as told by Marty Martindale and Mark Ballard
If you’ve ever felt the rush of excitement as you sat behind the wheel of your very own Tomorrowland Autopia Automobile, then you might want to read on. We recently had the good fortune to sit down with Marty Martindale (son of Ed Martindale, co-founder of MAMECO AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING). Marty proudly shared his father's brief contribution toward a Disneyland mainstay attraction and we were "all ears"!
Ed and Ted met in the military, and upon completing their service they co-founded the Newport Beach engineering company that they called MAMECO. “MAMECO is an acronym for Martindale And Mangels Engineering Company.” Even years later, “Dad never changed the name because Ted was his lifelong best friend.”
"They had built a racecar and campaigned it for Glasspar Boats. The car was called the Glasspar. It was the first fiberglass-bodied racecar, and they actually had quite a bit of success with it for a 'small time' operation." Martindale recollects how the Glasspar would compete against big factory teams like Jaguar in locations like Pebble Beach.
"The first driver quit, because the car scared him. It was too fast...Glasspar finally figured out that they weren't going to be able to sell cars." They soon dropped their racing program. "But that was when Disney approached them, and luckily for my dad 'cause they needed work."
Glasspar Corporation built the bodies of the original cars, in addition to producing other fiberglass parts for a number of attractions during Disneyland's first few years. "They were the first ones contacted by Disney. It wasn't my dad", admits Marty. "It was Bill Tritt (the owner of Glasspar), that referred Bob Gurr to my dad's company to build the chassis and assemble them. That's how it started."
Working on the Mark Is on the streets of Newport, circa 1955.
"My dad was just twenty-six when they were building the Autopia cars. It's not like they were experienced engineers or anything like that...My dad built the first Autopia cars in 1955, with Ted Mangels as partner."
MAMECO built forty chassis, assembled the cars, and tested them out (see photo above) - for the entire fleet. Each car was constructed with a 7 1/2 horsepower engine. The original cars were capable of accelerating a lot faster than should be experienced by Disneyland guests, and so necessity required a governor attached to each car. Marty then presented these rarely-seen Autopia Mark I construction photos for our viewing pleasure. Please CLICK the following window to get a closer look at these exclusive Autopia I photos.
"It was a different world back then. There weren't big factories where you would take [the concepts] and have somebody 'R&D' a car like that...They were all 'backyard operations'." Many of the parts were (not machined, but), purchased by Bob Gurr and then he would bring the parts to Ted and Ed's workshop.
"Bob Gurr was very involved. He was down [at MAMECO] all the time." Marty recalls one of his father's stories of testing the cars on the streets of Newport back when it was "just a sleepy beach town." He relates, "My dad wanted to show Bob Gurr how great the car was, so he removed the governor off one of the cars. They were 'tooling around' Newport, and Bob Gurr crashed into a parked car in front of the Police Department."
After they built the forty cars, Marty's parents were invited to Disneyland for what he describes as a 'pre-party' before the Press Day and Disneyland Dedication. Marty was just one year old, so his parents left him in someone's care for the day.
Now, you might notice that the original Autopia cars didn't have bumpers. This would soon change. MAMECO was contacted for one final job (within' just a few weeks of Disneyland's dedication). The reason was that guests were crashing the cars into each other along the speedway. The solution - fabricate bumpers around the entire vehicle! "That was something they had Ted and my dad add later after the first batch", states Martindale.
“It was all very exciting for my dad and his partner Ted, because they were trying to establish their company.” Thanks to this contract, they were able to do just that! Years later, MAMECO Engineering Company “ended up servicing the yachting industry with products and repairs.” The role that Disneyland fulfilled in giving an economic boost to a certain small local business, is clear. But, even more, Disneyland invoked a life-long sense of pride in the Martindale's son Marty (who has now grown up). Years later, Marty still recalls, "When I got older, and I heard he was on one of the Disney shows, it was kind of cool to tell all of your friends at school that your dad built the cars. Disneyland was pretty popular in the sixties around here!"
PLEASE STEP THIS WAY, as we meet Ed Martindale’s son - Marty!