Hot rodders have always been fascinated with sleepers. More than just about anyone, we have a special appreciation for the car that looks like junk but goes like stink. Somehow going fast just seems more special in a car that looks slow. Ha ha, fooled you-you lose, pal. Sleepers and sandbagging are woven into hot rod mythology: Recall the little Nash Rambler, the hot rod Lincoln, the little old lady from Pasadena. She's my little Deuce coupe, you don't know what I got.

So maybe it's just our shady background, lurking in the back alleys of the motoring world as we do, but hot rodders love to see the rat sneak in and steal the cheese. All this was driven home to us once again by the reader reaction to Kurt Urban's outrageous green '72 Nova ("Sucker's Bet," Nov. '06.) It was crusty on the outside, tricked out to the nines on the inside, and you guys went nuts over it just like we did. A car that devious becomes a legend in its own time.

We know you are going to like this car too-it's really sneaky. But the funny thing is, Rob Freyvogel and Tom Napierkowski didn't set out to build a sleeper with their '63 Pontiac LeMans. Rob says it just sort of evolved that way. (Rob has since bought out Tom's half of the car so Tom could move on to his next project.) For example, note the two big honking turbochargers, hidden away out of sight under the rear of the car. That wasn't premeditated; the location was forced by the Tempest's tight engine bay. "There was no place else to put them," says Rob. But since the Pontiac Y-body (same basic platform as the Corvair) was originally equipped with a transaxle out back, there was ample room for the turbos and associated plumbing under the floorpan's rear kickup.

Then there's the scabby red paint-the very same paint, bleached and peeling, that was on the car when Rob and Tom found it out in the California desert. The Tempest body shell, minus its engine and driveline, was resting on top of another car when they dragged it away for $400. As the project was approaching completion, Rob says, "We really were going to paint the car, but then we thought, No, this is good the way it is. This way we don't have to worry about scratching it every time we lean over a fender." There's another reason we are drawn to sleepers: Here function rules over form. It's not about looking good. It's about running good, and we can respect that.

So the LeMans was originally built not so much to scam anyone, but to have some fun, to serve as a testbed for Rob and Tom's homebrewed performance inventions, and to do it without spending a ton of money. The engine is a 427 big-block Chevy that he says is "mainly circle-track flea market stuff." A Lunati steel crank, Eagle rods, and 0.030-over SLP pistons with 8.5:1 compression ratio make up the short-block. The heads are Brodix Big Brodies, while the intake is an old Holley Strip Dominator with some porting work. Bullet Racing Cams supplied the mechanical roller grind with 0.630-inch lift, 246-degree duration, and 116-degree lobe separation. The headers are homemade tri-Ys. There's nothing terribly outlandish here; the big power is in the turbocharger system.

It's funny how things come full circle. Back in the early '60s when rodders began to experiment with turbos, the blowers themselves were mainly pirated from diesel truck and tractor engines. That was essentially the only supply path at the time. Now, 40 years later, guys are finding that it is the cheapest path. The Holset HT3B turbos on the LeMans are from a Cummins-powered earthmover, and "you can buy them all day on eBay for 150 bucks each," says Rob. (Rebuild kits are $40.) A big fat charge cooler resides in the trunk, adjacent to an insulated plastic picnic cooler that carries the ice water. "It really works nice," Rob says. "It doesn't sweat all over the place and make a big mess like an aluminum tank will." The remote rear turbo installation was mulled over carefully. "At first we thought it would produce turbo lag, so then we figured maybe that would help launch the car off the line. But in practice we haven't experienced any significant turbo lag." The aft-mounted turbos also aid weight distribution. "You can add 100 to 150 pounds to the nose of the car or to the rear of the car," Rob observes sagely.

Rob manages the fuel delivery with a FAST control unit driving a set of eight Bosch 60-lb/hr injectors, while the ignition system includes Rob's own Frankenstein-inspired ignition amplifier that consumes 50 amperes. Yikes. "When you are working with high boost levels and combustion pressures you need lots of spark," Rob says. A mechanical engineer whose company supplies textured carbide coatings, Rob has launched another business, Engine Logic Systems, to develop his high-output ignition, which he calls Variable Spark Injection. Triggering eight OMC outboard marine coils with a 70:1 turn ratio ("I find they really hold up," he says) Rob can hike up the primary circuits to 620 volts for racing, then back them down to 250 volts for cruising to give the secondary insulation a break. The system is configured to operate at double-spark up to 2,000 rpm and single-spark thereafter.

