Like many automobile enthusiasts in 1953, Roger Crispell had his sights set on the Corvette, Chevrolet’s brand-new sports car. Even though he worked at General Motors, Crispell lacked the VIP or celebrity status that it took to own a new Corvette. Chevrolet had reserved the 300 produced for the model’s introductory model year for high-profile figures who would help make the new fiberglass two-seater more visible to the public. Crispell did not qualify.

Nearly one year after its 1953 introduction, the Corvette became more widely available, and in 1954, GM employee Crispell finally landed his Corvette, a 1954 model purchased new from Matthew Hargreaves Chevrolet in Royal Oak, Mich.

Crispell worked for GM at its Industrial Design Studio on Cass Avenue in Detroit and was eligible for an employee discount on new-car purchases. Unfortunately, the still-new ’54 Corvette was not eligible for the employee discount program. Buying a second-year Corvette meant paying the full sticker price and not benefiting from the employee discount.

Crispell’s out-the-door price for the Corvette was nearly $4,000, plus finance charges. That was a lot of money for a GM designer, but Crispell knew this was not just an automobile. It was arguably the first truly “American Sports Car” and laid down the money to own his dream car.

On a rainy day, Crispell picked up his new Corvette from Matthew Hargreaves Chevrolet. By the time he arrived home, the interior was soaked from a leaky convertible top. Even with the wet interior, he and his wife, Ann, enjoyed it and were proud owners. The pride continued for the first 1,000 miles, and Crispell enjoyed soaking up the admiration he and his wife received from onlookers and “soaking up” the water after each time it was driven in rain. Crispell said he was once offered $5,000 for the car and politely turned it down. “We liked the Corvette’s road and snob appeal,” he later recalled.

However, along with the leaky convertible top came mechanical issues. The engine hesitated at 85 mph, and the tappets were noisy. The dealership attempted to correct the concerns, but they never seemed to have a handle on it. During one visit, the service manager replied, “The car is experimental, and with sports cars, you have to put up with stuff.” Disturbed by the comment and feeling let down, Crispell wrote to the Chevrolet chief engineer, describing the issues with his 1954 Corvette. A once-proud and enthusiast owner, Crispell had turned into a disgruntled owner.

The Chevrolet chief engineer arranged for the car to be dropped off at the General Motors executive garage for repairs. Crispell was then given a Corvette loaner while the mechanical concerns of his 1954 Corvette could be diagnosed and corrected. Enter GM performance contributor and three-time Indy 500 winner Mauri Rose, who had been hired by GM as a consultant around this time for his engine-building expertise and knowledge. Rose made the unusual proposal to GM leadership that they use Crispell’s 1954 to make the Corvette’s first design change while it was in for repairs.

Normally, when a production car was needed by GM employees to engineer mechanical and design updates, a new car would get scheduled and then pulled from the assembly plant’s rotation. But perhaps for the first time in Corvette history, an employee’s Corvette was used for such purposes — Crispell’s 1954 Corvette! Crispell’s Corvette (VIN #2772) was taken to the GM Design Studio where it became referred to as a “Styling Corvette.” The design team used the car as a platform to create a new canvas convertible top and a newly designed interior. Rose and the performance team also pulled the engine. They identified and corrected several issues, then transported it to GM’s Milford proving grounds. Rose drove the Corvette during its new “break in.” Several weeks before Crispell was notified the work was complete, the new convertible top, trim details and mechanical components were replaced with current re-designed replacements. “It was great again,” Crispell later said.

In 1955, Crispell led one of GM’s interior design studios, and the designers needed a Corvette. Crispell’s car was assigned Shop Order #2536, dated 4-14-55, to document the changes it was to receive by the design studio. At this point, his Corvette was painted orange and black by the design studio, a combination Crispell later called “hideous.”

A second design change was proposed by the design team a few months later, and Crispell’s Corvette again returned to the GM studio. They received shop order #10028 dated 1-11-56, to document the car’s changes. This time, the Corvette was given a new paint finish created by Crispell called “Sahara Silver” to replace the orange-and-black combination. The interior was redone in black-and-silver leather trim. The car’s beige convertible top was replaced.

The design team also used the car as a platform to create a new canvas convertible top that accented the freshly redesigned interior. Other styling changes included an engine-turned gauge bezel, three-spoke Corvette steering wheel, vertical “shark type” headlamp bezels and a center armrest with a glove box console.

The “shark-fin” headlamp bezels were one of the more interesting and visible eye-catching features of the second design change. Driven by state and federal government concerns over the use of wire mesh “basket covers” over the headlamps of the 1953-1955 Corvette, the vertical shark-fin was tested as a possible replacement. Only two sets were produced; one set was installed on Crispell’s ’54 Corvette and the other set remained in the hands of the GM Design Studio.

In early 1970, Crispell’s Corvette was sold and restored to its original appearance of a Polo White exterior and a Sportsman Red interior, but the other components from its design changes remained on the car. Soon after the restoration, Corvette #2771 went into storage and remained there for the next 30 years. It was likely forgotten by many until Corvette restorer and 2013 Corvette Hall of Fame Inductee Werner Meier and his team at Masterworks Automotive Services laid their hands on it.

In 2007, Crispell’s old Corvette was sold to Ken Lingenfelter, one of the most respected Corvette and automobile collectors in the world, and transported to Masterworks in Madison Heights, Mich. There, it underwent a world-class concours restoration. Using original documents, pictures, illustrations and other information contained in a binder created by Crispell during his ownership, Werner and his team transformed the Polo White Corvette back to Sahara Silver, making it appear how it looked back in 1956 after it emerged from its second stop in the GM Design Studio. The interior was likewise restored to how it appeared after its second stop in the GM Design Studio. Masterworks Automotive Services replicated the interior using the original sketches completed by Crispell. The black leather upholstery is alligator hide, just like the original design Crispell completed when he was in charge of the GM Interior Design Studio.

In 2009, this unique 1954 Corvette was shown to the public for the first time since its restoration at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance where it won the General Motors Dave Holls Award. The prestigious automotive award for excellence was presented by Ed Welburn, then GM Vice President of Global Design. In July 2009, it appeared as a special feature exhibit at the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance where it received rave reviews.

I was on hand for the Meadow Brook Hall event and photographed the storied ’54 Corvette in its finished form and talked with Crispell. There, I orchestrated a series of pictures with Roger Crispell, Werner Meier, Ken Lingenfelter and the car. Crispell and Lingenfelter also agreed to sit in the ’54 Corvette for some quick pictures to formally validate the occasion and to add to the Corvette’s special history. The proud pair shared stories while seated in the Corvette during the photo opportunity. It was hard for each of them to wipe the smiles off their faces.

After talking to Crispell and Lingenfelter, I learned they had never met in person prior to that day. And according to Crispell, it was the first time he was ever photographed with his 1954 Corvette!

Crispell passed away on May 22, 2016. After meeting him during the 2009 Meadow Brook Hall Concours d’Elegance, we spoke on the telephone a couple times about the ’54 Corvette and how it served as a concept car not once, but twice. A humble man, Crispell was proud of his work and was honored to be part of its “day view” with Ken Lingenfelter at Meadow Brook Hall. At that event, it really became apparent just how historic these two men are to the concept Corvette and its legacy. 

SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

If you like stories like these and other classic car features, check out Old Cars magazine. CLICK HERE to subscribe.

Want a taste of Old Cars magazine first? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and get a FREE complimentary digital issue download of our print magazine.

The post Car of the Week: 1954 Chevrolet ‘Test Bed’ Corvette appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and photos By Tom Maruska

While waiting for less humid weather in order to sandblast parts to the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car, I moved on to restoring and rebuilding many of the components to the dream car. When the weather is humid, the sandblaster clogs from the moisture in the air mixing with the sand. That makes the job miserable as I have to constantly disassemble the sandblaster to unclog it.

So, I moved on to tackling the motors in the butterfly roof window panels. The motor was inoperable and as can be seen in the photos, its interior was pretty rusty. I took the motor completely apart and sandblasted the case inside and out (the sandblasting cabinet for small parts doesn’t clog up), cleaned the armature and brushes, soldered new wires in place and painted and reassembled the motors. When completed, they both ran as new. The rest of the butterfly operating mechanisms were also cleaned, repainted and greased for years of smooth operation.

An item that was difficult to make was the acrylic dividers that rest on a chrome bar and separate the quarter window glass from the acrylic windows at the rear corners of the car’s roof. They’re intended to give the illusion that there’s nothing there while they are actually supporting the roof, as well as acting as dividers between the two types of windows. The original chrome steel supports were too far gone for the chrome shop (AIH Chrome Plating in Dubuque, Iowa) to plate. The shop sent them back and told me to make new ones, which I did.

Recreating the steel supports was relatively simple; the acrylic coverings, however, were not. There is an acrylic divider between the rear glass quarter windows and the acrylic glass rear corner windows. It’s going to be a tricky part to reconstruct because it has to be polished in all crevasses to make it as clear as glass. I purchased a small piece of 3/4-inch Plexiglas from a vendor on eBay and using an original piece for a pattern, I used my table saw to cut the basic shape and then cut out the grooves and notch. The difficult part was sanding and polishing the acrylic inside the grooves and notch to end up with them perfectly smooth and clear in order to get the desired effect when installed on the car. They mount over a chrome bar and the idea is to make them seem transparent and as if they don’t exist, giving a wide-open view from inside as well as outside the car with no blind spots.

All of this work to recreate the acrylic windows had me thinking about a place not too far away me, in Lakeville, Minn., that specialized in making acrylic displays for retail stores. The business was Masterglas and the owner, Steve, was a “car guy” and would make custom acrylic parts for various car projects. For instance, he made some of the domes for Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s cars as well as cockpits for small aircraft. I heard about him while I was restoring the Thunderbird Italien concept car on which the large rear window was acrylic. At the time I contacted him, he was more than happy to make the Italien window and then later, when I was restoring the Mercury XM-800 concept car, he also made the windshield and back glass for that project. When I purchased the XM-Turnpike Cruiser and again had the need to have acrylic windows made, I called Masterglas only to find out that Steve had passed away and they were shutting down his business.

That sent me searching the country and even Canada looking for a place, hopefully within driving distance, to make the acrylic windows for this project. I found one place in California and another in British Columbia. Their prices were reasonable, but the kicker was that I had to ship these heavy and fragile plaster molds across or out of the country and if they got broken in transit, I’d be starting all over. Then I got the hair-brained idea to build my own oven large enough to accommodate the sheets of acrylic in the size I needed to make the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s windows. I searched on Craigslist and found two electric ranges nearby for free. I brought them home and stripped them of the side panels, heating elements, oven controls, door hinges, seals and insulation. I purchased two sheets of 18-gauge sheet metal and went to work cutting and welding and built my own oven big enough to accommodate my needs.

As a test for my new oven, I used a piece of old Plexiglas I had in the shop and it turned out fine. Except for the scratches from laying around the shop for a couple years, the test piece would have been a good window. I put off forming the actual windows until a later date.

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser has unique conduits for the power window wiring as it enters the doors. There are also unique covers for the door hinge openings in the A pillars. These items were quite rusty and I had to rebuild them before the doors are properly in place. I also made new door sill plates.

I kept busy over the next few weeks rebuilding other component parts for the car. These parts included the master cylinder and brake booster. It’s a Bendix Treadlevac booster as commonly used on a lot of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors products of the day.

With all of the aforementioned parts restored and ready to reinstall on the car, I figured I better get back to getting the car ready for them. By then, the humidity had dropped and the weather was perfect for sandblasting.

I do the sandblasting in my shop and to contain the sand, I erect a “tent” over the car using the same tubular framework you see over vendor spaces at swap meets and other outdoor events. I wrap it with clear 4-mil poly and tape it to the floor. I have an exhaust fan in the sidewall of the shop and I construct a “duct” to it from the tent.

Once the sandblasting was completed, I left the tent in place and sprayed epoxy primer on the exterior of the car and its body parts. Then I sprayed the interior with KBS Coatings rust proofing paint and that will be the finished interior color. Every bit of the metal in the passenger compartment will be covered by carpet, panels and the headliner so the color doesn’t matter.

The next step will be refinishing the exterior of the body and getting it ready for paint. As you probably know, it’s a rather time-consuming, boring procedure comprised of spreading body filler (aka Bondo) over the entire surface of the body, waiting for it to harden and then sanding about 98 percent of it off and doing it again and again and again until it’s, as the saying goes, “laser straight.” You probably won’t hear from me again until the paint is on and assembly has begun. I can’t wait for that point in the restoration!

Click Here for Part 6 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser project

*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.  

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser: Restoring bits and pieces appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

The last installment in this series covering the restoration of the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car left off with the completion of upholstery on one of the seat backs. Tackling the interior was a change of pace to spell me from the extensive sheet metal fabrication I have been performing on the car. Shortly after the last installment, I had one seat 100 percent complete.

The bucket-type seat is very “Jetsonish.” Some of you younger folks probably aren’t familiar with “The Jetsons,” but they were a futuristic space-age cartoon TV family in the early ’60s. The complete interior of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser is very space age, yet it actually predates “The Jetsons” by almost a decade. Nonetheless, it’s a very well put together interior and as time slides by, you’ll get to see it get restored.

The windshield bunk

I’ve been dreading this part of the restoration since I started working on the car over a year ago. This is the area that the windshield sits on. It’s a little different on the XM-Turnpike Cruiser than any other car I’ve worked on in that the windshield sits about an inch below the deck of the cowl. It’s designed that way so there is no black rubber windshield seal breaking up the “vista view” flowing into the car. After the windshield gets installed, another filler strip painted the body color will get installed flush with the top of the cowl. The instrument panel then gets installed on the inside, right up to the glass, so the transition from outside to inside is obstacle free.

There was no means to drain this recess for the windshield when Ghia built the car’s body. As a result, this area nearly rusted away completely. Fortunately, the track that the windshield rubber sits on was still solid, so I was able to save that area in order to maintain the original shape of the windshield base. However, I had to reconstruct all of the structure that supports the glass, windshield wiper motor and wiper arms. I also constructed a trough below it all with several drain tubes. Rubber hoses will eventually get attached to the drain tubes to allow water to drain through the bottom of the firewall to outside.

