In 1957, at the age of 20 at GM Styling, Peter Brock sketched what would become the iconic ‘63 Corvette Sting Ray. Moving on to work for Carroll Shelby, Brock designed the Daytona Cobra Coupe which won the FIA GT World Championship in ’65. Brock then founded Brock Racing Enterprises (BRE) and won four National SCCA Championships for Nissan from ’70-’72 with the BRE Datsun 240Zs and 510s.
More than a lifetime of accomplishments for most, Brock’s life took a turn in ’72 when he drove by a construction site to see people flying off of tall sand berms, hanging from kites made precariously from visqueen plastic duct-taped to bamboo sticks. He stopped and a winded flyer offered him his kite to try it out.
Brock was hooked. He went back to his BRE shop and made a set of high-quality parts to build kites with. He went back to the sand berms and showed them to the flyers. They were impressed and asked the cost. When Brock said $5 the response was “$5! What a rip-off!”
Brock wasn’t deterred. He closed down BRE and founded Ultralight Products Inc (UP) to build hang gliders as he thought they should be. As he’d done with BRE, Brock assembled a talented group of employees who developed state-of-the art hang gliders and led the industry in safety improvements. The UP team also flew in competitions worldwide, winning 7 out of 8 Championships.
During those years, Brock hired a young Roy Haggard, who was inducted into the Rogallo Hall of Fame in 2009. Haggard shares: “Pete brought to hang gliding what he always brings… style, daring, drive, commitment, blended until it is a smoothly paved path to excellence.”