With its flexible fuel-mapping capability, the LeMans has been run on everything except fondue fuel: pump gas, race gas, methanol, E85 ethanol, and Rob's current favorite, E98 ethanol. "It's nice because you don't need as much volume as with methanol," he says. And along with the greater energy density, the E98 makes plenty of power, has a wide and forgiving tuning window, is lots cheaper than race gas, and has decent availability in Rob's part of the world. Western Pennsylvania is Sprint Car country, and he learned about the fuel driv-ing in a limited Sprint series that runs LS1 spec engines on E98. So while the Tempest may appear socially irresponsible from nearly every other angle, its carbon footprint is comparatively minuscule.

Early on in the learning curve the LeMans was strapped to the chassis dyno, where it made 875 hp at the rear wheels at 22 psi boost. With some tuning experience under his belt, Rob now calculates that he can make 1,162 flywheel horsepower at 5,800 rpm with 27 psi. And he's confident he can turn the screw up to 30 or 32 pounds if need be. At 25 psi Rob has run a best of 9.86 at 149 mph, and that was "banging, popping, and missing all the way down the track," he says. Rob knows there's more there to be had with additional tweaking, but the next order of business is to install a full rollcage so he can be both quick and safe. That addition will negate much of the car's sleeper image, but as Rob sees it he has no choice. "A rollcage just screams race car, but it has to happen," he says. But that's OK because the Tempest is still go for its original mission: having fun and inventing new ways to go fast. "I love this," Rob says. "This is how guys did it back in the '50s. This is basic hot rodding-doing stuff on your own."

Quick Inspection:
'63 Pontiac Tempest LeMans
Rob Freyvogel
Butler, PA

POWERTRAIN
Engine: In 1963 the Tempest LeMans was powered by a 326ci Pontiac V-8. The engine in the car now may be painted blue, but it's no Pontiac. That's a 427 big-block Chevy with a 0.030-inch overbore and Brodix aluminum heads. The build is on the conservative side to accommodate the pair of Holset turbos stashed away under the rear of the car. The homemade 4-2-1 headers use 2-inch primary tubes and 3-inch collectors, while the throttle body is a 1,600-cfm airdoor from Electromotive.

Power: The car made 875 hp at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno, but that was early on the development curve. Based on the car's e.t. and trap speed, Rob now estimates that he has over 1,100 hp available.

Transmission: Rob axed the Tempest's original drivetrain configuration, an odd setup that employed a rear-drive transaxle and enclosed driveshaft. He opted instead for a GM Turbo 400 with a transbrake and electronically actuated valvebody.

Rearend: Rob says he learned about the virtues of the '57-'64 Olds-Pontiac rear axle reading HOT ROD. His uses a Strange 35-spline spool and axles with a 3.08 ring-and-pinion.

CHASSIS
Frame: Except for a pair of fabricated subframe connectors, the Tempest's unitbody structure is stock and original.

Suspension: While the front suspension is stock, the rear now employs coilover spring/shock assemblies and a pair of Chassis Engineering ladder bars.

Brakes: The rotors and calipers are Wilwood Super Lights, while the master cylinder and power booster are from an '86 Buick Grand National-no engine vacuum required.

Wheels: The steel rear wheels- 9×15s using the GM big-car 5×5 bolt pattern-were custom-built by Stockton Wheel Service in Stockton, California. The front steelies are 14-inch GM stockers, and Pontiac dog-dish hubcaps are installed on all four corners.

Tires: Hoosier 28.5×10.5 Quick Times are on the rear, with Goodyear radials on the front.

STYLE
Body: The GM Y-body platform, used by the Buick, Olds, and Pontiac compacts from 1961 to 1963, was a bit of a strange ranger, sharing some architecture with the Corvair. But the lines were pretty clean, especially on Pontiac's Sport Coupe version for '63. Rob didn't change a thing on his.

Paint: Rob believes his LeMans was repainted sometime in the mid-'80s in its original factory metallic red. That's the same paint it wears today.

Interior: Except for a set of Auto Meter gauges artfully spliced into the dash, the cabin is pretty much all stock, with factory bucket seats resplendent in early-'60s GM red vinyl.