This area is close to completion. I’ve painted inside the trough area with the KBS Coatings rust-proofing paint that I’ve been using on the project. I’ve also been brush painting areas that otherwise would never get a finish before I cover them up, so these areas will likely never have to be rebuilt again.

With the purchase of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, I received a professionally built plaster mold for the windshield. When I wrote about the XM-Turnpike Cruiser project on a Facebook page, a gentleman named Glen Durmisevich wrote and said, “When Ray Sabo owned it, there was no windshield. So he called Don DeLaRosa, who was Ford’s design liaison to Ghia when the Turnpike Cruiser was built. DeLaRosa had gone to Chrysler and became VP of their design when Ray called him. He sent a couple Chrysler modelers over to clay up a windshield and make the molds.”

There is an inside and outside to the mold. The glass maker I’ll be using to make this custom windshield is Brian Edmunds of Gilchrist Glass Bending in British Columbia, Canada. Edmunds said he would use the inside mold as it’s easier to drape hot glass over it when forming a windshield.

I figured I would put the mold to a test before investing several thousand dollars in a custom one-off windshield. I wanted to make sure the new one would fit when I received it.

I painted a couple coats of a universal mold release agent on the plaster mold and then layered several sheets of fiberglass cloth over the mold and painted on resin between the coats to make a fiberglass windshield for test fitting.

After the fiberglass cloth set sufficiently, I was able to trim the perimeter to match the mold. In the meantime, I had purchased a rubber windshield seal from Super Soft and I attached it to the fiberglass windshield, then installed it on the car.

To my amazement and great satisfaction, the mock windshield fit perfectly! All that’s left now for the cowl and windshield section is to build a crate for the plaster mold and ship it off to Canada, then wait for the new glass to arrive. After getting into it, it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

More and more rust

The rust situation was the same alongside the quarter and rear windows as it was under the windshield — not much metal left. I began by making a paper template of the surface of the rear cowl (the area between the back glass and trunk opening).

I cut out the top sheet metal and bent it to match the original, then cut out the notches for the roof supports and laid it on top of the original piece to make sure I’d have a good fit. I scribed the end edges of the new piece onto the car body so I’d know where to cut out the rusty section. I welded temporary supports to the roof as I didn’t want anything moving when I began cutting out the rusted metal.

Then I proceeded to build the drain trough under the front edge of the trunk lid and the support structure underneath the cowl. A plasma cutter was used to cut away the rusted piece at my scribe lines and around the roof support posts.

I removed the original rusted rear cowl from the body and damn near dropped it on my feet! I couldn’t believe how heavy it was as I had just fabricated the replacement piece and it was comparatively light. I weighed the two pieces and the new one was just under 8 lbs. The rusty piece weighed in at 24.4 lbs.! There was 16 pounds of lead on it for shaping the top. I built the replacement piece to the elevation of the lead on the old piece.

The rear turn signals are in the back corners of the roof. Like everything else, the housing areas were badly rusted, so I rebuilt both of them and with that completed, the main body of the car became rust free. It is now ready for finishing.

When ironworkers complete their part of building a structure, they erect a Christmas tree on top of it. In keeping with their tradition, I erected a small Christmas tree on top of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser.

Door reconstruction

I still needed to cut the bottom 8 in. off each door and rebuild them, as well as construct a completely new hood and trunk lid. There was not much left of the door bottoms. I had the doors on and off the car numerous times to make sure the alignment was right before I welded everything solid to the bottom.

Looking ahead

A few days ago, I brought the engine to Midwest Engine Rebuilders here in Duluth, Minn., to give the engine a complete overhaul. It didn’t have many miles on it, but since it sat so long, I didn’t want to take anything for granted. The same goes for the transmission, but I’ll be doing that myself in the not-too-distant future.

I have the drivers door done at this point so I’ll sign off until the next update. Thanks again for reading!

Tom Maruksa Restorations

www.tommaruskacars.us 

Click here for part 4 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration

*As an Amazon Associate, Military Trader / Military Vehicles earns from qualifying purchases.

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser update part 5 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Phase 3 of the Mercury concept car’s restoration

Story and Photos by Tom Maruska

Ford Motor Co. commissioned Italian coachbuilder Ghia to build the 1956 XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car, and even though Ford sent drawings and a scale model, not all of Ford’s better ideas from the model and drawings were implemented by Ghia in the final concept car. More often than not, Ford was not happy with the changes.

The dream versus reality

This update of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration will highlight some of the differences in the actual construction of the car built by Ghia compared to how Ford actually wanted the car built.

The clay model that Ford sent to Ghia features a vent window notched into the windshield. To Ford’s dismay, Ghia ignored that detail and eliminated the vent window altogether! Ghia actually continued the windshield straight down the A pillar, as can be seen in photos of the actual car.

Ford also planned the fender “gills” to be chrome-plated, but instead, Ghia painted them.

The front bumper was also changed from Ford’s original plans. Ghia built the XM-Turnpike Cruiser in a traditional fashion. That is, the front bumperwrapped around the side to return at the wheel opening. However,Ford wanted thin bumper ends at each front corner to float beneath the headlamps. Each front bumper piece looked like an upside-down U and would have allowed for a painted area between the bumper and the front wheel opening. Also, a small chrome trim piece would have adorned the body side between the bumper and wheel opening.

Another difference I’ve noted is that the slats in the grille inserts are actually horizontal and in the model they are shown vertical.

As written by Jim Farrel in his book “Ford Design Department Concept & Showcars,” “V.Z. Brink who was the Ford Styling Center Administrator wrote a report regarding the unauthorized changes Ghia made stating that, ‘when future cars were built at Ghia, two and possibly three visits be made to make sure what Ghia was building was being done the way the Styling Center wanted.’”

Trimming the details

When the XM-Turnpike Cruiser first arrived in the United States, it was devoid of any identifying emblems. Ford tried a couple different ideas on how they wanted it presented and photographed its experimentation process. Early photos show quite large “MERCURY” letters in the coves of the quarter panels, but eventually Ford staff settled on the much smaller letters that I’ll eventually re-install.

Ford also experimented with a large “XM” preceding the “Turnpike Cruiser” script on each front fender. The “XM” was later removed leaving only the “Turnpike Cruiser” script.

I’ve been trying to decide if I should fabricate the “XM” letters and put them back on the car — what do you think?

Interior anew

Original photos of the interior show it was all leather, including the headliner. There was also a fair amount of chrome-plated metal components, such as a metal grab bar and ashtrays with lighters. Unfortunately, the condition of the interior was much like the rest of the car — rough.

I like to plan ahead so when I need a break from one part of the restoration, I can do something different for a few days as a change of pace. It all has to get done, so why not mix it up to break the monotony? I purchased new leather for the entire interior as well as piping to trim the seats. (There is white piping around the white seat inserts and gold piping between the orange panels.) One day I’ll sandblast and paint the seat frames and build new foam and sew up new seat covers.It’s fun to see what different parts of the car will look like as it comes together.

Switching gears

The other day I took a break from cutting and patching rusty steel for a couple days and sandblasted, primed and painted the wheels and then mounted the new tires. They turned out beautiful so I knocked one of the old hubcaps on and took a picture for your viewing pleasure.I have a set of NOS wheel covers and spinners for the finished product. The tires are 760×15 bias ply wide whites from Coker Classic Tires.

