Del Baumgartner was born in a small town in Indiana. As a boy, he fantasized about cars. Every since he can remember he was crazy about cars. He began drawing cars when he was about ten years old. While other children studied math and history, Del studied famous car designers like, Harley Earl, Raymond Lowe, George Barris and Ital designer, Gugario. Del knew that someday he to would be a car designer. Today Del's heros are guys like Enzo Ferrari, Carrol Shelby, Roger Penske, Pete Brock and Henrick Frisker, to name a few.
Del didn't get a chance to design and build his first car until he was thirty two years old. He was already married and had served in the Air Force as a designer and photographer in Washington D.C. After his stint in the Air Force, Del went on to be the youngest tech illustrator on the Apollo 11 missile program at the ripe old age of twenty three (23). After Apollo 11, Del's contract with NASA/Boeing was over, so Del pursued a career in sales and Marketing serving as the Vice President of Marketing for several national corporations.
Although Del had found success working for others he wasn't really satisfied, he wanted his own business, he wanted to design cars. Finally in May of 1977, Del got a chance to design and build his first car. General Motors had announced in 1976 that they were no longer going to build convertibles. Ford had made the same announcement in 1975. Del saw this as an opportunity to start building limited edition convertibles. It wasn't designing and building cars up from the ground, but it was a start. Now .... some thirty years later, Del has designed and built seven (7) prototypes for automotive dealers as well as affluent customers wanting something unique and special.
Del's most famous car to date is the 2008 street legal formula 1, called the Brava Spyder S1. Unfortunately the prototype was destroyed in an accidental fire while testing in San Diego, CA. Now Del is busy designing a new Hybrid Electric Supercar that he hopes to introduce to the public sometime in 2012 or early 2013.