Photo Gallery: 1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans - Featured Vehicle - Hot Rod Magazine

The Bonneville Salt Flats is the place where guys will race anything. No one with a single automotive synapse firing can attend a land speed race there and come home without looking at a weedblower with newborn curiosity. Yet magazine and TV coverage rarely glorifies the champions of oddball powerplants who thrash all year for a single chance at quiet victory, so that's exactly what we're doing with this year's coverage of the Southern California Timing Association's Speed Week event, held more or less every August for 59 years.

For those who've never attended a race at Bonneville, El Mirage, or Maxton, the reason for such eccentric power combos demands some explanation. For some, the goal is not necessarily a record, but simply a personal best or the ability to claim "world's fastest" three-cylinder, or Crosley, or flat-four, or whatever. Also, the SCTA encourages feats of traditional hot rodding with special engine classes just for Vintage Fours, flathead Fords and Mercs, and '59-or-older inliners or flathead V-8s other than Fords and Mercs.

Those who use atypical engines are playing the rules game, seeking new classes in which to score a land speed record. The SCTA vehicle categories and classes are broken down by five basic criteria: 1) aerodynamic mods to the body, 2) engine displacement, 3) gas or fuel, and 4) blown or unblown. Only the Production classes require the engine style and the body style to have left the factory together, so it's anything goes for those seeking to run engine classes from K (30.99 ci or less) to AA (501 ci or more) in cars of all years, types, and shapes. Also, land speed racers are just scroungers, innovators, and contrarians by nature. They race bizarre powerplants simply because they can.

In 1948, the SCTA contacted AAA in hopes of help in developing a sanctioned event at Bonneville. According to Wally Parks, the AAA official said no, because "the world record in Class C is 203 mph, and it is highly doubtful that any hot rod will ever attain that speed." Of course, the SoCal belly-tanker exceeded that speed just two years later in 1950, running 210.896 mph. Today, guys are past 300 with tiny four-cylinders.

The prolific achievements of land speed racers stand as a fine tribute to Wally Parks, who was largely responsible for founding the Bonneville Nationals, and to the legacy of HOT ROD itself, which thanks to the efforts of many staffers long before our time, celebrates its 60th anniversary with this issue. Aside from SCTA land speed racing events in the dustbowl of El Mirage Dry Lake, there is no more historic achievement a hot rodder can accomplish than a record at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Regardless of the powerplant.

(Right) Xydias & Batchelor; Kenz & Leslie; Mickey Thompson; Herda, Cagle & Knapp; Noel Black; Larson & Cummings; Les Leggitt; Nolan White; Al Teague; and Team Vesco. In 59 years, those are the teams that have scored more than one engraving on the HOT ROD Magazine Top Time trophy, presented for the single fastest pass during Speed Week. Now there's a new name for that list: Team Nish. It's a huge accomplishment to organize the car that can best overcome the obstacles of the Salt to set the fastest run of the meet, and to do it twice is incredible. The Nish Royal Purple streamliner accomplished it for the first time in 2004 with a run of 383.553. In 2007, driver Mike Nish ran a best flying mile of 380.046 and set an AA/Fuel Streamliner record of 377.715 mph using a single, naturally aspirated, 673ci Arias/Chevy by Klein Racing Engines of Strawberry, Arizona. The Nish team's efforts were documented in a recent episode of HOT ROD TV, and you can learn more at www.nishmotorsports.com. From left to right are Terry Nish, Cec McCray, Mike Nish, Larry Lawson, Rick Nuesmeyer, Dominic May, Jerry Keener, Bill Randall, and Scott McCray.

Photo Gallery: Bonneville Salt Flats -The Power Of Bonneville

This story is so Ed Roth, it's almost unbelievable. And that's just the way Big Daddy would want it.