I also recently ordered and received all of the new suspension parts for the car from Concours Parts. The parts include brake cylinders, brake hoses, U bolts for the leaf springs, different body bumpers, ball joints and tie rod ends and rebuild kits for the transmission, steering gear box, power steering pump and everything else I could think that I would need as the restoration progresses.

Body repair

And, yes, I have been working on the body of the car and it’s progressing nicely. I have the rear of the body rebuilt from about 1 inch above the license plate recess downward. All of the associated trim and the rear bumper has been test-fitted to make sure these parts fit the body properly.

The lower part of the rear quarters were also pretty rusty and they are rebuilt as well. I also test-fitted the newly plated exhaust outlet. There is one exhaust outlet on each side of the car and yes, they are functional.

The repair work is complete on the rear of the car as well as both sides with the exception of the passenger door opening. AIH Chrome just finished plating lot of the parts including the main part of the front bumpers. I rebuilt the lower part of the front roll pan between the bumpers and hung the bumper pods on to verify their fit.

The car was flipped upside-down for easier access to repairing the roll pan.I braced the body at the spring towers and removed the rotisserie brackets so I could hang the bumpers in place. The new sheet metal on the roll pan between the bumpers can be seen in pictures.

I had to perform extensive reconstruction to rebuild the “A” and “B” pillars on the driver’s side and still have to do about the same on the passenger side. These areas were severely rusted inside.

Now that you’re all caught up on the rebuild of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, I will get back to work so I can show some progress for the next update.

More info tommaruskacars.us

Click here for part 2 of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s restoration

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser restoration part 3 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Phase 2 of the Mercury concept car’s restoration

Story and Photos by Tom Maruska

Old Cars – Tom Maruska has been hard at work to bring the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car back from the brink. The heavily weathered show car was left in the elements for decades, causing extensive rust and deterioration to its other parts. Old Cars has been following the story of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser since Maruska acquired it and then through its aggressive restoration. The following update follows the first installment showing Maruska’s work in restoring the show car in order to make it worthy of a pedestal again.

Rust Replacement

The restoration of the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car is progressing better than I originally anticipated.

Since the last update, I welded the donor frame rails into place. I chamfered the edges of the new and old frame rails in the same thickness of the steel as the original metal and filled the “V” with weld. Then I ground the welds flat and added boiler plates over the seams for added strength.

The next step was to remove the undercoating in the wheel wells and other areas in preparation for sand blasting. These undercoated areas still had good sheet metal. The undercoating was very hard and stubborn on the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, so I resorted to using aircraft stripper to soften it for easier scraping. Aircraft stripper is very noxious, so I used a hobby air system pumping fresh air into my face mask while using it.

The Big ‘M’ and Other Fine Letters

After getting all the old undercoating scraped away, I took a short break from the body and decided to remake the big, unique “M” hood ornament that was missing. I had the base for it so I knew the size of the foot print, but the “M” was long gone. Fortunately, Ray Cosh, who sold me the car, had supplied a period photo of the “M” on the car. There were no side views of the “M,” so Ray drew a picture of how it should look.

Since the “Y” from the “MERCURY” on the nose panel was also missing, I began fabricating this letter at the same time as the “M” hood ornament. The letters on the front of the car are the same size and shape as the letters on the quarter panels, so I was able to use a “Y” from the quarter panel as a pattern. Then I also replaced all the studs on the quarter panel letters.

All these parts were then sent to AIH Chrome to be re-plated into “car jewelry.”

New Floors

Fortunately, my neighbor, friend and fellow “car guy” Clayton offered to let me use his newly acquired electrically operated bead roller for fabricating the new floor panels for the XM-Turnpike Cruiser. I have a sheet metal brake, plasma cutter, English wheel and planishing hammer (for later use on outer body panels) as well as a wire feed welder.

I began by replacing the extra support tubing alongside the driveshaft tunnel and fabricated a new tunnel.

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser has extra structure under the floors, an “X” under the front floors and added supports under the rear floors. These areas also had a covering beneath them, on the bottom of the car, sandwiching the braces in a type of “double floor” system. This was for added strength because of the concept car’s weakened frame from recessing the rear floors.

A new structure was created and then welded into place. Before welding the bottom cover into place and covering the braces and the bottom of the upper floor, I coated the entire area with KBS Coatings rust-proofing treatment (www.kbs-coatings.com). I also coated the inside surface of the bottom sheet before I welded it into place. All seams were coated with sealer to seal up the inner cavities so moisture can’t get in and start the rusting process all over again. However, I doubt that this rare car will ever sit outside again as it did in its earlier years.

By coating the surfaces with KBS Coatings rust-proofing product before enclosing the areas, I believe I have better coverage than if I had drilled holes and inserted a tube with a nozzle on the end and sprayed a coating inside the closed areas. However, I will have to use such a device to coat the insides of the frame rails once I have all the welding on them complete since it’s the only way to get inside that area.

One advantage to having the car on a rotisserie is that I can position it so whatever part of the frame rail is down can be thoroughly coated inside and allowed to dry before rotating it 90 degrees to coat the next bottom surface.

While looking at early pictures of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser on the show circuit, you may have noticed that it looks a bit longer than any other Mercury from the mid ’50s. Ghia added approximately 18 inches to the chassis that Ford sent them in order to extend the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s body length during construction. Ghia reinforced the lengthened structure by fabricating a large metal “X” brace at the rear of the chassis, under the trunk floor. Like the rest of the car, this addition was also severely rusted and needed to be replaced. And also like the other covered areas, this X brace was coated inside with the KBS Coatings rust-proofing treatment before welding the trunk floor extension into place.

Stop-and-Go

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser had very unique gas and brake pedals made of orange rubber and trimmed with chrome. The originals were deteriorated beyond use, but were usable enough to copy. Even though most people would never notice them, I didn’t want to replace them with typical black pedals. The original pedals also had a steel plate embedded in the rubber so they could be attached to the car. I used a plaster of Paris buck in order to carve models of the pedals.

Then I searched the internet for a pourable silicone and found Smooth-On (www.smooth-on.com), which I poured over the plaster models to make new molds for creating the new pedals. Smooth-On also sells pourable liquid urethane that is tintable in a rainbow of colors, and it has a much higher tensile strength than the liquid silicone used to make the mold. The result is very similar to the hardness of a standard brake pedal.

I poured the liquid silicone into the molds. The models were painted simply to aid in their release from the silicone once it cured, and I happened to have a can of orange spray paint handy so I got a sneak peak at how the finished pedals would look. They were also coated with a mold release agent from Smooth-On.

I mixed up about half the liquid urethane needed and added coloring to get the shade of orange I was after, then poured the molds a little less than half full. After it hardened enough so that the steel gas pedal inserts wouldn’t sink, I laid them in place and then mixed and poured the other half of the orange urethane on top to fill the molds. The next day, when I removed the pedals from the molds, I was quite happy with the outcome.

Next Steps

Next, I’ll be getting back to the body again. There are still a couple pieces to fabricate under the recessed rear floor area that the mufflers and tail pipes fit into, and then I’ll begin on the outer body repairs. There is extensive fabrication to be done below the windshield and rear windows.

