[Closed] BANTAM DESIGNER ALEX TREMULIS ALMOST DESIGNED THE CROSLEY

BANTAM DESIGNER ALEX TREMULIS ALMOST DESIGNED THE CROSLEY

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In 1984, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Tremulis, best known as the man who designed the infamous Tucker of 1948. My interest, however, was his work with American Bantam and Crosley a decade before Preston Tucker came knocking. Bantam built several hundred of the Hollywood and Riviera convertibles Tremulis designed, but none of his Crosleys were built, even though Tremulis and a small team of designers spent several months contructing two test chassis and five or six clay mock-ups. I wanted to know why.

Here's a portion of my interview:

BOB: Did the advent of the Crosley convertibles in 1939 have anything to do with Bantam president Roy Evans's desire to add convertibles to his line?

ALEX: Not at first, as when I was approached, Roy asked for what he referred to as isinglass curtains to be used on the stock Bantam roadster until I convinced him that roll up windows would be most desirable.

BOB: Was Crosley seen by the management at Bantam as a serious threat to the Bantam market?

ALEX: Yes and no. Crosley had built up to a high momentum of production but they in no way could compete in performance and styling if and when our future plans would materialize.

BOB: How did you come to prepare a design for a Crosley car?

ALEX: When Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg ceased building motor cars, Roy Faulkner requested that I return back to Connersville, Indiana as their steel kitchen cabinet stamping plant was still in existence. He wanted me to design a new sports coupe on a Crosley chassis to keep the stamping plant alive. At that time the Crosley had its two rear wheels at a twelve inch width ala the Isetta car in order to save the cost of a differential. The car proved to be most unstable. The car I designed was teardrop in shape and when we showed him the tooling bill of over $200,000, he said what he really wanted was a tooling bill of only $75,000. He envisioned building a car that was to sell for only $300 per car. Really all he wanted was an engine cover that looked like a functional tool box with perhaps leather covered fenders over the frame which was to look like an Orient buckboard. I declined having anything to do with such a design and he approached an industrial design firm to design and build a body on a conventional four wheel platform.

Ultimately, Powel Crosley resurrected his original design idea in the 1942 Pup, which can accurately be described in Tremulis's own words: ..."an engine cover that looked like a functional tool box with perhaps leather covered fenders over the frame which was to look like an Orient buckboard."

In contrast, Tremulis developed four additional proposals for Bantam, including the futuristic supercharged Terra-Cobra (pictured on the wall directly in front of Alex's face). Bantam intended to build this after World War II, but by the time war ended, Roy Evans had left the company and the new owners concentrated on building trailers instead.