1958 Plymouth Belvedere
1963 Chrysler Imperial Crown Convertible
Although Chrysler Corporation introduced a prestige model, the Imperial, in 1926, its third year of production, it was nearly three decades before it became a marquee in its own right. What had long been the most expensive Chrysler model became, for model year 1955, simply "Imperial," and offered three body styles in two series. This separate branding was a direct challenge to Lincoln and Cadillac.
For the next two years, Imperial was largely a long-wheelbase Chrysler with a bolder grille, the latter appropriated for Chrysler's performance model, the 300. In 1957, however, Imperial was reinvented with a new personality, its gun-sight taillights incorporated into growing tailfins and curved side glass foretelling an industry trend. This year also marked the appearance of a faux spare tire embellishment on the decklid, a device first seen on the Exner-designed and Ghia-built concept cars of 1952-53.
For 1961, Exner conceived another retro feature, free-standing headlamps, ensconced in alcoves beside the grille. Denigrated by some as "difficult to wash," they gave the car a unique cachet, a classic touch never emulated in any other automobile.
This 1963 Imperial Crown convertible, one of 531 built, is, except for the exclusive long-wheelbase limousine, the rarest of the breed.
Like all 1963 Imperials, it is powered by a 340bhp, single-quad version of Chysler's 413 cubic inch "wedge" engine. The transmission is the bulletproof Torqueflite three-speed automatic.
1934 Lancia Belna Eclipse Convertible Hardtop
This model, the Belna Eclipse, has a hand-operated hard top, counter balanced by bungee cords, that disappears into the trunk.
Chevrolet Corvette Nomad
Back in the mid-’50s, GM held the Motorama traveling car show. It features some crazy concepts, future cars, and promotional materials. Those were the glory days of the American concept car trend. Each year, manufacturers competed with different cars that later became car styling and pop culture icons. In 1954, Chevrolet presented the Corvette Nomad. They named it the Waldorf Nomad since it first appeared at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was practically a Corvette station wagon, but the design proved to be influential. Chevrolet presented the Nomad as a three-door station wagon.
It became part of the mainline Chevrolet model lineup just a year later. Also, the Corvette Nomad was one of the most popular concept cars from the Motorama period. After their short lives on the show circuit around America, most concept cars went to the crusher, but some managed to survive. This is where the Corvette Nomad case gets strange. Since it was a fully functional vehicle, the chances are they sold it, possibly to an employee or dealer. There are no records to show they crushed this car, but there are no records to prove someone bought it, either. It vanished in the mid-1950s and Corvette fans have been searching for it ever since.
Boot Hill Express
Ray Farhner's Boot Hill Express
1955 Chevrolet Belair 210 Post ProTuring (Part 2 of 2)
1955 Belair 210 Post ProTuring, G machine chassis, Triangulated 4 link, 9in Posi 31 spline axles 4:10 gears, sways bars, Ride tech coil overs, rack and pinion power steering, Willwood 6 piston 14 in rotors up front 4 piston 13in in back, 5.7 stroker approx 590hp to 600 at crank, Fitech fuel injunction, March pulleys system, 4l80e built. Vintage heat and air, 2 10s 2 6x9 4 6in 4 tweets, amp on blue tooth, all fresh metal and glass, fit and finish is on point.
Legendary Golden Sahara II 1950s concept car resurfaces Damien O'Carroll10:11, Jun 05 2018
If there was ever one single car that best exemplified the glamour and excess of the American custom car scene of the1950s and early 1960s, it would have to be the legendary Golden Sahara II that captured the country's imagination in the mid-to-late 1950s and 1960s.
Huge, gold-plated and beyond excessive, the Golden Sahara II vanished from public view sometime in the late 1960s and was never seen again, until now. And it recently sold for US$350,000 at auction.
The Golden Sahara II started its life as a 1953 Lincoln Capri hardtop owned by legendary customiser George Barris - the man responsible for the 1966 Batmobile - before its roof was extensively damaged in an accident.
This inspired Barris to do something with the newly topless car - create his most customised creation to date.
Barris and his team completely overhauled the car with the backing of customer who agreed to fund the ambitious project, a man called James Skonzakes, better known as Jim Street.
Street, a wealthy car enthusiast, and Barris dreamed up a spectacular custom they called the Golden Sahara, changing the Lincoln's front end so drastically it was unrecognizable and adding a wraparound windshield, along with a custom half-bubble top.
The car's evocative name came from the fact that it featured a lot of gold. And we mean a LOT.
A gold bullet bumper and gold-anodized panels on the lower section of the rear fenders and a remarkable two-tone finish of 24-karat gold in place of chrome, and paint job that, according to Barris, was "about 20 years ahead of its time" and was one of the first pearlescent paint jobs to feature on a car.
The custom interior featured more gold and plush white mink carpeting. It was also equipped with a television in the dash, along with a radio, tape recorder and, because all good cars need one, a cocktail lounge in the rear.
The Golden Sahara made its public debut in 1954 at the Petersen Motorama in Los Angeles and was an instant hit, putting it in demand for other motor shows across the USA.
Between 1954 and 1956, Street took it to shows around the country and hired it out for displays at dealerships to attract crowds curious to see the car that cost a remarkable US$25,000 to build, or roughly US$233,000 today.
The tour was a massive success and Street was flooded with requests to use the car at shows and dealerships, in television commercials, in print ad campaigns, on magazine covers and more.
All of the attention the Golden Sahara attracted served to convince Street that investing in the car even further would surely pay off. So invest he did, creating one of the most advanced and expensive cars of the 1950s.
The body was extensively altered and even more gold was added, but the biggest addition was an incredibly advanced electronic control system that included features that we are only just starting to see on production cars today.