I believe the car was completely assembled before it was initially painted so all of the “hidden” areas were left as bare metal, another reason the car so severely rusted. Because of the way the window seals are recessed below the body surface, there was little to stop the migration of water into these vulnerable areas. I will get into those areas in the next update. Thanks for following along!

Click here to check out the XM-Turnpike Cruiser part 1 

Click here to check out the XM-Turnpike Cruiser part 3

The post XM-Turnpike Cruiser restoration part 2 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Photos by Steve Isola

Tom Maruska of Duluth, Minn., sold four beautifully restored cars at the January 2018 Barrett-Jackson auction in exchange for one rusty, incomplete 1956 Mercury. It’s not just any old Mercury, though — it’s the one-of-a-kind XM-Turnpike Cruiser concept car. And he almost walked away from the opportunity to buy it over a broken windshield.

“Back when I was restoring the Mercury XM-800 (concept car in 2008), the guy who owned the XM-Turnpike Cruiser contacted me and we talked about him selling it. He didn’t want to sell it back then, but we kept in touch over the years and finally when I talked to him last July (2017), I asked him if he was ready to sell it and he was.”

Maruska flew out to California and looked at the car, but it was much rougher in person than the two 20-year-old pictures Maruska had seen online portrayed it to be. Previous owners had kept the car hidden and were reluctant to even share photos of it. Even though Maruska has brought many cars back from the dead, including the 1954 Mercury XM-800 and 1963 Ford Thunderbird Italien concept cars as well as several production cars, the one-off XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s rust and its unique but deteriorated components clearly made it more of a challenge.

“One of the neat things on the car is the windshield, but it’s [shattered],” Maruska said.

“I went out there in August and I came home actually thinking I didn’t want to do the restoration. I contacted a few people that I know that I thought might be interested in buying it and was going to let them go and buy it. One of them is Dan Brooks; he’s the guy who, as a young kid, first found the XM-800 outside a barn in Michigan. During the restoration of the XM-800 I became friends with him and we keep in touch. So I contacted him and sent him the pictures that I had taken and gave him Ray’s contact info and he was vacillating on the deal for a couple months.”

In the meantime, Maruska went to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas with the XM-Turnpike Cruiser on his mind. All the while Maruska was walking the aisles, he was looking at tools that might help him restore the car.

Broken windows caused the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s unique four-bucket-seat interior and the entire floor and trunk pan to deteriorate. The decklid is rusty, and someone removed the original hood and replaced it with a heavily modified production hood that is ill-fitting. Thieves also removed a few engine parts from the concept car during its decades of outdoor storage.

After walking through the SEMA Show and giving the car more consideration, Maruska called the seller, Ray Cosh, and sealed a deal to buy the car.

“I didn’t want to be remaking the entire car,” he said. “I went to SEMA last year and was primarily researching chemical treatments for preserving rusty metal, and after that I decided I could tackle it.”

It also helped that a previous owner of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser had made plaster casts of the unique wraparound windshield when it was still intact. At the SEMA Show, Maruska found a source that could use those molds to remake the windshield at a relatively reasonable cost.

Even though a few parts had been robbed from the car over the decades, the XM-Turnpike Cruiser is largely complete. Cosh had removed most of the trim and placed it in plastic tubs for a future restoration that he was not able to complete. He had also sourced a dual-carburetor intake and four-venturi carburetors to replace those stolen from the car’s 292-cid V-8 engine, but Maruska will have to remake the unique box-type air cleaner, the only part he thinks is altogether missing. An owner previous to Cosh had new tail lamp lenses molded for the car.

Once the XM-Turnpike Cruiser finally arrived at Maruska’s home in July 2018, he was able to better assess its condition and was pleasantly surprised.

“There is still a lot of places where it is rusted through, where metal has to be cut out and replaced, but it isn’t as bad as I thought it would be when I first looked at the car.”

The birth and decline of a dream car

Compared to General Motors andChrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. produced relatively few full-size concepts cars during the 1950s. Those it did build were quite memorable, however. The man who deserves credit for many of Ford’s most noteworthy concept cars was John Najjar, who was in charge of the Lincoln pre-production studio at the time of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s inception. Najjar could already claim at least partial credit for design of the Lincoln Futura and 1954 Mercury XM-800 when he presented five new concept car ideas in 1954.

According to the book “Ford Design Department: Concept & Show Cars 1932-1961” by Jim and Cheryl Farrell, Najjar proposed the four-passenger Malibu, notable for “twin bombs high on the rear quarter panels;” the Monte Carlo two-door with sliding doors; the Mystair with a floating roof; the Montauk, a convertible with “V” side trim that appeared on other ’50s Ford concepts and production cars; and, finally, the Mandalay, a “four-passenger cross-country turnpike cruiser” with tailfins holding “aircraft-type taillights,” among other features. The Mandalay on paper evolved into the XM-Turnpike Cruiser in metal, but only after much input from other Ford Motor Co. designers and managers.

Najjar was paired with Elwood Engel of the Lincoln-Mercury studio while Gene Bordinat, semi-autonomous manager of the Lincoln-Mercury studios, and Don De La Rossa, Mercury Studio chief designer, partnered on a competing concept, wrote the Farrells. Francis C. “Jack” Reith, an original Ford “Whiz Kid,” took personal interest in the “turnpike cruiser” project and looked over the shoulders of Engel and Najjar as they were hashing out the concept, even adding input despite lacking formal design training.

Other designers offered themes and ideas for the concept, and even famed designer Larry Shinoda provided a few details on the final car, such as the tail fins, according to the Farrells.

Once the final Najjar and Engel concept was approved by management in late 1954, a 3/8-scale model and drawings were sent to Turin, Italy, so that the full-size, fully functional XM-Turnpike Cruiser could be fashioned out of metal by the hands of craftsmen at coachbuilder Ghia. Ford also provided a production Mercury chassis and engine for the new body to be mounted upon. The price of Ghia’s service to build the single body totalled $80,000 — the combined retail price of 30 new top-of-the-line 1956 Mercurys — when the car was delivered to Ford Motor Co. in December 1955.

The concept hit the 1956 auto show circuit almost immediately, and did it in style. Ford Motor Co. built a special tractor and trailer to shuttle the car from show to show. The tractor was based on a 1956 Ford cab-over-engine model pulling a sleek trailer with large Plexiglas panels offering a complete side view of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser inside. The setup was reminiscent of the General Motors Futurliner buses and carried the name “The Big M Van-O-Rama.” Both tractor and trailer were painted white and a reddish color similar to the pearlescent persimmon XM-Turnpike Cruiser.

When the XM-Turnpike Cruiser was displayed from within the Van-O-Rama trailer, one of the trailer’s side panels could be lifted and extended to allow the car to spin as though it were at an indoor venue such as the Chicago Auto Show, where it was also shown.

Those who ogled the XM-Turnpike Cruiser couldn’t take home the car — at least not yet — but they could pick up a four-page brochure that explained many of the car’s advanced features.

