Hi Gang…
One of my favorite stories and cars of the 50s was a Glasspar G2 built by Don Cook. Erich Schultz first introduced me to this story and the detail that appeared in Hot Rod in April, 1953. You can read about this story – we shared it here on Forgotten Fiberglass back in 2011:
Click Here To Review the Story of the Don Cook Glasspar
And…as I mentioned in the story back then we were looking then – and now – for the Don Cook Glasspar. Well…we still haven’t found it but….thanks to the keen research and work by Rodney Packwood, we found something even more special – Don Cook himself. All I can say is “Wow!”
It turns out that Don and his father built the car together and went to races across California in the 1953-1956 era and beyond. And the photos and film he has kept and is now sharing with us is nothing less than spectacular.
To give you a peek at some of the items that have been carefully retained by Don and his family, I’ll share two photos with you today. One is the cleanest photo I’ve seen of the famous scene of Glasspar G2’s in front of the Glasspar Corporate office. This is the exact photo that was used in their 1953 brochure. See below:
a
And thanks to the clarity of these photos, we can now identify that the car – third from the left – is the Don Cook Glasspar. We’re in the process of identifying the remaining cars in this photo. (Note…we’re sharing good versions of the photos here in today’s story. The full high-resolution scans are too large to share on the web, but will look great in a book).
Click Here to See the Full Glasspar Brochure and Accompanying Story
And the other photo is a bonus – a side view of the same cars taken at the same time. This is the first time I’ve seen this photo – what a treat it was to see – peering back into history:
Summary:
Thanks to the efforts of Rodney Packwood – Glasspar historian extraordinaire we now have found Don Cook and have a new body or information to add to the history and times of a great movement in America – building your own sports car. Stay tuned gang…much more to share about Don Cook, his father, and their adventure in the 1950s with Glasspar.
Hope you enjoyed the story, and until next time…
Glass on gang…
Geoff
I’m looking at the side view picture at all the other cars on the road at the time, nothing comes near how cool these cars were then, and are now. I can’t wait to see the rest of the story! Are there dashboard pictures? Does Don remember the colors of the other cars? Who the owners were? engines, bumpers ok, ok I guess I have to wait.
Don Cook’s car was the first picture I had seen of a Glasspar 30 + years ago , it was in a thick HOT ROD PICTORIAL of the best cars featured in HOT ROD.
Great work guys!!!!!!!!!
Just finished reading the attached article with your interview with Frank Hecock, a family friend and coworker with my Dad at Glasspar. Very cool how he remembered the first G2 hood scoop and the race event with the carburetor fire that put my Dad out of the race.
I like the fact that the spectators could go and help push the car back on to the track. These cars were racing at speeds of 80 to over 100 mph.( with no seat belts)
It would never happen today.
Great Times, Dennis
What a Great Find
Thanks Rodney, Eric and Geoff
Can’t wait to see some of the films and pictures. It’s great to see my Dad in front of the Glasspar Shop. It would be fun to talk to Don’s family to see if they knew my Dad.
Thanks for sharing, Dennis Gerdes