindles welded to the central backbone. Steering arms used American Motors Nash Rambler front axle wheel hub spindles.

Side note: after buying so many Rambler spindles (they were quite light and a very nice design) we later used them on the Matterhorn Bobsleds, Monsanto Omnimover, and many other rides. American Motors sold us so many of their spindles that in later years as they phased out the design, they sold all their spindle factory tooling to Disney. This spindle later became a standard Disney part available in various models in the company Standard Parts Manual. They are still used all over the parks by the thousands.

The Autopia Mk V used the same 7.7 horsepower Kohler engine, Salisbury centrifugal clutch, and Dorris gearbox that worked so well in the Mk IV. The power train was mounted on a separate welded steel drive unit attached to the backbone frame by spring loaded quick change tapered pins. We also used the Mk IV rack and pinion steering and mechanical drum rear brakes. "Moon" style hub caps were added to the wheels.

But when this whole mess was finally built it weighed a whopping 1,100 pounds, 300 pounds more than the Mk IV. As the 1959 New Tomorrowland began the full summer season we learned that all was not well with the new Mk V used on the Fantasyland Track, while the old lighter Mk IV ¹s worked fine on the original Tomorrowland Track. The heavy Mk V was actually breaking up the track ¹s concrete curbs. And the bumper shock absorbers leaked oil and no longer worked. They were not designed to be placed horizontally.

After all that work to design the ultimate Autopia Car, it was now such a tank that it was destroying the track! Our new "operations committee design" was a failure. By 1962 Disneyland had had it with this monster. The Ford Motor Company had built their Edsel about that time, and I had now built my own Edsel......Gurrini ¹s Edsel! I sure learned a lesson about how carefully one must design things.....never again to take every suggestion and fail to consider all the pro ¹s and con ¹s during design evaluation before plunging ahead.

Soon a plan was underway to buy a light weight car from Arrow Development to replace all the Disneyland Autopia cars for 1963. The track was to be rebuilt eliminating all the curbs and installing a center guide in the track surface to limit the car ¹s lateral travel. The end of "free drive" Autopia was coming. A future story will look at how that light weight car worked out, and how it lead to the design of the long-lived Mk VII, whose basic chassis still operates by the hundreds today in several Disney Parks. oOo

oOo

Next month: Disneyland Electric Runabout - Walt's Studio Runabout

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-- Bob Gurr