The Deora Deviation

In the long hall of custom car mythos, there are oddities that pull your soul sideways—vehicles so far detached from factory lineage they feel like hallucinations on four wheels. The Dodge Deora is one such beast.

First conceived in 1964, the Deora started not with Detroit’s blessing, but with the Alexander Brothers—Mike and Larry—hunting for a canvas weird enough to be worthy of mutation. They had their eyes on Detroit’s strange new breed of cab-over pickups, and eventually landed on the recently released Dodge A100. To bring it to life, they enlisted the young, acid-sharp mind of California designer Harry Bradley.

Bradley’s design brief was beautifully unhinged: erase the upright, phone-booth cab of the A100, melt the upper and lower into a single silhouette, and erase every hard edge like a bar of soap under hot water and then add knife edges where needed. No doors. No seams. Entry would come via a front hatch—a flip-up windshield, cannibalized from a 1960 Ford wagon, of all things. The result was something out of a fever dream: equal parts spacecraft, surf wagon, and outlaw experiment.

Chrysler caught wind and—shock of shocks—loved it. They handed over a naked A100 like a ritual sacrifice. Over the next two years, the Alexander Brothers hacked and smoothed the truck into what became known as the Deora. It cost them $10,000 to complete, a small fortune in 1960s custom terms. The payoff? The Ridler Award in 1967 and instant street legend status.

The Deora didn’t sit still. In 1968, it got a new lime green suit, some side scoops, and an updated interior. Then again in 1979, it was dunked in a root beer metallic coat, had its buckets swapped for a bench, its wheels changed, and a few more mods that softened its earlier edges.

By 1998, the icon was pulled from storage and rebuilt once again—this time under the eye of Bradley himself—to regain its original, hard-staring glory. Its DNA lived on in Hot Wheels and AMT kits, but this wasn’t just a toy—it was the blueprint for a new kind of custom. A forward-control pickup turned full-bore concept car.

In 2009, it crossed the block at the Petersen’s Icons of Speed & Style auction, pulling in $324,500… and was last known to be owned by Tom Abrahms of Reliable Carriers. Survival comes in many forms.

Not bad for something born from a van/truck and a goddamned station wagon window.