“Here’s a Mercury ‘idea’ car that represents another chapter in the saga of the never-ending search by Mercury stylists and engineers to develop innovations keyed to the very-changing trends in modern motoring,” said the brochure. Mercury further pointed out the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s new plastic “butterfly” top that “gently pops up when the door is opened facilitating passenger entry and exit. A new ‘compound wraparound’ windshield curves back at the top as well as at the sides, providing altogether new viewing horizons for all passengers. This double-curved window flows gracefully back into the low-silhouette top (only 52.4” high) and adds to the illusion that the top is floating in air.”

This floating roof of the long and low XM-Turnpike Cruiser featured rear brake lamps just beneath the roof panel — a feature that would not be commonplace until decades later. Anotherfeature that would become common, although much sooner, was its individual leather bucket seats with consoles front and back. A brochure illustration shows the middle of the back window lowered and, although this would become reality in production Mercurys, the window of the actual concept car didn’t descend.

Mercury’s brochure for the XM-Turnpike Cruiser called the car a “review of the future,” a reflection of “Mercury’s determination to be continually at the forefront in styling and motor car innovations.

“XM-Turnpike Cruiser is not merely a ‘dream’ car. It is a full-scale, fully operative automotive styling laboratory dedicated to the specific task of pioneering, testing, and perfecting new ideas in design, new features, new safety and new power application.”

Indeed, the XM-Turnpike Cruiser would go from dream to reality, at least in part. Most of its features appeared in future Mercurys. While the movable butterfly top “gull wing” panels in the floating roof and four-seat interior with its spacey handles and knobs didn’t make it to production Mercurys, the basic sheet metal did heavily influence Mercurys that began to appear on dealer lots for 1957.

The XM-Turnpike Cruiser’swild coves in the rear quarter panels leading to V-shaped tail lamp housings appeared on 1957 Mercs, as did the hooded headlamps and the concave grille beneath them. Where the XM-Turnpike Cruiser used a split front bumper housing two giant pods with lamps, the 1957 Mercurys used a single bumper with two large rectangular air intakes. The 1957 Mercury’s front bumper theme was repeated at the back in place of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser’s much simpler, thin vertical-bar bumper. However, the overall profile of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser was used from 1957 through 1959, with the final of those model years being the most closely related to the concept car of 1956.

Of course, even the “Turnpike Cruiser” name was adapted to the Mercury line to represent the top-line 1957 model. For the production Turnpike Cruiser, the “XM” for “Experimental Mercury” was understandably removed, but Mercury actually added a few more gizmos to the car. Of these, the most memorable was probably the production Turnpike Cruiser’s roof air intakes with UFO-like antennae protruding from them.

Jim and Cheryl Farrell stated that it was Reith who sold management on a toned-down XM-Turnpike Cruiser as a production model. So confident was he in the design of the car that Reith convinced his bosses that the production Mercury based upon it would grab a huge market share increase in the mid-price range. Not only was management sold on his pitch, it made Reith general manager of the new Mercury Division. When Mercury’s market share only rose 4 percent in the mid-price range to 21 percent during 1957, Reith was removed from the position and offered a lower post in Ford of Canada. He declined the new position and resigned on Aug. 30, about the time the new 1958 Turnpike Cruisers would be announced.

Meanwhile, the 1956 XM-Turnpike Cruiser was forever connected to Reith and as such, the car was considered an “outcast” by Lincoln-Mercury Division management, according to the Fallers. It and its 1956 Ford hauler and trailer were parked behind the Detroit offices until 1958, when the car was sold to Jim White of Dearborn Steel Tubing for $300. (Dearborn Steel Tubing worked on many low-volume projects for Ford, including some concept cars, but the XM-Turnpike Cruiser was not among them.)

White stored the XM-Turnpike Cruiser outside, behind his parents’ Michigan auto parts store, and the car’s parts began to go missing or vandalized. In 1971, White sold it for $500 to a man named Baker from Ohio who had repeatedly inquired about the car parked behind the parts store. After Baker bought the car, he tried his hand at some metal repair to the hood, eventually reskinning it, but the results were not entirely satisfactory. In 1979, Baker sold it for $3,000 to Ray Sabo and his son, Al, who were 1957 Turnpike Cruiser fans based in Michigan. The Sabos kept the car for three years before selling it for $10,000 to Ray Cosh, the man from whom Maruska purchased it.

“Each owner kept it for a few years and made a few bucks on it when they flipped it,” Maruska said. “They didn’t really do anything with it. Its deterioration started right from the get go when it was parked out in Ford’s parking lot. Vandals stole the intake, carbs and air cleaner off the car, but the car otherwise was complete.

“Once the windows were broken, weather got in the thing and it just started going. No one has ever garaged the thing. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

Maruska is still going through the multiple bins of parts that came with his purchase of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser and expects he will find all of the pieces but the air cleaner. However, he is sure all the parts he finds will need restoration. While the interior is shot from weather exposure, he says there’s enough material left on the back seat to determine exactly how the rest of the interior should be upholstered. Regardless, he knows that he has his work cut out even though he already has two other Ford Motor Co. concept car restorations under his belt.

“This is far worse [than the XM-800 and Italien],” Maruska said. “The Italien was an all-steel car and that had no rust on it. The XM-800 was all fiberglass and they were both much easier to restore than this thing will be.

“The XM-800 I did over one winter; it took eight or maybe nine months. This one I anticipate taking a full two years.”

Two years may seem like a short amount of time for such a daunting project, but Maruska, a self-taught restorer who’s now retired from the floor covering business, will focus 100 percent of his time on the restoration of the XM-Turnpike Cruiser beginning this fall. Given his background with other Ford Motor Co. concept car restorations, there probably isn’t a better man to restore it.

“I like to do things that are different, not all the ‘me too’ things,” he said. “And I figure somebody built it once and I can do it again.”

CLICK HERE FOR PART II

The post Found Mercury concept to receive much needed TLC appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

There aren’t many concepts cars and show cars left to rediscover. Most were well-photographed and documented in newspaper articles of the day, and then in books and magazines of today. Yet we found one more.

While cruising old GM Motorama brochures in Walter Miller’s inventory, I stumbled across a non-descript bi-fold brochure with “Introducing GMC’s Bluegrass Runabout” and the profile of a horse on the cover. Copywriters must have thought a thousand words were better than a photo, because there were no images of the truck inside. From the text, it appears the brochure was handed out at 1956 GM Motorama shows alongside the Bluegrass Runabout pickup truck.

To find out what the truck looked like, we scoured the Old Cars archives, our own “GMC: The First 100 Years” book, miscellaneous image services and even General Motors Media Archives. So little-known is the truck that staff members of the GM archives hadn’t even heard of it, and when they searched for GMC Bluegrass Runabout, the staff came up dry. When we asked them to instead search for images of the GMC display at the 1956 GM Motorama, that’s when we struck gold.

Hidden within a few images from the Los Angeles and Boston stops of the GM Motorama is a 1956 GMC Suburban pickup behind stanchions with a couple unusual features: 1955 Oldsmobile “spinner” wheelcovers and an unusual emblem at the leading edge of the fiberglass bed. When one of the images is blown up, “GMC Bluegrass Runabout” can be read on the front license plate. Bingo!

