The sleek design and sheer size of the latest concept vehicle developed by Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters Inc. took center stage at a recent invitation-only unveiling at the company’s headquarters in Fountain Valley, though perhaps the more compelling story centers around its customer.
The 42-foot electric bus, which weighs about 22,500 tons, was commissioned by Thunder Sky Winston Energy Group, a Shenzhen conglomerate founded by energy and real estate magnate Winston Chung, who disappeared after making a splash in OC in 2011.
It was around that time that Chung visited Metalcrafters owner George Gaffoglio.
“Somehow, he heard about us,” Gaffoglio told the Business Journal during the launch event at the concept-vehicle maker. “We had a meeting and got to know each other.”
That led to a contract to convert a Lincoln Navigator into an electric full-size sedan using lithium-ion batteries developed by Winston Battery, another Chung company. The 10-week project was followed by an order to convert two classic London taxi cabs into electric vehicles.
“He always had this dream of doing a full-size luxury bus,” Gaffoglio said. “Here we are after all these years.”
Chung intends the bus to be reproduced for Chinese government and commercial fleets. The vehicle’s interior recalls that of an Amtrak train or commercial airliner cabin, sporting overhead storage compartments and multiple video monitors in the cab.
Chung and his far-flung operations still largely remain a mystery, though. He listed his net worth at $533 million in an unaudited 2011 filing with the city of Newport Beach as part of his bid to buy Balboa Bay Club and Resort and Newport Beach Country Club, which the city held the ground leases for, according to the Los Angeles Times. His actual wealth today is unknown.
The electric vehicle, which can accommodate 42 passengers, utilizes 96 Winston batteries packed in 14 tight modules weighing about 700 pounds each in the belly of the bus.
The batteries are the same type Chung donated to the University of California-Riverside in 2011 to power a building at the campus as part of a $10 million gift to its engineering department to support an energy innovation professorship and other initiatives.
The gift was one of several for Chung that year, when he put more than a reported $70 million into Southern California companies, including two in OC.
His frenzied list of investments in 2011 also included a $32 million infusion into Metalcrafters and $28 million into Krystal Koach Inc., a Brea-based limo maker that filed for bankruptcy that year. The company gradually sold off assets but now sells limousines, according to its website.
Chung’s proposed $170 million bid to acquire the two Newport Beach clubs shocked real estate insiders at the time and helped him earn a nod as the Business Journal’s real estate industry person of the year.
The Business Journal caught up with the elusive Chung during a private press event then at Balboa Bay Club, where he talked up OC and his buying plans here, and hoped to meet with him or his team at the Metalcrafters unveiling, but he regrettably couldn’t make it, guests were told.
The Balboa deal, like some other ventures involving the Chinese entrepreneur, never materialized, as getting money out of China became troublesome, according to informed sources at the time.
Chung was also rumored to be on the hunt for a Newport Harbor mansion once valued at nearly $35 million and a California location to build a battery plant, which Metalcrafters touted anew during the event.
Family Expertise
Most of the skills of engineers, machinists and fabricators at Metalcrafters’ 130,000-square-foot, two-building operation have been passed down through the generations.
“Some of the work that we do is from the old school,” Gaffoglio said. “The way we shape metal is from 100 years ago. That makes us very unique, which is a family trait.”
Its glass-bending business was launched about 25 years ago to reduce idle time. The company could build a car in four months, but sometimes a windshield would take twice as long to deliver.
“We broke an awful lot of glass and still do to this day,” Gaffoglio laughed.
But the work led to small-volume turns years later for other sectors, including aerospace customers like Sylmar-based PPG Aerospace and corporate jets. The company has a steady business supplying components for Gulfstream G450s and G650s and airplanes made by giant Embraer S.A. in Brazil.
It also handles secret projects for the likes of Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
“That is a good niche market for us,” Gaffoglio said.
The diversification helped save the company during the heart of the recession.
“And now auto is coming back,” Gaffoglio said. “If you look at the projects, they keep getting bigger and bigger.”
The company employs about 130 at its headquarters and has nearly $50 million in annual revenue.
The bus is its largest concept vehicle so far over a history that dates to 1979 in Newport Beach when it was a two-man, father-son outfit.
The family-run business, which moved to Fountain Valley in 1995, laid down the early conceptual work that ultimately evolved into the Dodge Viper, Ford Bronco and Mitsubishi Spyder.
One of Metalcrafters’ first projects was the Chrysler K-car. It built six of the concept vehicles, which became the basis for the Dodge Aries, Plymouth Reliant and others. The K-car, developed in the 1980s, is credited with helping former Chrysler LLC Chairman Lee Iacocca rescue the company from bankruptcy.
It stretched Shaquille O’Neal’s Lamborghini by a foot so that he could sit comfortably, and built the body and made the glass for Jay Leno’s biodiesel EcoJet car.
“Since we’re not full a high-volume manufacturer, this is all about creativity,” Gaffoglio said. “We just love what we do.”
