Harry Bradley decided what would be the first 16 Hot Wheels, and kicked off the entire Hot Wheels empire, plus, the name “Hot Wheels ” was chosen after someone at Mattel saw Harry’s customized El Camino in the Mattel parking lot. He commented that “Those are some hot wheels” and the name stuck!
Harry designed the RTX Cuda https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-rtx-cuda-helluva-cool-custom-grill.html and sketched the designs for the entire original Plymouth Rapid Transit System Caravan
Plymouth’s period Rapid Transit System ad campaign, the Caravan included a Duster, Road Runner, and a clone of drag-racing star Don Prudhomme’s Plymouth funny car, and this Barracuda
Harry Bradley was assigned the job of coming up with artwork for the customs. Since he didn’t have a real Duster to base his drawings on, he had to use sketches of what the stock Duster would look like. Plymouth had to sign off on Bradley’s work before his ideas were realized in lead and paint.
Bradley came up with another cool touch—large flip-style racing-type gas caps—one for each quarter. Since the Duster only had one gas tank, the second cap was a dummy. So, if a dummy gas jockey filled you up through the dummy cap, he filled the trunk, not the tank (big deal, gas was cheap back then.) The gas cap was the same piece used on the Ford Cobras, but it wasn’t a Ford original. The Blue Oval boys had borrowed it from its original application-on an English oil truck. The same cap, by the way, is used today on Vipers.
Bob Larivee, who put on the Detroit Autorama, also pointed them toward notable custom-car builders who could bring Bradley's designs to life. Byron Grenfell was assigned a 1970 340 Duster to work over, and Roman's Chariot Shop (one of the coolest shop names ever) was handed a 1970 Hemi Roadrunner. The Rapid Transit 1970 'Cuda and 1971 Road Runner were both given to 1968 Ridler award-winning builder Chuck Miller at Styline Custom in Detroit.
and the 1969 Plymouth Super Wedge https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-1969-plymouth-super-wedge.html
and the Barris Snake Pit https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/12/if-this-ever-had-landspeed-record-its.html but I doubt you'll find that mentioned anywhere else
As Harry put it in a 1985 article in Super Rod and Custom magazine, "They had gotten to me -- 'they' being Pinin Farina, Harley Earl, Joe Bailon, the Barris brothers. My parents didn't have a chance against the likes of them." https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/06/harry-bradleys-1951-custom-chevy.html
He became a member of the Drivin’ Deuces car club and began making modifications to his 1951 Chevrolet Bel Air, changing it into the legendary "La Jolla" when he was 15 yrs old, still in high school in 1954. He talked his parents into buying it from the milkman!
When enrolling in Pratt Institute’s industrial design school, his talent was noticed by General Motors, which led to the company offering him a position as a designer when they hired him in July 1962
Within weeks of his arrival in Detroit at GM Design Staff, while working for the Cadillac design studio, Harry and the Alexander Brothers had forged a relationship that would result in more than 10 Bradley-designed custom cars over the next eight years, including legendary vehicles like the Dodge Deora, and the Alexa, a 1964 Ford fastback Galaxie that was part of the Ford Custom Caravan
Although it was against company policy, he continued to publish designs for hot rod and custom magazines under the name Mark Fadner.
Harry even made his own website and published his own art http://redlineprotos.com/Harry%20Bradley/Harry_Bradley_new.htm
his fame was enough to get his designs desired by toy companies, George Barris, Rodding and Re-styling, Customs Illustrated, and Rod & Custom magazines
and there was even a book made of his designs and art:
He grew up in the suburbs of Boston where his early artistic talent was nurtured through youth classes at the Museum of Fine Arts.
During the summer of 1949, fourteen year old Harry contracted Polio - putting him in Boston's Children's Hospital for seven months. He passed the time with drawing. Nurses would place his wheel chair by a window overlooking the street so he could sketch automobiles.
The Turbo Titan III was Bradley's vision of a turbine powered show truck in 1965.
before I move past what he did while working for GM, I want you to know that I'm not making the encyclopedia entry, just trying to show complete respect, and sitting at a laptop in San Diego, without the benefit of his family's knowledge, like his son's for example, or the Hot Rod and GM archives, I'm not able to do his work the proper service that it deserves - by someone writing a book, or magazine article retrospective. I only have what I can find in 4 hours online, because I've got stuff to do today.