Most of the details mentioned in the brochure aren’t visible in the surviving black-and-white images that picture the truck. Oddly enough, the brochure doesn’t mention those unique features that are visible (the Oldsmobile full wheel covers and special bed emblem.) Those features include the following mix of GMC options, aftermarket accessories and unique features:

• 316-cid Pontiac V-8 and Hydra-Matic drive
• Lexington blue and white exterior (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• GMC Road Shock Dampers and Kudu stabilizing bar
•  Honduras mahogany bed floor (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Stabilized synthetic sailcloth bed cover that could wound up on a reel (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Two-way radio on the dash (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Ultronic electric door opener (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• A deep package tray mounted beneath the rear window (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• A concealed tool compartment built into the left rear corner of the cab (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Deep-pile blue floor carpet (Bluegrass Runabout only)
•  Blue and white seat upholstery and door and roof trim (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• GMC radio, spotlight, clock, deluxe heater, cigarette lighter, right armrest, trouble light, tilting rear-view mirror
• Textured metal covering the inside steps behind both doors (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Copper-plated grille (Bluegrass Runabout only)
• Special brake pedal (Bluegrass Runabout only)

The next year, GMC displayed a different show truck at select auto shows. That truck was the gold-and-white 1957 Palomino, and it, too, was based on the fiberglass-bed GMC Suburban pickup truck (the GMC counterpart to the Chevrolet Cameo). Like the Bluegrass Runabout, the Palomino was loaded with GMC options and unique trim components. The Palomino is known to survive.

GM sometimes updated its show vehicles with different features for the next show season and it’s possible the 1956 Bluegrass Runabout became the 1957 Palomino. However, there’s no evidence to confirm that possibility at this time.

Now that we’ve confirmed that the Bluegrass Runabout was built and shown, we’d like to know if it still exists. If not, perhaps there are other photos out there that better capture the truck’s unique features. (If you can add to the story, email us at oldcars@krause.com)

Watch for a feature story on this truck in an upcoming issue of Old Cars.

The post 1956 GMC Bluegrass Runabout from GM Motorama re-discovered appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

The prototype 1953 Buick Skylark hardtop

If you liked the one-off GM hardtop based on a sporty ’50s convertible design featured on last week’s blog, here’s another: The unique 1953 Buick Skylark Riviera hardtop.

Buick began developing the idea for the special Skylark convertible in 1952. Unlike production Buick converts of the day, the 1952 Skylark show car featured radiused rear wheel openings, lowered door tops that included a “Darrin dip” at the beltline and wire wheels. The Skylark also filled the trademark Buick portholes and had especially thin side trim that swept, dipped and swept again for almost the entire length of the car. At the 1953 model year, coincidentally Buick’s 50th anniversary, the special Skylark convertible became a dream-car-come-true and was offered as a limited-production model with the same special body modifications as the 1952 show car. Alongside the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Fiesta — other top-line 1953 GM convertibles modified to a racier appearance — the Skylark was part of a triumvirate of GM dream car realities; cars that went from show car stand to showroom.

Unlike the almost-unknown 1955 Cadillac Eldorado hardtop featured on last week’s blog, there’s a small group of ’50s GM groupies who have heard of the one-of-a-kind 1953 Skylark hardtop, which has been in the hobby since at least 1980 — at least from what I can surmise using documents uncovered in the Old Cars Weekly archive. Those documents were supplied to OCW in 1990 by James Ashworth, who owned the unique Skylark hardtop at that time.

Here’s the low down: A July 21, 1980, letter to Ashworth from John W. Burnside, Buick Motor Division Manager of Customer Service, verified Buick Engineering indeed had built 1953 Skylark hardtop with body number 6120 in Flint, Mich., “by converting a 1953 76R (Roadmaster hardtop) by installing the 1953 76X Skylark Convertible doors, quarters and related parts and included the 1954 interior trim design. The car was built to test the concept of possibly marketing a 1953 Skylark Hardtop design.”

The car was further identified in Burnside’s letter to Ashworth as Style 534737X, and the serial number was given.

Later that year, Oakland Tribune Automotive Editor Bob Johnson wrote in his Oct. 2, 1980, column that Ashworth had been seeking this unique Skylark hardtop for 20 years and finally found it in 1980. It “had been gathering dust in a San Jose garage since 1968,” Johnson wrote. This meshes with a magazine clip from a 1974 publication that states the Skylark hardtop vanished after it was advertised in 1967.

Johnson’s column notes that the San Jose owner had bought the Skylark “for a mere $700 off the back row of a used car lot in Oklahoma while serving in the Army. A couple of years later, the car was driven to San Jose where it has languished ever since. It is not clear how the car ever got out of Buick division’s control as experimental models rarely, if ever, find their way into the hands of the public.”

While Johnson couldn’t explain the early years of the Buick Skylark hardtop (the book “The Buick: A Complete History” states it was originally driven by Buick General Manager Ivan Wiles’s wife), one of his readers was able to fill in the car’s earliest days on the road. M.D. “Doc” Reilly wrote to Johnson with a very interesting tale, printed in its entirety here:

“I really enjoyed your article dated 10-2-80 regarding the 1953 Buick Skylark. I have sent the article to Tom Pond — Buick’s Public Relations Director.
“This really brings back memories. In late 1953, I was a Service Representative in El Paso, Texas, and had been temporarily assigned to assist with the 1953 Buick new car announcement show in New Orleans. Mr. Wiles (Buick General Manager Ivan Wiles) wanted to show the Skylark Hd. Top to the Buick dealers in New Orleans, but did not want anyone, especially the media people, to see it before the Buick dealers saw it. We were very secretive about our new models being seen before announcement day back then.
“It was arranged to have this Skylark shipped by moving van to New Orleans and one of my friends and fellow service reps and me were assigned the duty of picking the car up at the port of New Orleans and very secretly driving it to the Jung Hotel at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. No problem — even in New Orleans, the streets are pretty well deserted at 2:00 a.m.
“We ran into two small problems, however. First we got lost, and then ran out of gas. We were in a bind. Finding a service station open at 2:00 a.m., then finding our way to the Jung while maintaining the secrecy Mr. Wiles had mandated. Our future was on the line. We were in trouble! Fortunately, a New Orleans patrol car came by, we flagged him down and a true gentleman by the name of officer Clovis Bordelon listened to our story, admired the Skylark, drove to an all night service station, brought us some gasoline, gave us a police escort to the Jung Hotel only a little bit late and saved our careers. The secret had been kept, and 2 young factory representatives were able to remain in Buick’s employ to this day. Every time I see a picture or anything in writing about the original Skylark, I silently thank Officer Clovis Bordelon, a true southern gentleman, and a dedicated public servant.
“Although we didn’t build many of them, it was a super car, just a few years ahead of its time.”

Along with this 1980 letter to the Oakland Tribune columnist, M.D. Reilly enclosed a business card stating he was the current Buick Motor Division zone manager operating out of Fremont, Calif.

Sometime after 1990, Ashworth sold the restored blue Skylark hardtop. The last we heard, it was offered for sale by the famous Bob McDorman collection at the 2009 Mecum Auctions Kissimmee sale. There, it sold for $92,000. Two years later, in 2011, it crossed the Barrett-Jackson auction block in Scottsdale and sold for $115,000. Both prices are at or below the values of likewise restored 1953 Skylark convertibles, of which 1,690 were built. We haven’t seen the hardtop since.

