Venus Kit Car - Kit Carchives

Frankie Avalon was thinking about the Roman goddess of love when he penned the lyrics to his hit song "Oh Venus," but there was another Venus that continues to inspire followers to perform great deeds. It was long, lovely, and made of fiberglass.

Ken McLoad was a hardcore car enthusiast who wanted to design and build his own car. There's nothing unusual in that. There are thousands who constantly think and talk about their dream car project. The difference was that McLoad actually built his. He started the design work in the late 1940s, when he was a young geophysical engineer in Dallas, Texas.

When he moved to Houston in 1950, he took the idea with him. He spent the next few years finalizing the details and gathered up two partners, D. Y. Gorman and E. F. Rockett, to help bring the project to fruition. Gorman brought business expertise to the operation, while Rockett was an experienced pattern maker. Gorman's teenage son DeWitt also pitched in with building the prototype. In '54, the partners formed Ratio Manufacturing Company in Houston and set about launching their new kit car venture.

The first model, the Venus, was a looker. It was a two-seat sports car with no top or side windows. The fiberglass bodies were designed to sit on full-length (114-inch wheelbase) '49-51 Ford chassis and were priced at $875. The Venus sales flyer revealed that any Detroit V-8 would fit under the long hood and that the engine could be moved back 18 inches. The body included two mounted doors, a mounted hood, the instrument panel, firewall, floorboards, and polished aluminum windshield posts. Ratio also offered to assemble turnkey cars for buyers who didn't want to build a car themselves. There were at least two prototypes built, but best guesses are that fewer than 12 body units were sold by Ratio. One was featured on the cover of the May '54 issue of Motor Trend. This resulted in more potential business than the three young partners, who were also raising families and holding down full-time jobs, had time to deal with (be careful what you ask for!).

Instead, in '55 they sold the rights to build the Venus to the Venus Corporation, a new publicly held company set up by Frank Schulgen and Eddie Kovar to build the car. Kovar was experienced in the fiberglass business, but after developing the car and molds for volume production, the project was abandoned in '57. Although contemporary newspaper articles reference 17 cars sold by the Venus Corporation, this number has been debated by former employees who believe only a few, or maybe even zero, new cars were ever sold. Venus had developed at least one prototype with a folding top.

The Next Generation
The history of the American specialty car industry is littered with the carcasses of small manufacturers that expired without having built much more than a prototype. What makes the Venus story special is that two sons of principals involved in the Venus saga are currently restoring the only two surviving examples, and until recently neither knew the other existed! Patrick McLoad was only a kid when a Venus shared the family garage in Houston. His dad, Ken, had kept one of the prototypes when he sold the rights to the design, holding onto it until the early 1970s. Patrick had wonderful memories of the Ford flathead-powered machine. But by the time he was old enough to start restoring classic cars for a hobby, he held out little hope of ever finding a Venus of his own. He searched for the one his parents had owned, but it had been sold to a business associate who moved to Florida, and the trail had gone cold. Then in 2003, Patrick heard that one was for sale in Massachusetts, and after protracted negotiations, he brought it back home to Houston.

That was when he started finding out more about the cars his now-deceased father had built. It turns out there were two grille configurations, one with a central vertical bar and four spears radiating outward, and another with a squared-off egg-crate grille. At least one sported a Continental kit to hold a spare tire on the back. All had large external door hinges and '52 Ford bumpers (narrowed three inches in the rear). The tall taillights were borrowed from a '52 Packard. The teardrop headlamps were courtesy of a '53 Buick. The thick, sturdy 'glass body weighed in at 395 pounds. Completed cars were expected to weigh in at 2,590 pounds dry (depending on the engine and accessories).

The flathead engine in his car was complete, but in very poor condition. Some of the running gear and bodywork had been crudely modified. Today it is still a work in progress and progressing well. McLoad started a section of his Web site, www.mcload.com, to provide the history of the cars and show his extensive restoration in step-by-step form.

It was during the research phase of his project that McLoad located Jack Kovar, son of Eddie Kovar, who had been a partner in the Venus Corporation. Not only did Kovar have stacks of photos and documents relating to the Venus, but he also had a car of his own that he had picked up in 1965 from an ad in AutoTrader. Remarkably, both Venus owners live in the Houston area, and their cars have come home to roost!

Thanks to Patrick McLoad and my classic kit car partner in crime, Geoff Hacker, for their help on this article. Hacker and co-author Rick D'louhy are currently researching the history of '50s fiberglass cars for a book they are writing called Forgotten Fiberglass. If you would like to learn more about the book or have information about fiberglass cars of this era that you would like to contribute, please visit www.forgottenfiberglass.com.