We won't ever know the totality of his work at GM, for magazines, and toy model car companies, but there was a lot
Worth the time to ponder is how much he designed without getting public credit for, like the 69 Firebird Trans Am, and the 67 GM trucks (see bottom of this post)
Harry took advantage of GM's Fellowship study program for a Masters degree at Stanford University. While in California, he did some moonlighting on for custom car builders, the Alexander Brothers.
In the spring of 1966 Harry was recruited away from GM by the Mattel corporation. Mattel wanted to hire a designer from one of Detroit's "Big 3" to create the look of their new Hot Wheels die-cast cars. Bradley's mix of hot rod and mainstream car design proved the perfect combination.
Although the Hot Wheels were an enormous success, the toy company was unwilling to commit to a second series. So after less than a year with Mattel, Harry resigned to start his own design firm
He was inducted into Darryl Starbird's National Rod and Custom Hall of Fame.
from what I've posted so far, you might get the idea that his designs were all futuristic and funky 60s, but that's not the limit of his broad variety at all, so, please, also appreciate the cars made from his designs that were very cool:
above was named Afterglow
I want to repeat, the above was built by Sam Foose
he spent the majority of his career teaching at Art Center College of Pasadena, for 24 years, 1974-1998 https://archives.artcenter.edu/bradley-harry
If you want to see what the Art Center College has online about Harry, https://archives.artcenter.edu/informationobject/browse?sort=lastUpdated&topLod=0&query=Harry+Bradley&sq0=Harry+Bradley&sortDir=desc
but was still doing side work,
and the May 2003 Classic Trucks feature article is online, complete: https://www.67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard//showthread.php?t=442296
and the modern-day Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
In 1977, the Wienermobiles were put on hiatus, the brand retired the fleet and intended to do so for good, as it moved toward other forms of advertising. Then, in 1986, Oscar Mayer rolled out a singular Wienermobile for a special 50th anniversary party.
The lone Wienermobile's appearance alone attracted significant attention — so much attention, in fact, that Oscar Mayer decided to relaunch its Wienermobiles, introducing six brand-new mobiles in 1988.
and https://www.deansgarage.com/harry-bentley-bradley-part-2/
Someone wrote him a Wikipedia page, but it's not worth reading. It's just not respectable to have that little about someone who did so much more. This post was 4 hours, so far
read the fine print, it's the only interview I've found where he talked about his cars
I love this post it is just perfect an gives a clear idea about Harry Bradley's designs & Art. Thank you for this great job in putting together all the info and pictures. Luciano
ReplyDeletethank you!
DeleteAwesome, that's the goooood stuff! Thank you for taking the time to put this together!
ReplyDeletethank you! He deserves better, but dang it, it takes a rotten amount of time just to do this, and to do a proper job would require traveling to visit with his family, the Art Center, Hot Wheels, magazine companies, GM Archives, etc etc. At that point, it's really a book, and I'm not out to do a book, but it's actually the right thing for someone to do to give the right amount of coverage to what he's accomplished.
DeleteThis is a very nice tribute to Mr. Bradley and it taught me about what he accomplished during his long career. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for all your effort in this post -- Mr. Bradley was truly a Titan of Design --peobably worthy of a detailed biography -- and his influence still runs deep !
DeleteI Enjoyed reading and exploring all the info.
Very good work Jesse!!! - shows your real and serious dedication to the automotive world and story.
thank you both, it was a learning trip for me to make this post too... If I'd been asked a week ago, I wouldn't have remembered most of this, and dang it, I'd posted most of it before. Sure, a lot I didn't know, and learned while making this post, but dang, I forgot all of the posts I'd done that mentioned him! Sadly, the Art Center College hasn't made a note on their site about him! Crazy! I don't understand why, they HAVE made an entire page for their students to brag on, regardless of accomplishments, but nothing that touts the accomplishments of the teachers/professors, past and present. Very strange that a FOR PROFIT doesn't use what's free and available to factually entice potential students to spend the money with them.
DeleteAnyway, His family, or some magazine, ought to do a book about him.
Thank you both for the compliments
News to me. I love this article. Thanks
ReplyDeletethank you!
DeleteI did not have time to sit down a little and read, so I just read your post. Thank you, great stuff, posted in my blog's Facebook group!
ReplyDeletethank you!
ReplyDelete