|
HJ: Yes, when you live in it, you really find out what it is. We also did recreation vehicles for the other companies.
Winnebago came out to Art Center in 1978 or 1979, around that period. That was the time we moved our manufacturing from the Alhambra area to Laguna Hills. We took over a big shop, moved all our things there and set up in a weekend. When we came back Monday, everything was gone. Somebody had noticed what we had, all these mills, and the building had these big cargo bay doors, so using our fork lift, they came in the night and loaded it all up, our mills and everything was gone.
V5: How do you recover from something like that?
HJ: Well, Insurance (laughs). But you have to go out and start buying and getting all the equipment set up again.
V5: That must have been a heartbreak…
HJ: Oh, it is. It put us a month and half behind. We would have people trying to do the assembly and it’s very tedious. We ended up hiring the physically disabled, we had about ten workers and they were happy. We had one guy who said, “Look Hugh, I’m getting a new television.” He always wanted to drive a car and ride a bicycle, but couldn’t. This was something he could do. So we were happy to give work to them and we were in business eight years. We had a good crew.
Let’s go back to Winnebago. They brought in a project to Art Center. We gave Winnebago a small size, a little larger then a VW, more like a Trans Am or a stretched Dodge van. We then had to do sketch programs that would last the whole semester, then at the end, we built quarter or three-eighths scale models of it, plus all the sketches. They were such a big thing, they couldn’t do it full size. But the models were just great. I’ve got some photographs that
were in the German Magazines, because they came over and photographed them and gave us all this credit.
It was great for us.
V5: And the students enjoyed it…
HJ: Oh, they had a great time.
V5: And Winnebago was happy…
HJ: You know something, we had twelve students in the class and I would say eight of them are still in the recreational vehicle industry.
V5: Wow.
HJ: They went back, stayed in it and enjoyed it. Every once in a while you see a sketch with their name on it.
V5: How strong is the industry today?
HJ: The RV industry in the A models, say in the price range of $80,000.00 to $300,000.00 is exceptionally strong. The smaller units, 28 footers, are marginal right now.
V5: The interiors of those were much more experimental with materials, then say, traditional architecture.
HJ: The interior materials that you have, there is a lot on the market, let’s put it that way. (laughs) There are some very beautiful materials, but it gets down to the bottom line, how are you going to integrate this into the building of the vehicle with the people that you have there. Foaming was just coming in at that point where you could do from ABS whole roof structures and coat it. Like headliners in vehicles, you could do it in foam and laminate to it, and this started to become popular. That was a big bonus for us because we could come in and do curved surfaces and siding.We started coming in with Formica tops duel nose edges and blew them away. But there was one company in Beverly Hills, that did nothing but teak interiors and they did a beautiful job, but the cost was there.
V5: I’ve seen some of the old Airstream trailers with the teak interiors and the metal work and wood was beautifully done.
HJ: They were one of the few who did a stretch, worn aluminum. There was all that riveting, it was an old aircraft technique. Then there was a company called Webcon. They took that same type of structure with a simple bent frame and aluminum over it, and did a pusher type vehicle, which was very good. One of my students, Don Powers, did RV’s for Retcon, did them for years and got some very nice prototypes. We worked on a sportswagon together.
V5: Do you maintain relationships with many of your former students?
HJ: Yes, but not as much as I would like to. Sometimes you find you get busy.
V5: What other sponsors did you work with at Art Center.
HJ: We did one project with Yamaha.They came in when we were at the old school, before we came over to the new one. Yamaha said they wanted to do a motorcycle project. Tink Adams was at the school, Ginny Odake, his wife, and Jergenson, who was head of the automotive program at that time and Joe Thompson, who was head of the modeling. We all got together and sat down and said, “What are we going to charge?”, because they didn’t know what fee to use. So I threw out thirty-five thousand dollars. They all said “They’ll never pay it.” They paid it like that.
V5: (laughs) It hasn’t changed that much, I want you to know, that’s about what it is.
HJ: Because they were thinking, maybe seven thousand. But I looked at what it would take to do it in your own studio at that time and came up with thirty-five thousand and they bought it. We did very contemporary motorcycles for them. But now, because Harley is very popular again, Suzuki and Honda are copying that type of that bike.
V5: Now they are, but…
HJ: But then, it was, let’s go way far out. So we designed different types of engines, different types of suspensions, really sweet bodies.
V5: They took over the market.
HJ: Yes.....Incredible....
And look at the dirt bikes, Ron Powers and myself, he got me into dirt bike riding. He was one of my students. We would go out every weekend and ride bikes, and that’s how….
V5: You got this in your job description...that was part of your research..?
HJ: Yes (laughs)
V5: Take this and go have fun….
HJ: We did a lot of that. It was neat and that was one thing that was interesting. Way in the beginning we used to have General Motors give us instructors a new car every two weeks to evaluate.
That was fun.
Next
|
