Creative Industries of Detroit Inc., Rex A. Terry, Creative Industries Group Inc., Masco Tech, MSX International



Creative Industries of Detroit Inc. 1950-1991 - Detroit, Michigan - Creative Industries Group Inc. 1991-1999, Auburn Hills, Michigan - MSX International 1999-present, Warren, Michigan

Creative Industries of Detroit Inc. 1950-1991, Detroit, Michigan - Creative Industries Group, Inc 1991-1999 Auburn Hills, Michigan - MSX International, 1999-present Warren, Michigan

Because of the secretive nature of their business, Creative Industries was not a well-publicized business and very few of the thousands of projects pursued by the firm since 1950 have been written about. However it’s safe to say they had a hand in the early development of fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) automobile bodies and played a significant role in the development of a great many of Detroit’s dream cars during the 1950s and 60s. Today they’re mainly remembered as the firm that supplied the aerodynamic components for Chrysler Corporation’s legendary ‘Winged Warriors’.

Creative Industries of Detroit Inc. was founded in 1950 by Berkley, Michigan resident and former Chrysler Corp. body engineer Rex A. Terry (1907-1960) to provide specialized automobile fabrication services to Detroit’s auto industry.

In 1949 classic-era auto designer Ray Dietrich opened up a small design and fabrication firm of his own in Grand Rapids, Michigan, called Raymond Dietrich Inc. One of his first customers was the Ford Motor Co. who commissioned him to design and build a new limousine for President Harry S Truman. Based on a 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, the 4-door convertible had a 145” wheelbase, and weighed just over 6,000 lbs. Powered by a 337 cu in Lincoln V8, the 20 feet long car included retractable steps under the rear fenders, red flashers, a rear-mounted spare, and flag holders on the front bumper.

When President Eisenhower came into office, he requested that the car be fitted with a removable observation roof so he could wave to the crowds in rainy weather. As Dietrich had closed down his Grand Rapids shop, Ford farmed the work out to Creative who designed, fabricated and installed the domed Plexiglas bubble-top during 1953.

The revised limousine became known as ‘Ike’s Bubble-Top’. JFK used this car during his Inaugural Parade in 1961, and the car was retired later that year and replaced by the famous 1961 Lincoln X-100 limousine. The Truman car remained on the East Coast where it served as a Ford Motor Company's VIP car for a number of years. In 1967 it joined the Lincoln “Sunshine Special” at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan where it can be seen today. According to Theresa Sullivan-O'Neill, an employee of the museum, one door of the 1950 Lincoln fell off recently when a visitor reached over the barrier to open it for a better look.

Donald R. Mitchell of Ionia Manufacturing/Mitchell-Bentley was a silent partner in Creative and owned 50% of the stock. Terry was a close friend of Mitchell’s and their two firms often collaborated on projects including the 1954 Packard Grey Wolf II/Panther showcars, the first Packards to employ a wrap-around windshield.

Designed by Dick Teague using a 3/8 scale model, the Panther’s one-piece fiberglass roadster bodies were fabricated by Creative Industries then shipped to Ionia for trimming and final assembly. Four Panthers were created for the 1954 show circuit and following their retirement, one was presented to Don R. Mitchell and the other to Rex A. Terry.

Those two cars were returned to Creative who cut out the rear lights on both cars, exchanging them for 1955 Packard Patrician ‘Cathedral’-style units. Replacing the tail lights necessitated re-sculpting the rear-end and quarter panels, which were adorned with a trio of gold-plated triple-V emblems just ahead of the tail light. Terry’s car was repainted an iridescent pearl over black and included gold-plated script reading ‘Creative Panther’ at the leading edge of the rear quarters. Mitchell’s car was painted black and fitted with a one-piece removable black hardtop roof with gold-plated script that read ‘Mitchell Panther’. Mitchell’s Panther is currently owned by Joseph Bortz of Highland Park, Illinois.

Another joint project was the 1954 Dodge Granada show car. Creative fabricated the fiberglass body panels and assembled the vehicle and Ionia furnished the trim and interior. According to the March 1954 issue of Popular Science, the Granada was the “…first car ever built on conventional chassis with a one-piece, all-plastic body, Granada even has bumpers, structural body members and body-attaching brackets of glass fibers. Car is 211″ long.”

A third Creative-Packard project was the 1955 Packard Request show car which debuted at the 1955 Chicago Auto Show. Packard had received a number of requests to bring out an up-to-date version of their pre-1951 classic-era radiator and decided to placate the critics with their ‘Request’, hence the 1955 Request show car.

