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T R A N S C R
I P T O F R
E V I E W
The Fisher Body Craftsman Guild,
John L. Jacobus
McFarland & Company 800-253-2187
www.mcfarlandpub.com
$49.95
Back in, oh, the middle 1960s, I used to
enthusiastically tear through (in an hour
or less, usually) a pulp-paged monthly called
Model Car Science, gazing at the newest
glue-brass-and-putty creations of Dave Shuklis
and Dennis Doty, passing over the slot-car
articles which interested me less. Every
year, a major ad would appear in the magazine
inviting teenaged car enthusiasts to compete
in the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild, a
national competition sponsored by General
Motors that awarded scholarships in design
to winners who penned and built a unique-looking
scale model of a passenger car.
Every year, a major ad would appear in the
magazine inviting teenaged car enthusiasts
to compete in the Fisher Body Craftsman's
Guild, a national competition sponsored
by General Motors that awarded scholarships
in design to winners who penned and built
a unique-looking scale model of a passenger
car.
This 359-page hardcover book, written by
an auto engineer and former Guild contestant,
exhaustively examines this unique, ultra-prestigious
contest between young, would-be design professionals.
How big were the contests? An estimated
10 million teens took part in regional and
national competitions from the Guild's inception
in 1930 until it was discontinued after
1968. It received regular coverage in The
New York Times, as well as countless magazines.
An estimated 35 percent of the winners were
recruited by the Big Three's design studios
including GM's great Chuck Jordan, Virgil
Exner Jr., who would design the Ford Maverick
and Pinto, and Terry Henline, who went on
to supervise the design of the stunning
1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Jacobus' work includes interviews with surviving
winners, year-by-year results, and reviews
rules and techniques for building the one-off
models. For someone like me, who dreamed
of being part of the Guild as a kid, the
book is worth the price. In the end, this
was the only model car contest that mattered.
By Jim Donnelly
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