At the end of July 1981 the attorney general formally charged EVC with consumer fraud. In 1979 the Minnesota attorney general's office asked for an injunction that would force EVC to warn its customers in writing that the company had either shipped product late or failed to ship it at all. The company underwent another name change, this time to The Electric Vehicle Corporation (EVC), some time later.Ĭomplaints and lawsuits from dissatisfied customers began to mount, and picket lines appeared outside their head offices. The name change reflected a plan to sell an electrified version of the GT II. Six months later the name of the company was changed to Classic Electric Car Corporation. Bradley filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter and operated under Chapter 11 protection until April 1980. Courneya claimed that the company experienced a loss of $300,000 in expected sales in October of that year. Bradley sought an injunction preventing the competition from enticing any more of their sales staff to leave. In 1978 seven of Bradley's salesmen defected to their competitor Fiberfab. Bradley would eventually contract out all of their manufacturing, not producing any components themselves. īetween 19 Fuller left Bradley and established another company named Autocraft Inc., which became a supplier of bodies to his former company. The company introduced the Bradley GT II, a new, much more refined vehicle that year. New offices were obtained in Shelard Plaza, and the company was featured in an enthusiastic article in the local newspaper. In the early 1970s, the Bradley ads began to describe the company as the Automotive division of the Thor Corporation.īy 1977 the company's sales had grown to a six-figure net profit from roughly US$6,000,000 in sales. Courneya and Fuller were able to repay their investors and buy out smaller shareholders as profits began to grow. After this restructuring another US$250,000 was made available to them from Community Investment Enterprises, Inc, (CIE).
#FRAME 2 SEATER DUNE BUGGY PLANS FREE DOWNLOAD PROFESSIONAL#
One of the original investors agreed to put another US$90,000 into the company on the condition that a professional manager be brought in and Courneya move to sales full-time. īy 1973, the company was in need of another infusion of capital. Appearances by "Gary Bradley" were actually Courneya. The fictive "Gary Bradley" was even referred to as the company's founder and president, and his signature appeared on some company legal documents. During these calls he also began using the name "Gary Bradley", a fictional character whose name was the combination of Courneya's first name and Fuller's middle name. To accelerate sales, Courneya began telephoning sales leads obtained from the write-ins directly. Half of the shares were quickly bought by the vice-president of a local construction firm, while the balance was sold over the next six months. The partners raised capital by offering 80,000 shares in the new company for sale at US$1 each. When this promotion began, neither the brochures nor car existed.
Anyone wanting more information was asked to send US$1 to the company for a brochure. Interest in the new GT was generated by advertising widely in a broad range of popular magazines. Like the earlier products of Gary's Bug Shop, the car was built on the chassis of the original Volkswagen Beetle. īradley Automotive began selling their first product, the Bradley GT, in 1970. Also mentioned was a forthcoming Bradley Elan GT. This last model was a dune buggy with a hardtop and gull wing side panels. Period advertising copy for Gary's Bug Shop lists a variety of different models already bearing the Bradley name, including the Bradley "T" Roadster, the Bradley Bandit and the Bradley Baron. Fuller designed the bodies, and Courneya handled sales. The two partnered in a business, Gary's Bug Shop, which produced parts and kits for the dune buggy market. Fuller had been running a small fiberglass design company, and Courneya had earlier been in sales in Beverly Hills, California. In the late 1960s, Gary Courneya and David Bradley Fuller were introduced by a mutual friend.
0 kommentar(er)