Designed by Dick Teague, the Request was built using a modified Patrician with a new front end treatment utilizing a classic-era Packard-style grill separated by two massive front bumpers. The vehicle’s hood and fenders were molded using reinforced Plaskon polyester resin, a product of the Barrett Division of Allied Chemical. In a 1978 interview with Leon Dixon, Creative’s Gary Hutchings recalled: "We had a heck of a time finding a place with tanks big enough to plate those huge front bumpers. We finally got 'em done over in Hamtramck (a Detroit suburb)."

A fourth Packard project was the 1956 Packard Predictor. Another Richard Teague design, the Predictor incorporated such advance features as a push button Ultramatic transmission, electric trunk, electric retractable rear window and retractable roof panels that aided entry and egress – think of retractable t-tops.

The body was built by Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin, Italy, but when a wiring short caused the Predictor to ignite prior to its Detroit Auto Show debut, it was sent off to Creative where the car’s numerous electrical gremlins were sorted and the damage repaired.

The 1953 Lincoln XL 500 was Ford Motor Co.’s first FRP-bodied (fiberglass reinforced plastic) showcar, and they turned to Creative to fabricate the bodywork. The XL500 featured steering wheel hub-mounted push button transmission controls and a built-in Telephone/Dictaphone. The car’s one-piece fiberglass body was topped off with a tinted glass roof that was bisected by a thick stainless steel band and was originally built without a drivetrain. with electrical features operated solely on battery power.

The 1954 Mercury Monterey XM 800, designed in the Mercury pre-production studio by John Najjar and Elwood Engle, debuted at the 1954 Detroit Auto Show. Benson Ford, Lincoln-Mercury Division manager, said “This is not a sports car, nor is it a dream car of the distant future. It has features of both, but is a readily producible automobile.”

The XM 800’s fiberglass body was built by Creative and featured a wrap-around windshield and a striking wide chrome band dividing the roof and the rear window. The XM 800 was featured in the 1954 20th Century Fox drama ‘Woman’s World’ where it starred as the Gifford, an automobile manufactured by Gifford Motors, a firm headed by Clifton Webb. The star-studded film also featured Lauren Bacall, Van Heflin, Cornel Wilde, Fred MacMurray and June Allyson. The XM800 survives today in the collection of Highland Park, Illinois collector Joseph Bortz.

One of the most futuristic Ford dream cars was the 1954 Atmos FX, an aero-inspired ‘car of the future’ which was initially constructed as a scale model then turned into a full-size showcar by Creative for display at the 1954 Chicago Auto Show. The three-seater was driven from the forward-mounted center seat and was although it was built without a power plant, the outboard tailfins and air intakes clearly indicated jet propulsion.

It was closely followed by the 1955 Mystère, another forward-looking showcar whose design is credited to Ford’s Bill Boyer. The car made it debut at that fall’s Pacific International Auto Show in Oakland, California. The Mystère included a two-piece Plexiglas canopy whose front two thirds could be raised just like a jet fighter’s. It included a rear-mounted turbine engine, aircraft-style steering and liquid-suspended gauges. Creative’s Gary Hutchings recalled: "I had one heck of a time getting the dash gauges installed. I think we floated 'em in an alcohol liquid - they floated you know."

Between 1952 and 1955, the bodies for all of Ford’s fiberglass show cars were fabricated at Creative, but starting with the 1956 Mercury D-528/D-526, Ford Motor Co. started molding their FRP bodies in-house using Ford personnel. However, Ford continued to use Creative on a limited basis.

According to Creative’s Dave Margolis, the firm built the bodies for the two 1960 stainless steel Thunderbirds Ford built for the Allegheny Ludlum Steel Co. Exactly what they did is the subject of much debate, as the bodies are known to have been stamped at Budd and finished on Ford’s Thunderbird assembly line at Wixom, Michigan. As one of Creative’s specialties was working with unusual materials, so it’s likely that they welded and hand assembled the bodies using stampings supplied by Budd prior to the finished bodies arrival at Wixom.

The Thunderbirds were part of a decades-long campaign by Allegheny Ludlum to advertise the durability of stainless steel. Ford had previously built six stainless-steel 1936 Ford Deluxes, and later built three 1967 Lincoln Continental convertibles out of the material and the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio has an example of each vehicle.

Classic Car’s Leon Dixon states that Creative had something to do with the prototype Corvette that went on display in January 1953 as part of GM’s touring Motorama exhibits, although what their involvement entailed remains a mystery.