As of two years ago, when the Detroit Autorama featured a gathering of some 17 Roth-mobiles (both four- and three-wheel varieties; HRM Aug. '06) in a special posthumous Roth tribute, we thought nearly all of his far-out, fiberglass, mostly bubbletopped creations had finally been accounted for, especially with the totally unexpected appearance of Tweedy Pie. This little purple T-bucket roadster, ironically, was neither built by him (he stripped it, named it, then bought it), nor fiberglass (as nearly all other T-buckets were), nor had a bubbletop. But it became a well-known, popular Roth-mobile when Rod & Custom splashed it on its cover as "Roth's New Rod!" in 1962, and Revell made a long-selling model kit of it. This car reappeared briefly in 1975, dressed in chrome trinkets by its new owners, then disappeared into an old wooden garage for the next 30 years. I knew where it was, but the owner would neither let me see nor photograph it. Then bammo, there it was, looking like it did in 1962, on the floor at Cobo Hall in 2006. I guess all it took to finally get it out of the garage was a big wad of money. Reportedly-predictably-an even bigger wad of money carted it to another new home after the show.

We knew where Tweedy Pie was, but another well-known Roth machine-unquestionably his wildest of all-had been conspicuous by its absence for decades. We knew that the twin-engine, chrome-frame, bubbletop, Cyclops-nosed, and aptly named Mysterion had self-destructed from the weight of its two big-block Ford engines while being trucked from show to show, and little more than the front axle, wheels, and tires had been returned to Roth. In a lengthy, humorous account told in my book, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, His Life, Times, Cars and Art, custom builders Jack Walker and Doug Thompson were able to acquire the unwanted 'glass body from a custom shop in the Midwest in the '70s and seriously contemplated dumping the asymmetrical nose in the freeway median, lighting it on fire, and telling the cops it was part of a spaceship that fell out of the sky. But they didn't. They gave the remains to someone in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who gave them to a kid who may have tried to restore the Mysterion in his parents' basement but then had to get rid of it. We don't know. It might still be out there somewhere. It's a mystery. But it was so well-known and amazing (it, too, was a Revell model), that a complete, totally accurate replica of this vehicle showed up at Cobo Hall and was immediately snapped up by Ralph Whitworth, who is building a huge new automotive museum in Winnemucca, Nevada, which will include special Ed Roth and Von Dutch wings (stay tuned for more on this soon).

But the one Ed Roth fiberglass, bubbletop, asymmetrical show car that never seemed to be all that conspicuous either by its presence or by its absence is the one he called the Orbitron. After the highly successful bright-yellow Mysterion and hot-pink Road Agent (another good-selling Revell model), Ed crafted the dark-blue, somewhat boxy Orbitron in 1964, possibly in as little as one or two months' build time. Its signature characteristics were a half-round clear bubbletop over a white fur-lined, tub-like driver's compartment placed at the extreme rear of the vehicle, with the driver sitting behind the rear wheels, slingshot dragster-style (the rear tires were narrow-band whitewall slicks on deep-dish chrome Astro wheels to augment the image). At the front of the car, two regular, round, clear headlights were set into coves on either side of the midmounted engine, shark-fin fiberglass fenders half-covered the front wheels, and a strange half-round, half-rectangular nose held one regular headlight in the rectangular side and three in the much larger, round, barrel-shaped side. These lights were tinted red, blue, and green. Ed had been an electronics nut since childhood and knew that the latest electronic sensation-color TV-was based on combinations of these three primary colors. His theory was that when the headlights were turned on at once, they would produce one strong, white light beam. The theory was flawed, but that was a moot point since it couldn't very well be demonstrated at indoor car shows, anyway.

To make that point further moot, the Orbitron didn't make it to many car shows, Revell never made a model of it, and when it finally made it into a magazine (its one appearance), it essentially got fourth billing in the lower left corner of the Sept. '64 cover of Car Craft with the muted blurb, "Ed Roth's Orbitron." That's all. No starbursts, no flashes. Why?

Ed had a "mistake" pile at his shop that he was rather proud of. When he was welding and grinding a frame or an axle, or slapping plaster over boards and boxes to create his latest wild fiberglass body, if he didn't like the way something was turning out, he'd cut it off with a hacksaw and throw it on the mistake pile. He liked to boast that the pile got pretty big. But the Orbitron, along with the later, even less-seen Wishbone, were the only entire vehicles Roth ultimately labeled mistakes. He rarely mentioned the Wishbone, but he posed several reasons over the years for the Orbitron's lack of success.

