Did you wake up this morning thinking: I have had enough of multi-million-dollar, achingly beautiful cars — I want to hear about really weird metal that only strange dudes would own?
No I didn’t think so, but it doesn’t matter: I am going to tell you about a few. And if you or a close family member own one, then change weird to extraordinary and strange to investment banker.
OK at Las Vegas next week if I were you I would be paying $7000 for access to the owner’s box at Barrett-Jackson’s huge auction, the Mandalay Bay Casino. Usually only available for celebrities, million-dollar bidders or select VIPs, next weekend thanks to Craig Barrett you can be right there as Las Vegas’s finest citizens fight each other for the 1970 EPA Plymouth Superbird. Yup, that’s right green lovers and pollution haters: the 1970 Environmental Protection Agency Plymouth Superbird.
Back in the 70s when the EPA was born, it was looking for things to do. So they decided to study how much stuff was spewing out of the back of passenger jets. Most of you can’t remember a time before hi tech, but when all you have are a battery-powered calculator, a telex and a Gestetner you couldn’t do complex simulations that meant anything. Strangely enough, the EPA official tasked with finding a car that could “sniff the tail” of a Boeing 737 at 193km/h was former Dow Chemical executive John Moran (no conflict there).
Moran’s company used to sponsor NASCAR heavy Ray Nichels, who by then owned a go-fast engineering shop. Nichels said give me $30,000 and I’ll give you a car you can fill with scientific stuff and chase a Boeing down the runway.
He bought a second-hand Superbird, made it go fast and before you can say over and out, very scared scientists were chasing Eastern Airlines planes down the runway as they were taking off. Oh, this is the bit I forgot to tell you. This wasn’t one of those wussie safety-controlled experiments like Nobel Prize winners do. Nup, the EPA Superbird sat behind the jet at a normal airport as the pilot did a normal takeoff. So Johnny Moran held his left foot on the clutch, put the shifter in first as the captain pushed his throttle to full with maximum brakes, then released the brakes and shot down the runway with 14,000 pounds of thrust coming out the back of the engines causing 160km/h winds. As you can see from the photo the Bird’s nose cone was wind-tunnel designed and handled the cyclone easily during the 40-second jog for smog.
Anyway Johnny Moran was having too much fun so the government put the Bird into storage until it was sold at auction in 1979 to a local schoolteacher for $US500. Now fully restored, this could be yours to scare the hell out of one of Lindsay Fox’s jets at Essendon.
Our next shocker is the 1955 Swallow Doretti Roadster that Bonhams sold at Zoute last night. If you don’t know the background this sounds like something from Modena. No it’s from the Swallow Coachbuilding Company (motorcycle sidecar builders) which was owned by Billy “Jaguar” Lyons. But wait, it gets worse. Lyons sold Swallow just before the market for sidecars collapsed. The new owners had to diversify so they decided to build an all-aluminium luxury sports car using a Triumph TR2 engine and running gear. Cue Lucas, Prince of Darkness and oil leak jokes (Lucas — inventor of the self-dimming headlamp, a Triumph doesn’t leak oil, it marks its territory). Luckily Swallow only built 276. One for parking (permanently) outside Cafe De Stasio.
Now moving to Coys Paris auction tonight I will be desperate to see who buys the 1954 Alfa Romeo Disco Volante. No this is not about John Travolta and middle-aged men with shirts open down to their navel with large gold chains mixed up in their chest hair as they strive for a myocardial infarction while doing the Bump, the Penguin and the Boogaloo.
Sophisticated readers like banker Simon Mordant, who has a vineyard in Italy doing a nice line of Barolo, will know disco volante means flying saucer. Anyway the bodywork is described as aerodynamic featuring prominent overhangs. Imagine Dumbo the flying elephant with four wheels instead of feet.
The original Volantes were built for the 1952 24 Heures of Le Mans (the real one not the one in Wakefield Park at the end of the month … we had a huge response to our call for pit crew, particularly from the governor of Goulburn jail) but for some reason best known to those who study the Latin psyche, the team just didn’t turn up. The one for sale tonight is a copy built by Carrozzeria Corasco in the mid-50s. I think Bonhams sold it a few years ago.
This is a shortened version of the original article. Read the complete article in The Weekend Australian: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/motoring/smogchasing-superbird-went-all-the-way-with-the-epa/news-story/6707a96b29a4997f9e5074f70b817bd5?login=1