The Corvette’s body was made of 62 separate lay-ups which were supplied by the Molded Fiber Glass Company of Ashtabula, Ohio. Possible roles played by Creative were in the fabrication of the prototype’s plaster molds and it’s also feasible that Creative finished the prototype’s body as they were one of the few Detroit-based firms that were familiar with FRP (fiberglass reinforced plastic).

In advertising the Corvette, General Motors made extensive use of the term fiberglass, downplaying the term fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) as they reasoned that the public would not purchase a ‘plastic’ automobile. A GM executive quoted in Fortune in 1953 said that he didn’t mind a fiberglass car “just so long as they don’t try to do it with any damned plastic.

Other late 1950s projects included developing revised trim and roof treatments for various manufacturers including Chrysler of Australia.

Starting in the 1960s, Creative branched out into other automotive-related arenas, creating a division that specialized in the production of owner’s manuals and multi-volume factory service books and microfiches for Detroit’s auto manufacturers.

Creative’s expertise was not limited to the automobile industry. They produced the bodywork for the 1962 Aeromobile 200-2, a four passenger 200hp hovercraft designed by Dr. William R. Bertelsen, a Neponset, Illinois inventor and founder of Bertelsen Inc.

The vehicle was commissioned by the US Department of Commerce for display at a number of international trade fairs during 1962. The Aeromobile 200-2 was shown to Japan’s Prince Akahito at the 1962 Tokyo International Trade Fair and was later exhibited at International Trade Fairs in New Delhi, India Zagreb, Hungary and Turin, Italy.

Bertelsen holds a number of hovercraft patents and designed numerous propeller-driven cushioned vehicles from the mid-1950s into the 21st Century. He later developed the Gimbal fan and now heads Aeromobile Inc. a Rock Island, Illinois manufacturer of hovercraft and Aeroduct plume vehicles.

In the fall of 1962 Creative Industries’ Dave Margolis took future author Leon Dixon and a friend on a high-school-sponsored tour of their 3080 East Outer Drive Plant which Dixon described in a 1978 article in Car Classics magazine:

“After receiving an extensive orientation to introduce us to Creative, the two wide-eyed kids trailed the tour host, occasionally turning in circles to gasp at the wonders we saw. It was like dying and going to car-nut heaven-better! One part of the facilities had expert woodcraftsmen skillfully laboring over beautiful full-sized wood mock-ups, while another was filled with expert metal men forming panels and making castings of elaborate designs. A door on a corrugated metal partition flew open for a split second and we visually devoured something wild with fins and a low body. Never did find out what it was. What we did find was a group of enthusiastic specialists and craftsmen, devoted to constant advancement of automotive concepts, the two high school car nuts were among friends and I, for one, never forgot the experience.”

The 1963 Buick Riviera-based Silver Arrow concept car was fabricated at Creative for General Motors’ styling chief Bill Mitchell. The top was chopped, the grill filled-in and the fender-mounted headlights placed behind translucent panels. The car featured a custom chrome-leather interior and 1930s-style wheel discs that covered up real wire wheels. Mitchell used the car as his personal transportation for a number of years and the car currently resides in the Alfred P Sloan Museum in Flint, Michigan.

During 1963 Creative built the Dodge Charger concept, a roadster-style show car based on the Dodge Polara that debuted at the 1964 Chicago Auto Show. The following year Creative built the Dodge Charger II concept which debuted at the 1965 Chicago Auto Show. The Charger II more accurately reflected the look of the production 1966 production Charger which featured pop-up headlights hidden behind a full-width grill.

Creative also fabricated the 1965 Plymouth XP-VIP which debuted at the 1966 Chicago Auto Show. The car was loosely based on the 1965-66 Fury and included an innovative retractable photochromic glass roof that ran on tracks hid by a novel arched center support that ran down the roof’s centerline from the windshield to the rear deck. The car also featured indirect interior lighting, a rear-view tv/camera, a telephone/dicataphone and an iridescent Murano pearl paintjob.

The September 1966 issue of Motor Trend states that Creative Industries was developing a ‘baby Cadillac’ for Detroit industrialist Ruben Allender, the man responsible for the 1956-1957 Chevrolet El Morocco which was an earlier attempt at creating a ‘baby Cadillac’. If the car was produced, no record of it exists.

The Virgil Exner-designed prototype 1969 Stutz Blackhawk featured a custom body built by Ghia in Italy using body dies built by Creative, who also participated in the final trimming and assembly of the prototype. The clay mock-up of the American Motors' AMX was also crafted in a design studio leased by AMC at Creative’s East Outer Drive facility.