His first conclusion was probably at least half right-that he should never have covered the engine with a hood. Ed loved chrome, multicarburetors, and wild pipes, and apparently so did the showgoers. But Ed was also strangely cheap and resourceful. If he couldn't wangle a big, flashy new engine or custom wheels and tires, he'd use what he could get or what was lying around. When Ford gave him the two new 406 big-block engines for the Mysterion, the company threw in an extra one for some unexplained reason, which Ed promptly dropped into a Gasser-style '55 Chevy coupe he used as a driver. When Ed was quickly assembling the Orbitron, no big, flashy new engine was in the offing, so he decided to plunk the available small-block Chevy and Powerglide left over from the '55 Chevy in his handmade 2×4 tube frame. He added three carbs to the Chevy and chromed it up, but it still wasn't a showpiece. So he covered it with a hood. And since his 'glasswork was quite sloppy, the underside of the hood didn't look very good, so he kept it shut. He called the engine a 283, and it might have been.

His second reason for this car's "failure,"after some hindsight, is probably also at least partly correct. The Orbitron debuted just after the Beatles stepped off the plane from England. As Ed said, "I was humpin' my booty to get it to Revell's HQ … when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and all model sales stopped. Guys got guitars instead o' cars."

Third, by this time, Ed's "monster shirt" business was booming and he finally hired some talented, trained artists, such as Ed "Newt" Newton and Robert Williams, to help create new shirt designs to meet the demand and to help design Roth's new show cars. Years later, Ed claimed that having these "schooled artists" design the cars was their downfall. In a small, revisionist book he self-published in 1984 called Whatever Happened to the Beatnik Bandit?, Roth wrote: "In 1964 I built a car called the Orbitron. I learned an important lesson from that car. Never draw a picture of a car before you build it. LISTEN UP DETROIT! Anything looks good if an artist draws it. Newton made the picture of that car look like a real machine. It turned out to be a mess. I sold that to some dude in Texas about 1969 and I hope it never surfaces again. YECH!" In all honesty, if Ed had built the car more like Newt drew it, with chrome carbs sticking through the hood or spaceship-like pods beside the bubble, it probably would have looked better. But Newton was hired after this project began, and we have a hunch the designs were more after-the-fact, anyway.

El Orbitron Perdido
Ed almost got his wish about the Orbitron never surfacing-it didn't for more than 40 years. Roth and his cars virtually vanished from the scene in 1970 when he closed his studio in Maywood, California. But in an article in the June '76 issue of Street Rodder titled "What ever became of Big Daddy Roth?" I showed that most of his creations, including the Bandit, Outlaw, Road Agent, and Druid Princess, even the Yellow Fang dragster were gathered in Jim Brucker's Cars of the Stars museum in Buena Park, California. When it closed three years later, many of the Roth cars went to Harrah's museum in Reno, where the Outlaw and Bandit were fully restored. After Bill Harrah's death, the Roth cars were scattered (some going, briefly, to Domino's Pizza owner Tom Monoghan). Most were restored one way or another (some by Ed's son Darryl, others by Roth-phile Mark Moriarity) and have continued to change hands for escalating prices. But the point of all this is that no one, not even Roth-philes, seemed to be asking, "Whatever became of the Orbitron?" The car got very little magazine or car show exposure, wasn't made into a model kit, and was not-by Roth's own admission-one of his stellar works.

Roth wrote that he sold the car to "some dude in Texas about 1969." I heard from someone that the owner had cut the nose off the body and removed the bubble to make it look more like the T-buckets that were popular at the time. In a later book (1995), Roth stated that Mike Lowe of El Paso, Texas, bought the car in 1973 and drove it to school. That book further stated that Lowe, having sold it, knew where it was and was trying to buy it back. As with many Roth stories of the time, who knows what was really the case?

According to Mark Moriarity, who verified it recently with Darryl Starbird, Roth actually sold the car to Darryl after showing it a couple of times in California. According to Moriarity, Starbird called Roth to ask if he could lease the Orbitron for his own car show circuit, and Roth said, "I'll just sell it to you for the lease price." So, ironically, this bubbletop bomb went from one bubbletop king to the other. Mark says he's seen photos showing the Orbitron, intact, in Starbird's shop. How and when it went to somebody in El Paso who might have cut the nose and bubble off it and might have driven it to high school, we just don't know.

But this is where the story gets weird. Even for a Roth story.

