Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild

[Oldcarfan27]

General Motors sponsored design contest from the 50s to sometime in the 70s. 

Some good looking ideas here.

http://www.deansgarage.com/2009/fisher-body-craftsman’s-guild-part-ii/

 

http://www.deansgarage.com/category/car-design/

Edited July 14, 2022 by Oldcarfan27

[Brian Austin]

Several years ago some Guild models were displayed at the MassCar and Classic Plastic shows.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I had really wanted to compete in the old Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild design contest, but I had neither the skills nor the tools in time to get in before the end.

Here's an interesting article about the disappearance of most of the models that were entered.

http://www.deansgarage.com/2015/mystery-of-the-missing-models/

[RSchnell]

The guild was started in the 1930s if I recall. My grandfather participated in Guild back in the 1940s, entering several cars and one Napoleonic Coach. I have one of his model cars that won 1st place for the state of Florida in 1949. This car was made of plaster and still wears it's original paint. He told me stories of getting the all expense paid trip to Detroit courtesy of GM, the tour of the GM plant & proving grounds, etc. I have him to credit for my interest in scale models to this day. I'm curious if anyone knows anything about the Balboa concept model in the photo?

 

[BlackSheep214]

Those are cool. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

1 hour ago, RSchnell said:

...My grandfather participated in Guild back in the 1940s, entering several cars and one Napoleonic Coach. I have one of his model cars that won 1st place for the state of Florida in 1949...

Wow. Major cool.    

[Mark]

For the first few years it was only a contest centered around building a kit of the Fisher Body coach, using materials provided in a kit that you could obtain from Fisher Body.  Unassembled kits turn up from time to time; in a job I had years ago, one co-worker claimed to have an unassembled coach (he wouldn't sell it; I don't know if I would have been interested in it back then).  It was probably in the late Thirties that the styling portion of the contest was added, and eventually the coach replica part of the competition fell by the wayside.  The whole thing kind of faded away in the late Sixties due to a drop in interest, and lower quality of the entries that were appearing.  If I remember right, Special Interest Autos magazine had an article about the contests overall.  GM did employ some people who had been entrants over the years.  Model Car Science magazine ran an article or two in the early Sixties about how one of the winners designed and built his entry.  The Fisher Body division was eliminated during one of the GM brain trust's reorganizations in the mid-Eighties.

[Oldcarfan27]

4 hours ago, Mark said:

The Fisher Body division was eliminated during one of the GM brain trust's reorganizations in the mid-Eighties.

That explains a lot of why their designs now have no individuality or creativity. Bean counting at it's finest.

[Bugatti Fan]

A number of years ago in the UK there was a company named Pressed Steel Fisher that produced car bodies at Cowley near Oxford. Seeing the name Fisher in it suggests a connection to Fisher in the USA.

It stood next door to the Morris Car Factory. Both have since been acquired by BMW and now produce the new Minis.

[Mark]

Was it Pressed Steel Fisher?  A set of old (Seventies) automotive encyclopedias I have (that were written in England) simply calls it the Pressed Steel Company, and mentions the American Budd Company (not part of GM) as a backer.  

Fisher Body was initially a (horse drawn) coach building company that made the transition to automobiles.  It was bought out by GM in the Twenties but for a couple of years did continue to supply some car bodies to other companies including Chrysler, then just getting underway after changing from Maxwell-Chalmers.  Early automotive history is interesting; lots of colorful characters, and many moved from one company to another back then.

[Matt Bacon]

There was a Pressed Steel Fisher, after the late 60s, but it didn’t have anything to do with Fisher Body. Pressed Steel Company was owned by Morris for a while, and then went independent. A competitor in the business in the UK in the 50s and 60s was Fisher and Ludlow, which was bought by the British Motor Corporation in the mid-50s. With the consolidation of the British car industry, in the late 60s British Leyland Motor Corporation at it then was also acquired Pressed Steel Company and merged it with Fisher and Ludlow into a single body production company called Pressed Steel Fisher. The factories are still in use in Cowley and Swindon building BMW Minis, and in Castle Bromwich making Jaguars.

best,

M.

[john sharisky]

19 hours ago, Brian Austin said:

Several years ago some Guild models were displayed at the MassCar and Classic Plastic shows.

Also, about 10 or 15 years ago there was an exhibit of some Guild models at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 

Edited July 15, 2022 by john sharisky

[Oldcarfan27]

Fascinating information guys.

Thanks for the comments!

[Russell C]

Some were displayed at the 2015 Salt Lake City GSL contest, MCM covered that in its Nov 2015 issue: https://www.gslchampionship.org/fisher-body-craftsman-guild/

The first 29 pages of this GSL PDF show for the overall contest show those Fisher models:  http://www.gslchampionship.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/GSL-XXV.pdf

Edited July 16, 2022 by Russell C
typo

[Bugatti Fan]

Thanks for the historical background on Pressed Steel Fisher Matt.

I worked for a company named Prestcold for nine years that was a subsidiary of Pressed Steel Fisher. I got the Fisher bit wrong and your post jogged my memory about the Fisher Ludlow connection from all those years ago.

 

[W Humble]

I was once a 'stringer' for Mike Lamm's SPECIAL INTEREST AUTOS Magazine (Hemming Pub, long gone) and I did the history of the FBCG in issue #61, Feb. 1981.*  I got GM Design Chief Chuck Jordan interested in it (he won in 1948!) and he asked all the staff who had entered to bring their cars to the Design Center, where he had GM Photographic shoot them with their designs!  Boy, did they all look 'hip', 1981 disco style -- and the hair!!!  Of course; didn't we all?  But it was fun, and I ended up with a fell set of Fisher Coach plans; the Napoleonic coach that you see on all Fisher Body cars, which was the only model eligible until 1937, then was phased out post WWII.

Like some of you, I wanted to enter in 1962/63, but it was just too much for me and the resources I could muster in a tiny N CA town -- 'closer to Oregon and Nevada than California; -- we used to say.  A highly-modified AMT Corvette would not have gotten inside the tent, compared to what was being entered back then.  Writing car stuff in that era was particularly fun because so many of the 'real deal' guys were still alive, and SIA opened doors for me to interview a host of names, both big (Smokey Yunick, Mickey Thompson, Mal Bricklin, John Bond, etc.) and not-so big -- but still important to auto history.  I also wanted to attend the Art Center School (of Design) and corresponded with Strother MacMinn, the Director but just didn't have the art bona-fides to get in.  Still, Mr. Mac sent me a wonderful, complimentary letter after the FBCG article which made it even more worthwhile!  I still treasure it!  Ole' Wick, still in N CA

*Prob. in HMN Archives