Creative Industries main claim to fame is the assembly of the infamous 503 1969 model year and 3 1970 model year Dodge Charger Daytona muscle cars. In the fall of 1968 they produced the 500 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 500’s needed by Dodge for NASCAR homologation. The cars are easily identified by the number 500 cut into the rear bumblebee stripe as well as the flush-mounted 1968 Dodge Coronet grille mounted flush to the leading edge of the front fenders - eliminating the recess found on the stock Charger. The vehicles also included stainless steel-covered A pillars and a rear window plug to make the car more aerodynamic. The stock vehicle’s sail panels and inset rear window caused a huge vacuum which created undesirable aerodynamic drag on the car’s rear end.

The winged 1969 Dodge Charger Daytonas commenced production a few months later. The Daytona was a direct result of the disappointing racetrack performance of the 1969 Dodge Charger R/T 500s. By March of 1969 Dodge knew they had a problem and Bob McCurry, Vice-President and General Manager of Dodge ordered his engineers to come up with a solution. They returned with drawings depicting the awkward sloping nose and huge rear aero-wing, assuring him that the car’s new features would make the revised Charger win races. Further testing revealed that the original 12-inch high rear aileron/spoiler made access to the trunk impossible, so the wing was raised to a height of 23 inches allowing the trunk to fully open and further stabilizing the vehicle.

McCurry rushed the car intro production and had a prototype ready for the April 13th public unveiling that was necessary to get the car homologated in time for the September, 1969 race at Talladega.

Most of the 500 Daytonas were previously ordered Charger R/Ts that were diverted to the rushed Charger program in order to get the 500 vehicles built as quickly as possible. The cars were taken from the Lynch Road and Hamtramck assembly plants by transporter to Creative’s new 17630 East 10 Mile Road plant in Eastpointe, Michigan. Upon arrival at Creative the rear window glass was removed, the Creative-built fastback rear window plug installed, then the reworked area sanded, primed and new larger window glass installed.

The car then received the steel rear wing, whose sails were securely attached to the body via two pairs of steel tubes (two per side) that were secured to the frame rails. Then the stock front end of the Charger was removed and the 18-inch steel nose cone affixed to the radiator core supports. The lights were installed and plumbed then the faux front wheel scoops were affixed to the top of the front fenders. The cars were then final sanded and sent to Creative’s paint shop where the nose cone, scoops and rear half of the car was painted to match the original paint on the rest of the car.

When the paint dried, the rear wing and stabilizers were painted black or white, depending on the body color, then the corresponding stripes affixed to the rear quarters. The front lip spoilers were placed into the trunk and installed at the dealer as they were easily damaged while loading and unloading the transporters. Creative Industries met their deadline and had all 500 Daytonas finished by the first of September which meant that Dodge could race at Talledega.

For 1970 NASCAR increased the number of cars needed for homologation to one car for every two dealers. As Plymouth had 3840 dealers in 1969, they needed to build 1,920 Superbirds in order to meet the requirement. Plymouth engineers came up with an aerodynamic package for the Plymouth Belvedere that substituted a Dodge Coronet hood and front fenders enabling a Charger Daytona-style nosecone to be easily grafted to the less aerodynamic Belvedere body. Upon close inspection you can tell that the nosecone on the Plymouth has a different profile, it’s 19” deep (the Charger’s was 18”), the leading edge cuts into the air at a higher angle and the front air inlet is noticeably larger. Internally the nose cones are the same and incorporate the core support, fiberglass headlight doors and vacuum system of the Daytona.

The aerodynamic profile of the Belvedere’s rear window just as bad as the stock Charger’s so a semi-fastback window plug featuring convex window glass similar to that of the Daytona’s was devised. Rather than leave the unsightly plug and filler panels exposed, Plymouth elected to cover it with a vinyl roof.

Even with the plug installed, wind tunnel tests revealed that the Superbird was still less efficient than the Daytona so a decision was made to reduce drag by enlarging the Superbird’s vertical sail panels by 40% and increasing their rearward angle. The wings were attached to the car’s frame via a triangular brace made from angle iron, with a body-colored molding covering the transition from sail panel to fender. The resulting car wasn’t as sleek as the Charger, but Plymouth brass thought it was more attractive (eg: saleable), and Richard Petty had little trouble winning races in the vehicle.

