Bradley Automotive
[2] Fuller had been running a small fiberglass design company, and Courneya had earlier been in sales in Beverly Hills, California.
The two partnered in a business, Gary's Bug Shop, which produced parts and kits for the dune buggy market.
[4] Like the earlier products of Gary's Bug Shop, the car was built on the chassis of the original Volkswagen Beetle.
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.
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.
In the early 1970s, the Bradley ads began to describe the company as the Automotive division of the Thor Corporation.
[2] New offices were obtained in Shelard Plaza, and the company was featured in an enthusiastic article in the local newspaper.
Complaints and lawsuits from dissatisfied customers began to mount, and picket lines appeared outside their head offices.
[8] Another major issue was Bradley's "Executive Broker Program", which claimed to offer prospective buyers the chance for significant income.
The buyer was offered a discounted price for their kit and the exclusive right to be the licensed Bradley broker for their geographic area.
Named in the attorney general's complaint were Courneya and Deil Gustafson, a Minnesota lawyer and real estate developer who had acquired a 50% ownership of the company in 1980 when he invested US$600,000 in Bradley.
[10] Among the creditors owed money by Bradley were Media Networks of New York City, IBM, Northwestern Bell Telephone, law firm McGovern, Opperman & Paquin, and Lester Electric of Nebraska.
Weather protection was provided by two frameless plastic panels that extended into the roof and hinged up gull-wing style.
The GT thus inherited its 2,400 mm (94.5 in) wheelbase from the donor vehicle, while front and rear tracks could vary depending on the builder's choice of wheels and tires.
The default power-train was likewise the air-cooled four-cylinder boxer engine and four-speed manual transmission with swing axles from the donor Beetle.
[5] Today this Bradley model suffers from a scarcity of GT II-specific parts such as window glass, upholstery and fiberglass body components.
In 1980 Bradley released a version of the GT II powered by a battery bank driving an electric motor.
[16] GE supplied the car's Tracer I direct-traction motor, which developed 20.7 horsepower (15.4 kW) and was installed in place of the original VW engine.
[17] The all-electric conversion developed for the GTE was to be applied to the rest of Bradley's (now EVC's) product line.
The Scorpion's body was nearly indistinguishable from the Bradley GT from the A-pillar back, but the front was reshaped with a center power bulge, a larger grille opening and a single round exposed headlamp faired into each side of the nose.
[12] Sun Ray also developed a "Sport Pack" body kit that gave the car a ground-effect look and added a rear engine cover that lifted up.
[22] The second car to be called the Bradley Baron was not a dune buggy but rather a Neo-Classic roadster patterned after the Mercedes Benz SSK.
[24] Bradley acquired the molds for a copy of the 1957 Thunderbird body made to fit a VW Beetle chassis from Veebird in Colorado.
[26] A brown Bradley GT with aftermarket red headlight bulbs was used in the music video for New Freezer by Rich the Kid and Kendrick Lamar.
