Bradley Automotive

The Bradley GT (1972) by the American pianist Liberace with gold leaf lacquer and silver emblems on the sides in the Liberace Museum

Bradley Automotive was an American manufacturer of kit cars , a subsidiary of Thor Corporation in Minneapolis , Minnesota and was active from 1971 to 1981. Bradley models were based on the VW Beetle chassis. According to the company, over 5000 vehicles were built.

vehicles

Over time there were three models, GT , Scorpion and GT II . As with other kit car manufacturers, the cars could be purchased in various stages of completion. Bradley later became an electric vehicle maker, offering electrically powered versions of the GT II. Financial problems and doubts about the quality of the kits led to the collapse of the company in 1981.

The bodies of Bradley kit cars were all made of fiberglass and were two-seater coupés with gull-wing doors . The first model, the GT, was sold several thousand times and remained virtually unchanged from the end of the 1960s until the introduction of the GT II in 1977. The GT II was a more complex kit with higher manufacturing quality, but its owners today suffer from the poor supply of GT II-specific parts, such as the windshield, the upholstery and various GRP parts. The first GT had significantly more parts from mass-produced vehicles, so the parts supply is still very good today.

Bradley also made other products, such as a unicycle trailer and a small fiberglass sports boat.

According to the BradleyGT.com website and the statements of some GT II owners, the Bradley GT was built from 1971 to 1981, although many parts of the vehicles date back to Volkswagen, Corvairs and similar vehicles from the 1960s.

literature

• Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 , chapter Bradley (II).
• George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 1: A – F. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 188. (English)

Web links

Commons : Bradley Automotive  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 188. (English)
2. ^ Minneapolis Tribune, August 4, 1981 issue