Perhaps it will show up again in a dusty San Jose garage after a rabid fan hunts it down for another 20 years.

By Angelo Van Bogart/copyright Old Cars Weekly

The post The 1953 Buick Skylark hardtop prototype revisited appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

After laboring for nearly two years the “PsyClone” is complete. The project consisted of turning an extremely low milage C5 Corvette into a very roadworthy copy of Harley Earl’s dream car swan song – the 1959 Cadillac Cyclone.

The new car has been dubbed “PsyClone.” The owner, Charles Keller, wanted it to represent the first version of the Cyclone with the jet aircraft inspired “psychotic” fins. This was Earl’s original vision before his successor, Bill Mitchell, cut them back to a more conservative hight which remain on the original car today. The Cyclone is still owned by GM.

It was decided early on to make this a modern drivable car with as much of the Cyclone’s mid century, rocket inspired design as possible. 

Charles is the principal of the Colten Cowell Foundation. Their mission is to entertain Kids fighting disabling illnesses and other hardships . 

The PsyClone will be front and center as one of Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne’s personal cars. The centerpiece of the foundation is a complete BatCave from the 1960s TV show, which is perennially popular with kids of all ages! 

“The challenge for me was to design and sculpt a new body for the Corvette that captured as much authentic Cyclone styling and proportions as possible without interfering with the Corvette’s performance,comfort and safety,” stated builder Marty Martino. Even the wheels and tires are the intact C5 Corvette units with “retro” decorating.

Current information on the Colten Cowell foundation can be seen at crowdrise.com/buildthecave

The post C5 Corvette “PsyClone” for a good cause appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Angelo Van Bogart

Concept cars and prototypes have been found in some pretty crazy and unlikely places — behind barns and in salvage yards, for example — but Bernie Kranz’s recent find of a 1960 Seagrave prototype is a new one.

“I actually found it by accident at a yard sale,” Kranz said. The Chelsea, Mich., resident was heading to Paradise, Mich., with his wife last summer to do some gas pump and sign “picking” when they stumbled onto the Seagrave. Finding a car — let alone a prototype — was the last thing Kranz expected to follow him home on that trip.

“We stopped at yard sale and there was a barn on the property. Of course, I was wondering what was in the barn because there wasn’t much in the yard sale.”

Itching to get in the barn while the yard sale was being set up, Kranz asked if the sellers had anything else for sale. The daughter of the Seagrave’s owner said they had some snowmobiles to sell. Kranz had little interest in snowmobiles, especially on Memorial Day Weekend. Regardless, he asked if the snowmobiles were on the property in hopes they would be his ticket into the barn. Bingo!

“She opened the barn door and the rest is history,” he said.

As the light shone in the barn, Kranz spotted a boat on a trailer. Behind it was a small vehicle covered with a tarp. The woman said the boat was going to be added to the yard sale, as was the diminutive treasure under the tarp.

“At first I thought it was one of those small boats from the 1950s, and I asked what that was and she said it was an America Jet,” Kranz said. “I said, ‘Is that an American Motors?’”

The little Seagrave under the tarp had no links to AMC, but that would have made more sense than the truth. In reality, the car — later called the “American Jet” — was built by Seagrave Fire Apparatus Co. of Columbus, Ohio. The little coupe Kranz found was the remains of Seagrave’s brief dip into the pool that was the booming American compact car market during the early 1960s.

The “Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975” states three Seagrave coupes were built as prototypes: one bodied in aluminum and the other two in fiberglass. Each was powered by a small Continental four-cylinder engine displacing 162 cubic inches good for 65 hp. The “Standard Catalog” offers a shipping weight of 1,700 lbs. and quotes a factory price of $3,000, which would have made it considerably more expensive than a 1960 Volkswagen two-door sedan ($1,595 at the port of entry) or even a standard Corvair 500 coupe ($1,984 fob Detroit). Kranz compared the Seagrave coupe’s size to the diminutive Metropolitan ($1,673 in 1960).

The Seagrave car never came to fruition, and just one year later after the three prototypes were built, the June 1961 issue of Car Life followed up on the 1960 Wall Street Journal announcement of the Seagrave automobile. Editors learned that the car was to be a high-quality compact with production estimates at 25,000 coupes per year. Seagrave had purchased the car design, which used a two-seat Thunderbird windshield, from the defunct Detroit National Automobile Co. Despite the tiny scale, three passengers could be seated in the Seagrave’s front seat; two additional passengers could cram in the occasional rear buckets seats molded into the body. A V-8 engine option was planned, but Car Life wondered where a V-8 of suitable size could be sourced for the small car with a likewise small engine bay.

The Car Life staff said one prototype remained in a plastics firm’s garage in Fraser, Mich. Kranz believes the white fiberglass car with a blue top that was pictured in the Car Life article was the car he later found in Paradise, Mich.

When Kranz laid eyes on the subject of the Car Life story more than 50 years after the story was printed in 2014, he knew nothing about the article, let alone the dusty white fiberglass car’s ties to Seagrave or how it came to be parked in a barn in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. “I did not know what I was looking at. The owner explained to me that it was a prototype,” Kranz said.

Once Kranz showed interest in the car, the woman who was setting up the garage sale called to her father, who grudgingly shared some of the car’s history.

“He said that he took it out of the sixth floor of a building in Detroit, and he said that the building was right next to the old GM headquarters, but he could not remember what the name of the building was,” Kranz said. “He said that it looked like they were set up to build these first few cars.”

The seller said there were heaps of parts lying around the car, and people had been removing the parts by the arm load when he bought the car in 1970. The seller himself took some of the remaining parts to maintain the car he bought: exhaust systems, transmissions, clutches, ashtrays and the like. These parts had been sourced by Seagrave from other companies, since its foray into car production was building an “assembled car” as was done by thousands of manufacturers in the early days of the automobile.

Even though the car was only a prototype, the seller was able to drive the Seagrave home.

“He drove it there to his house and drove it up and down the road,” Kranz said. “He never licensed it. There is no VIN or title on the car, because it was a prototype.”

Soon after buying the car, the seller and his wife moved to Paradise and shortly thereafter, his wife died. The widower apparently lost interest in the car, and by the time Kranz knocked on his door, he was finally ready to part with it.

Although covered with about 45 years of dust, the Seagrave prototype remained complete and in good condition, although it would need to be restored in order to be a show car. Unprepared to buy a car that day, Kranz worked out a deal with the seller and returned with a trailer to pick up the car two weeks later, when his check had cleared the bank.

It’s been several months since Kranz bought the Seagrave, and he’s still not 100 percent sure what he plans to do with it.

“I would like to get it running in its current state, just the way it is,” he said. “But it was kind of an unplanned purchase, so right now, it’s not really at the top of my priority list.

“I have always appreciated show cars, but I have been a person who appreciates originality, and from the perspective of what the car is, it is not going to win any awards now, even cleaned up. But because of what it is, if you could drive it into a show, it would garner a little bit of attention in its current state.

“It’s the best garage sale find I think I’ve ever had.”

The post Barn find: Long-lost Seagrave prototype discovered after long slumber appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.