The steering wheel was completely removable and push-button steering was available on both the driver and passenger side, while a central "uni-control lever" was used to control acceleration and braking.
An automatic braking unit used antennas to scan for obstacles in the car's path and it also featured voice control and a wireless remote control that could open the doors, start and stop the engine, and could even be used to accelerate and brake from outside the car.
To top it all of in truly futuristic fashion, the wheels featured glass sections that lit up and acted as indicators, while Goodyear even developed a revolutionary rubber compound that allowed the tires to glow in the dark.
The final cost of the alterations was easily as excessive as the car itself, coming in at an estimated cost of $75,000 in 1956, or the equivalent of $690,000 today, making the Golden Sahara II (as it was re-christened) the most expensive custom car in the world at the time.
But the investment paid off and public interest in the car skyrocketed, along with demand for it to appear at motor shows and in advertising.
Hollywood even came knocking, and the Golden Sahara II featured in the 1960 Jerry Lewis movie Cinderfella, as well as making a television appearance on the game show I've Got a Secret in 1962, with its remote driving capability demonstrated by host Gary Moore.
While the car was still in demand by the end of the 1960s, Street abruptly withdrew it from the public eye for reasons he never disclosed and it sat under covers in a warehouse that contained his vast collection of cars, slowly deteriorating.
Following Street's death last year his collection was put up for auction at Mecum Auction's in Indianapolis.
The Golden Sahara II went under the hammer with no reserve and sold for $350,000, making it something of a bargain when you consider how much it cost to build in the first place.
Here's What Happened To The Car From Corvette Summer
By Arun Singh Pundir Published Nov 26, 2020
So here’s the story of that strange Corvette from Corvette Summer, and where it is now.
The Corvette Summer was a strange, strange movie, as strange as the Chevrolet Corvette in it, although there are stranger ones. The movie featured Mark Hamill, post his Luke Skywalker fame, and Annie Potts, whom we know as MeeMaw in the series Young Sheldon.
Consider the plot: Hamill is Kenny Dantley, a high school senior from Southern California who loves, lives, and breathes all things cars. His shop class project involves a build, so he makes a Corvette Stingray with a right-hand drive. Why? Well, we’ll get into that later.
Sadly, the vehicle gets stolen and Dantley finds that it has reached Vegas. So he decides to go and retrieve his car by hitchhiking, considering he has no wheels. He gets a ride from Vanessa (Potts) who has dreams of becoming an escort and calls herself a prostitute-in-training.
Needless to say, the plot was weak and the movie weaker still because all is well and good in the end. The guy gets the girl, and his car, and returns home the hero. Despite the not-so-stellar performance of the movie at the box office, it’s the car, ridiculous as it may be, that turned into a far more memorable thing than the movie itself.
The Strange Corvette Build
The actual car underneath all that body paneling was a 1973 Corvette C3 with an L48 5.7-liter V8 engine, the base model, that made 190 horses and ran on something that was called a Turbo 350 transmission. The Turbo bit was nothing but marketing lingo and had nothing to do with a turbocharger at all. Of course, there were two cars involved.
One of the cars had been rear-ended and ended up in a junkyard, ostensibly to be crushed and killed off. But the Producer Matthew Robbins and Director Hal Barwood found it, took it off the junkyard for cheap, and then sent it off to Korky’s Kustom Studios to be actually built, along with the other one.
By the end of the build, it hardly looked like a Corvette anymore, period. The fiberglass nose was pointy, to the point of being witchy and on either side, there were square, almost Caprice-like headlights. The hood scoop also bore sawfish like teeth on either side with little mesh screens. It was turned wide body with wider fenders to accommodate a set of turbine wheels. Two pipes on each side are joined together behind the front wheel to form a muffler.
Dick Korkes’ engine was kept stock but an Edelbrock dual-quad high-rise was added in along with a pair of vacuum secondary Holley carbs as well. The transmission and drivetrain were also kept stock. The frame was rigged to allow the mounting of a movie camera and the hood was also converted into a flip type.
Now, we did mention the cars were a right-hand-drive, why was it so? Apparently, for the driver to get close to the girls on the sidewalk, sprockets and a chain from a Harley-Davidson motorcycle were connected the end of the steering shaft to the box, and this contraption remained out of sight on the left side of the car.
The Reception Of Corvette Summer
The Corvette Summer stalled. No, not the car, just the movie. Unlike MGM’s Grease that cost only $6 million to make but earned a whopping $160 million, this one cost $9 million and raked in only $15.5 million in the US and some $36 million worldwide.
The movie’s bombing was a result of the plot. As far as the car was concerned, people either hated it or loved it at first sight, with no feelings in between. It didn’t look like a Vette, was OTT in styling, and had pipes running on the side without any noticeable increase in power. The one good thing was that they were not destroyed during the movie production and went on to have a colorful transactional history.
Where Is The Corvette Dream Now?
Corvette Summer came out in 1978 and the car was mostly forgotten and in the hands of private collectors till in 2011, Volo Auto Museum announced that it was auctioning this car off, along with more zany movie and TV cars.
Yet again, the only thing known is that it was picked up by an Australian private collector, and the last we heard of it from the Facebook page dedicated to this car was in 2015 where one was restored to make it look different from the movie car. In essence, the Corvette Summer was taken out of the Corvette.
The second car was owned by Mike Yager of Mid America Motorworks in Effingham, Illinois and then sold in 2009 to a private collector.
The original mold of the car is now part of the collection of the National Corvette Museum, so at least something is still handy enough for a look-see.
Sources: LSXMag, Autoweek
1967 Chevrolet Astro Concept
This is a pretty diverse group.
1957 Desoto Fireflite Convertible