The Victress Manufacturing Company was founded in California in 1952. Its first model, the S1A was designed by Hugh Jorgensen, a Los Angeles Art Centre graduate, and William "Doc" Boyce-Smith in either 1951 or 1952. Jorgenson also designed the S4. The S1A was fitted on a variety of chassis. However those from the factory were built on either a Ford or a custom chassis from Mameco Corp. They usually had small-block Chevrolet engines. The S1A featured in the 1954 movie Johnny Dark which starred Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie.
In 1954 Merrill Powell acquired 49 percent of Victress and joined the company. A design student, Powell, designed the C2 and C3. The C2 came out in 1954 and the C3 in 1955. Fewer than 40 Victress coupes were made and sold in the 1950s, but the other models did well. A style that had its origin in the 'Merrill Powell' designed Model C2 Coupe (first introduced in 1954), the C2 rear and tail design became the genesis for the GM's 'Q-Corvette' then the XP700 and later the 1961 Corvette (attributed to Bob McLean/Pete Brock) as well as the later 1963 Corvette StingRay. Merrill Powell was a co-owner of the Victress Car Company along with Boyce-Smith, while the sole Victress car distributor was Hellings Co of Vanowen St, North Hollywood.
Subject ID: 79341
MoreThe Victress Manufacturing Company was founded in California in 1952. Its first model, the S1A was designed by Hugh Jorgensen, a Los Angeles Art Centre graduate, and William "Doc" Boyce-Smith in either 1951 or 1952. Jorgenson also designed the S4. The S1A was fitted on a variety of chassis. However those from the factory were built on either a Ford or a custom chassis from Mameco Corp. They usually had small-block Chevrolet engines. The S1A featured in the 1954 movie Johnny Dark which starred Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie.
In 1954 Merrill Powell acquired 49 percent of Victress and joined the company. A design student, Powell, designed the C2 and C3. The C2 came out in 1954 and the C3 in 1955. Fewer than 40 Victress coupes were made and sold in the 1950s, but the other models did well. A style that had its origin in the 'Merrill Powell' designed Model C2 Coupe (first introduced in 1954), the C2 rear and tail design became the genesis for the GM's 'Q-Corvette' then the XP700 and later the 1961 Corvette (attributed to Bob McLean/Pete Brock) as well as the later 1963 Corvette StingRay. Merrill Powell was a co-owner of the Victress Car Company along with Boyce-Smith, while the sole Victress car distributor was Hellings Co of Vanowen St, North Hollywood.
Only a couple of the original C2 Coupes are known to exist but a newly restored C2 was at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion (Historics) held at Laguna Seca RaceWay in 2017.
In 1958 Victress was approached by George Lippincott Sr. of the Nic-L-Silver battery company to create a fiberglass body for a battery-powered sports car. Lippincott wanted Victress to create a body using existing Victress body parts, with some subtle changes. Hugh Jorgensen, took charge of the body design which was based around the S4. Named the Pioneer, the car debuted at the 1959 Los Angeles County fair.
By 1961 Victress had too much government contract work to be able to concentrate on car bodies. They were also contracted to make the Olympic rings for the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics. Its molds were sold to Les Dawes (LaDawri) who rebadged the Victress as LaDawri and renamed the models.
LaDawri re-engineered the bodies adding doors, door jams and liners. Between 120 and 150 Castilian and Sicilian coupes were sold by them. The 'Merrill Powell' design was years ahead of its time and copied by a number of European car manufacturers into the '60's as well as General Motors and the Corvette.
Subject ID: 79341
Subject ID: 79341