I dig it. It looks really well thought out and finished especially when you compare it to some of the other home built fiberglass sports cars of that era or the ones that used the plans from the publications of the day.. I bet it was a tourque monster with the Olds or the Cadillac in it. Torchie
It is revolutionary in the respect that it portends to a lot of cars that haven't been built yet.From the front,it looks like an early Corvette,the fins are more muted,but bring a later Cadillac to mind,and it is about the size of a T-Bird.I'd say the Hansen brothers were right on the mark with this little beauty.
From the photos it looks like the steering wheel is a later addition based on the color of the rim itself. Can't really see anything else. And if you look close those white face gauges on the right are stop watches as found in many track cars of the era
Yeah, whomever restored this car sure dropped the ball in the interior. That steering wheel and those gauges just show that they couldn't be bothered to do the job correctly.
Lot of Caddy and Olds styling cues, looks cut-down 53 Chevy tailights. A very nice looking car. The steering wheel sucks.
Hard to tell but it looks like a 7/8 scale 53 Corvette to me. but very nice details. I'd like to see more of the chassis
I like it. It's too bad they only made 2. I think if the steering wheel was the same color as the dash top it would look better. A white wheel wouldn't last long with my dirty hands.
Heres a couple pics of the 1951 Nash Healey, it was supposed to have a Cadillac engine but things didn't work out. These are pics from where the aluminum body is being made. Look familiar?
YES!!!!! As for the white steering wheel? It is spot on from a styling point. You MUST drive with the proper soft kid leather gloves. White gauges? Again from a styling, not 'traditional' point they work. Too bad the mold is lost.
Sort of looks like it could have been a GM concept car for a personal luxury car, more like what the T-bird was vs the more sports car Corvette.
Sorry ... couldn't resist ... Sig, Edgar, & Norman Hansen All joking aside ... Wally & Harry Hansen spoke at the Petersen Automotive Museum in June of 2010 at a "Fiberglass Day" event ... so I would assume they are both still around.
this awesome styling is as tasty as it gets. My eye was drawn to the non stop center peak. It is just so pleasing in every aspect. Thanx for sharing up this fine example of sports car elite.
No way!! Not these guys?!!? All kidding aside, I could look at that car every day and never tire of it. A steering wheel is nuthin to change, and 90 in the 1/4? With what we now know about managing horsepower that car could be too much fun to be legal. Way ahead of the curve...
Sort of looks like a mini Cadillac........the fender skirts don't fit the sports car racer theme...... ;-)
McCormack - special construction by Henry McCormack of California. Exhibited at the 1955 Motorama ( Motor Revue ) where the Hansen Cobra was also featured. The McCormack featured on the cover of Motor Life in 1956 , HOT ROD Sep 1957 and Best of HOT ROD circa 1976. Special construction hand built cars like the Hansen Cobra and the McCormack are representative of the ingenuity of ambitious individuals with a flair for design and the talent to construct a motor vehicle of their own design - in most cases with limited resources. The Hansen Cobra design is very well articulated and proportioned notwithstanding it shares styling cues from Kaiser - Fraser vehicles, particularly the front fenders and rear quarters. The McCormack was quite an original design with styling cues which predate mainstream American vehicles produced from the mid to late 1950s The Hansen Cobra and the McCormack both featured advanced styling for their time equal and in some instances better than the contemporary Dream Cars built by the Big Three which had comparatively unlimited resources and the best in design talent at their disposal
Beautiful car, fantastic design. One of the best 50s sports cars I've ever seen. On par with the famous design studies of the time. The steering wheel is terrible though. In the contemporary pic one can see a glimpse of the original wheel and it was obviously a nice 50s wheel with chrome horn ring. The dash with the white gauges reminds me of one of those crap Chinese 50s-retro radios. In this respect the restauration lacks a lot of "feeling".
Beautiful car! I want to know more about the speedster beside it, is it Norm Crum's sports roadster? Originally built by Kurtis, right?!
I believe the car next to the Hansen Cobra in the shot from "Johhny Dark" is the Pickford Jaguar, built in SoCal circa 1953 on a tube chassis using XK-120 running gear. It later was converted to SBC and continued to run until the early 1960s.
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