Weird-ass car found. What is it?

Here's an old picture of one my grandpa had in the 50s...

 

its really odd and kinda fugly but its kinda nice in a way

 

A lot of work and ingeuity went into those old "specials". I would drive it proudly, it's part of our heritage boys. All families have an ugly cousin with a great personality. lol

 

It would seem folks had less useless junk laying around their yards to throw crap together with, unlike now. And apparently paint was an acceptable thing as well.

 

I saw plans for one of those in an old M.I., it was based around a 32' ford sedan!
Ya might wanna crawl under that pup ...might be some gold!
How much do they want??
ud

 

It's ugly and it may not be everyones cup of tea but, I like it. I hope someone preserves it. How many of those old builds could have survived?

 

Here's one that showed up recently... built on a 32 frame...

 

It's fugly but yet somehow cool.

 

Snag it and rework the rear and front nose ,Ditch the fenders .Its kind of cool .Im assuming its glass ,That makes it simple

 

and she's blind

 

Anyone wanna scan and post the plans so someone could give the build a shot? Would be fun to watch.

 

I think it is the very first rat rod ....................

 

It would be very challenging to make something uglier than that.

 

etc. etc.

Just moving the grille back to over the front axle would do wonders for that thing's proportions.

 

Possibly. But how will that fix the rest of the car and the fact that it looks like it was made from left over roof flashing materials?

 

The link that Zerk posted is really interesting..... And the possibility that this could be built on a 32 frame, and considering the time in which it was built, could have an Olds or Caddy mill......I gotta go back and check this out further. I called the phone number written on the windshield but the number didn't work. This thing may be ugly but it's apparently got some interesting history and is a piece of Americanna. Imagine, this was probably some guy's home-built pride and joy in the early fifties. By the way, it's not fiberglass (not that there's anything wrong with that )

 

Steel is easy to work also ,You just have to make cuts exact ,You really dont want to add ,Plus I think if you painted Black and left alone It would be cool.On relooking at ,Id Do something different with front end.......I like it .....

 

(Imagine, this was probably some guy's home-built pride and joy in the early fifties.)

Yeah, and it could have been the biggest turd he ever had too. He may have regretted building it for the rest of his life. But it is kinda cool in it's own weird way. I can appreciate the history part, but it's so damn ugly! LOL. Lippy

 

thats the parts to my next hotrod, please bring it over for me ok thank you.

 

The forward lean grill is very similar to the last Voisins.

 

I like it,but it needs different wheels and paint.

 

The original article is here on the Hemmings site:

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/tag/mi-special/

Fate is weird, I found and read this article this past weekend and now I get to share.

Never mind, I see Zerk posted it back on page 2 of the thread.

 

Lucky for her, her name was Helen Keller

 

Bahhhh. LOL Henway... about 5 lbs. That is a riot.. Thanks i needed that today!

 

It looks to me like someone tried to build the MI Special on a longer frame. I think it would look OK with a nose job and the tail bobbed. It's way to long out front though. Personally I love one off home built sports cars. I'd still like to throw one together myself some day. Here's an old set of plans for one with a bike engine:

 

I don't know how you guys can bash it like this.
Its totally "traditional ".
Model A's on deuce rails weren't the only things built back then.

 

That Speedball special is bad ass, Dangerous, but Bad Ass.

 

"Hello Beatnik Pirate in Media, Pa. Your pictures of the weird roadster is definitely a Mechanix Illustrated roadster. The plans were published in Nov. '59 Mechanix Illustrated and for 5 bucks you could get 36"x48" copies of the plans which were a heck of a lot easier to read than flipping thru 15 pages of the magazine. The plans showed construction on a '32 to '40 Ford frame. The '32 was most preferable because you could get the floorboard to sit on the bottom of the frame rails, hence a lower center of gravity. The later Fords had an x member and you wound up sitting on top of the frame. I built my first one on a '36 frame. I found a " roller " in Hemmings 3 plus years ago and it took almost 3 years to work out all of the bugs. Any possibility of you finding out if the car you saw is for sale, and does it have the x membered frame. You can reach me at redhare @dslextreme.com. Thanks, Redhare

 

re: Mechanix Illustrated Roadster that Beatnik Pirate spotted. Does anyone know the whereabouts of the original builder, Bob Whitehead, or his family? He built a very rapid machine with a '49 Olds V-8. There were 8 more roadsters in our group. I sold mine in Hendersonville, No. Carolina in 1958 and often wondered what happened to the other cars.

 

It just ain't right !!