Anyone know anything about Design One boards. I picked up a Design One Reflector at a garage sale in New Jersey. Looks to be from the mid seventies. Seven foot long. Wide point well forward of center. Deck is tinted green. Pretty good condition. Looks like it will be a fun ride.
I have a June 1969 Surfing magazine that has an ad for Design One by Surf Jet Manufacturing, based out of Long Island NY. In the ad they have Rodney Sumpter, Butch Van Artsdalen, master craftsman Bill Choate and World Champion at that time, Fred Hemmings on their team.
That would be master craftsman Dennis Choate. Surf Jet was bank rolled by Huntington Hartford, the owner of A&P, the factory was huge, capible of producing many boards. The glossing room had roll up garage doors and racks that were fork lifted from room to room. Mike Createau aka “Great White” was at one time a shaper there, Dick Catri was the team leader. I believe it was originally the brain child of Charlie Bunger, but he was folded, spindled and mutilated along the way.
Jim, That’s a story that interests me. I’ve done a good deal of business with Bunger’s over the years, mostly because they left you pretty much alone when shopping - usually none of the annoyingly ‘cool’ shop rats snickering at you. Over the years I bought a Caster, a Spectrum, a Channin, and one Bunger longboard from that shop. Charlie seems to have been around alot in this industry… Can you tell us any more about the Design One factory and how it died? Also - wondering if you know anything about Hannon surfboards? I heard that they were built on LI and that the factory was in Great Neck (where I grew up). Never confirmed though. Thanks, Eric J
Thanks for the info.
I don’t think the Surf Jet factory held on much longer than 69-70, Huntington HArtford, being the businessman he was, most likely realized that he was sold a dream by Bunger and the others involved. He was used to buying a can of green beans for 13 cents and selling it for 26 cents, not anywhere near the return from surfboards. You gotta love it to do it John Hannon, along with Bob Hawkins were the first commercial builders on Lon Giland. They both were building some good looking boards in the infancy of east coast surfboard industry
Thanks Jim. The few vintage Hannon’s I’ve seen looked very nice. It’s been a while but I’d love to stumble accross a few more. I had an Old Bunger too, but chopped it up and made a fish out of it ([Pistol]Pete Armata thought it might be worth something… but I heard that after I had pulled off most of the fiberglass). Charlie Bunger is a salesman, for sure (maybe the LI version of Velzy). That must have been some ambitious pitch from him to even get this moving - and he was young then too. Best, Eric J
and… ‘Lon Giland’ i certainly right too!