Despite some published stories that state otherwise (see article by Beverly Rae Kimes in Special Interest Autos #100 pp22-29, 54-57), Creative Industries did not assemble the Superbirds, they only supplied Plymouth with the wings and plumbed nosecone sub-assemblies. The steel snouts were preassembled and painted flat black inside and light primer grey outside prior to their arrival at Chrysler’s Clairpointe St. pre-production facility which was located at the corner of Freud St., just 5 miles from Plymouth’s Lynch Rd. Assembly plant in Detroit.

Completed Superbirds – sans wing, nosecone and front fender scoops – were trucked to Claripointe St. where the missing parts were painted to match and installed. Once assembled, the various Superbird decals were affixed to the cars and they were stored awaiting final transportation to awaiting dealerships. As on the Chargers, the chin spoiler was left uninstalled and placed in the trunk.

The Transformer I luxury electric car was built by Creative for Robert R. Aronson’s Electric Fuel Propulsion Corp. (EFP) from 1974-77 using Chevrolet Malibu donors. Powered by a 180-volt lead-cobalt battery the cars included a small trailer which held a gas-powered 50 kW Fast Charger which could be used to charge the vehicle on long trips. Creative designed and manufactured the fiberglass front end cover that replaced the stock Malibu grill.

Literature claimed that the ‘Cadillac of modern electric cars’ could travel for 1,100 miles at a speed of 50 mph, providing the trailer-mounted generator tagged along. Otherwise, the car had a cruising range of two hours on a single charge. Known customers included the London Towne Livery Service of Beverly Hills, California who leased two examples in 1974 and Avis Auto Rental of Chicago who leased twelve of the cars in July of 1976. Hollywood actor Lloyd Bridges also drove one of the vehicles.

Volkswagen’s US production company, Volkswagen Manufacturing Corp. of America, leased space at Creative from July through December 1976 while they waited for their Warren, Michigan headquarters to be remodeled.

John DeLorean used Creative to assist him with engineering and development work on the DeLorean automobile during 1977.

During the 1980s Creative relocated to a new design-oriented facility at 275 Rex Blvd., in Auburn Hills, Michigan. General Motors utilized Creative’s new design facility while they were preparing to move their N-body compacts - Pontiac Grand Am, Olds Calais and Buick Skylark - over to the L-car (Chevrolet Beretta and Corsica) platform in 1992.

Creative built the two Mustang Mach III concept cars that made the rounds of the 1993 auto show circuit, and the limited production 1996 Dodge Ram Indy pickup was also built there.

In 1991 Creative Industries became a subsidiary of Masco Tech, an automotive technology and firm that was controlled by Masco Corp., the maker of Delta faucets. In 1999, Masco Tech was sold to MSX International, an automotive engineering consultancy headed by Erwin H. Billig, the former president of Masco Tech.

MSX, headquartered in Warren, Michigan, leased the 151,200 sq. ft. Rex Blvd facility to EDAG Inc. in December of 2006. EDAG Traces its roots back to 1969 when Horst Eckard opened a design consultancy in Groß-Zimmern near Darmstadt/Germany under the name Eckard Design, opening of first office in Cologne/Germany. EDAG established their first Detroit-area branch to introduce a removable hardtop for the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky that was inspired by the Pontiac Safari station wagons of the 1950s.

Creative Industries former 3080 E. Outer Dr. plant is currently occupied by Habitat for Humanity - Detroit Restore, while Stephens's Nu-Ad, Inc currently occupies their former 17630 E. 10 Mile Rd. facility in Eastpointe.

For more information please read:

Edward Janicki - Dream Cars of Yesterday - Ward's Auto World, March, 1988 issue

Edward Janicki - Cars Detroit Never Built: Fifty Years of American Experimental Cars

Leon Dixon - Creative Industries: Super Secret Car Builders in Detroit's Backyard - Car Classics, December 1978

Beverly Rae Kimes - Packard: A History if the Motor Car

John Heilig - Detroit Dream Cars

Mitch Frumkin - American Dream Cars: 60 Years of the Best Concept Vehicles

Jon Lowell - Mach III: high-end Mustang? - Saddling up with the '94 Mustang team Ward's Auto World, March 1993 issue

On a binge: more metal stamping orders go to outside suppliers, for now - Ward's Auto World, June, 1989 issue

Walter E. Gosden - Stainless Reputations: The Ultimate Rust Free Cars - Special Interest Autos #80 December 1980 Issue

Michael Lamm - The Fiberglass Story - Invention & Technology magazine, Spring 2007 issue

Jeffrey L. Meikle - American Plastic: a Cultural History. 1997