We recently featured a car that was listed as a Glasspar G2 by the seller, but as many of you pointed it, it clearly isn’t a Glasspar. Shortly after running it, I received a wonderfully surprisingly email from a Matthew Tritt. In it he stated that the car wasn’t a Glasspar and he should know seeing as his father, Bill Tritt, was the man that started Glasspar! As we emailed back and forth, I asked Matt if he would share a little bit with us about his father. I thought it would be a nice Father’s day treat! He shared some amazing stories about his father with us and offers a look at Bill that you won’t find anywhere else but right here!

Thanks for the kind words about my father! What most people don’t know is that his personal cars in the years up until 1961 were not too bad either. They include (but I might forget some) a ’33 Packard touring, a ’17 Dodge Bros pickup, a ’48 Mark IV Drophead Jag, a 1915 Roamer-Duesenberg Speedster, a 1931 Springfield Rolls PI convertible sedan, a ’33 Rolls P2 Gurney-Nutting Continental Drophead coupe, a ’39 Rolls P3 sedan (aluminum body with a plexiglass moon roof and leopard skin upholstery with V12, a ’36 Bentley drophead coupe (fabulous!) with exhaust cutout, a ’48 Bentley Continental with a Van Den Plas coach that won the 1948 Paris auto salon(!), a ’38 Packard 12 limo LWB, a ’41 Packard Super Eight limo with overdrive and fabric top cover, a ’59 Ferrari 250 GT with Bertone body, a ’48 Lancia Aprilia Square 4 and a (new) ’58 Borgward wagon. Not exactly his car, but I thought I’d mention my ’34 Packard 12 aluminum bodied roadster that had belonged to Bill Pollack (his driver for the factory G2 race car) and perfectly restored. I tell ya. The P3 Rolls had a licence plate that an English friend told us indicated that it had belonged Churchill, but we never explored that.

Dad was born in Pasadena and raised on his parents orange ranch in Villa Park, California. His dad came to California to attend medical school but met my grandmother, who was a daughter of Richard Hall Gilman; the guy called the father of the California Orange industry. He had come out on a clipper ship when he was 18 in 1862 to seek his fortune and had incredible stories of his adventures, many of which he related to dad when he was very young. I suspect that a lot of these tales had to do with the sea and ships, since most of dad’s early art work (he was quite the artist!) had to do with ships, boats, sailing, pirates and so on – but it was quite clear that he loved boats and cars from his artwork. He also was great at making things, one of which was a Lilienthal glider made with wood, bamboo and linen, that he flew successfully (before my grandmother found out!)

The family went on a steamship trip to Hawaii in 1927 where he was introduced to surfing and surfboards. After their return he began making boards and became one of the first surfers on the mainland, as well as one of the first surfboard makers. He also was an excellent musician and loved jazz. He had a jazz band clear up through his time at Cal State Teacher’s College in Santa Barbara (now known as UCSB) that played gigs all over the place. My mother was the singer in the band. At college he mainly focused on boat design and boat building and also did a lot of sailing when possible.

After graduating from Villa Park High School, dad set off on a round the world trip with his flat track racing bike via steamer. He biked through England, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, and France before his bike was stolen in Marseilles. He did some great watercolors as he went, the neatest one being from a canal in medieval Hamburg, which is still around somewhere. This was just before the war and he came away very impressed with Germany and what a beautiful place it was. Everyone he met there was very friendly and helpful; being a handsome young guy biking around the world probably didn’t hurt! Anyhow, he also saw China, Japan, and many South sea islands via tramp steamer before making it back home.

During the war he worked for Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach as an illustrator and pattern maker, which is where he was first exposed to plastics and resin reinforced fabrics in general. He became life-long frinds with Donald Douglas while there and sold him one of his “Packet” auxillary sailboats many years later. After the war he went to work maintaining yachts in Newport Harbor and built a few small catamarans along the way. These were the only cats on the West Coast that I’m aware of during that period. Things changed when he was asked to build a 21′ sloop for a yachting buddy he knew from his time in Santa Barbara named John Greene. Dad convinced him that he should buld it from a new medium; glass reinforced polyester, which he did. He built two of these boats known as the “Greene Dolphin”, which was the segway into the founding of Glasspar in 1948.

The thing about dad that made him such a standout was his “eye”. There were plenty of guys getting into building with glass in the late 40’s/early 50’s, but very, very few of them had such a great feel for what looked “right” and were able to translate a vision into a good, finished product. I guess this is why there’s a G2 in the Smithsonian and why Glasspar was far and away the most successful producer of fiberglass boats up to 1960. He had a long list of “firsts” to his credit, but I believe that one of the most enduring is the 17′ Seafair line of power boats, that and the cult classic G3 ski boat. The cars, the Ascot in particular, would have been the most important thing for the company had it not been for the funding having been pulled by a very short sighted decision by the bean counter cabal. These people (one or three of em) were not creative people, had no “eye” for anything other than money and managed to destroy the company almost immediately after dad left the company in ’61. Anyway, that’s a very short version. I should probably try and put something more detailed down while I still remember most of it!
Cheers,
Matt

If you would like to learn more about Glasspar, you can find more history about it here on Hemmings. I want to personally thank Matt for sharing this with us! As I read Matt’s story, it made me realize what an extraordinary guy Bill was, but also that he was just a regular guy who had a special talent for turning fabric and resin into something special! His contributions to both industries will be felt for years to come. And from everyone here at Barn Finds – Happy Father’s Day!