Those of you who follow things Roth and who browse the internet were very surprised to hear (and see) of the Orbitron's amazing discovery in the Mexican border town of Juarez sometime late last August. It was all over the E-waves. Photos were posted, and rumors were flying, including everything from the car's being an attraction in a traveling Mexican carnival to its being used as a trash can on a sidewalk in front of a porn shop no less than half a mile from the El Paso bridge when found, to its intended future use as a hot tub in said sex shop. More amazing than all this was that the photos showed that despite the nose being cut off, the bubble missing, and most of the interior and lights being gone, the rest of the relatively fragile 'glass body was completely intact, as were the chromed triple 97s and early Vette valve covers on the engine, and even the Astro wheels and thin-whitewall tires from 1964! Nicks in the faded black primer even showed the pearl blue underneath. How in the world could this last, long-lost Big Daddy Roth treasure have been sitting there, unnoticed, unrecognized, and ignored by millions of Mexicans and American tourists over these many years?

HOT ROD put its Texas correspondent, Jerry Heasley, on the case immediately. There's been a lot of talk and interest lately in rare barn finds. Of course, this one tops any we've shown in the last several months. But Jerry's been doing this since 1991, when he started a column called "Rare Finds" in HOT ROD's Mustang magazine. That very first column featured no less than a Boss 429 Mustang being used as a dog house in-yep-Mexico. It also turned out that the guy who finally located, recognized, and scored this find, Michael Lightbourn of El Paso, was well-known to Jerry. Michael is a young, unassuming guy, but he's already earned the nickname The West Texas Scout for finding rare musclecars and early Fords, many in Mexico. He has developed a network of helping scouts and informants.

Being from El Paso, he and his friends were aware of the Orbitron. Tony and Sergio Aguilar remembered seeing the car, with its three colored headlights intact, parked on Montana Street from 1972 to 1975 with a "For Sale" sign in the bubble. The car was then owned by a local attorney named Sid Abraham and a bail bondsman named Victor Apodaca. Vic couldn't remember exactly how he got the car other than he "might have obtained it in a criminal case." Hmm.

There were no buyers. But Sid's brother Eddie and his young nephew, John Attel, took an interest in the Roth show car. They knew what it was and were intrigued; John tried driving it to high school, but the carburetors were quirky, and he once got stuck inside the bubble for an hour. That was enough. He got a big-block Camaro and the Orbitron was back for sale. There's no mention of anyone cutting off the nose or removing the bubble at this point. Heasley simply says "the car remained unsold for several years." One guy from Oklahoma came to measure it to see if it would work as a salad bar for his restaurant. Apparently it wouldn't.

"Finally, two men from Mexico bought Orbitron for $1,500," reports Heasley. Apparently that was about 30 years ago, and all Attel recalls is that they "planned to use it in a carnival." Exactly how was unspecified.

Since Ed's untimely death and the publication of a couple of books mentioning that the Orbitron had gone to El Paso, a few people had shown up there asking about it. Because Lightbourn had a reputation for finding rare vehicles, some came to him. Knowing it had gone (possibly long gone) to Mexico, Michael asked his contacts there about it several times. No leads. Nothing.

Then, in May or June of last year, Mike got a lead from one of his informants about a '59 Plymouth Fury with dual carbs. He also mentioned some vehicle with a fiberglass body and a Corvette engine. Finned Mopars are hot, so Mike sent him a disposable camera. Hoping for some extra finder's fee bucks, the scout photographed the "ugly fiberglass thing" as well. When Mike got the camera back and processed the film, he knew the ugly thing was the Orbitron. And what was there was incredibly original. Wow.

The problem now was to (1) try to acquire the car without tipping off other collectors, and (2) get it out of Mexico without arousing the attention of potential banditos or greedy customs agents. Heasley reports, "Tracking cars in Mexico is fraught with obstacles for Americans. Thieves can snatch a nice car off a trailer in broad daylight." Michael says, "The hardest part is getting them out. Buying them, you still run the risk that you can't get the car into the States." He didn't even mention the hazard of carrying large sums of cash across the border.

But trying to buy this derelict turned out to be harder than Michael expected. There was a reason why it sat in plain public view on the sidewalk in front of the sex shop for so many years. Details get a little murky at this point, but the owner of the car (and the shop, we assume) apparently had no idea what it really was. And Michael didn't let on. He said he was primarily interested in the Corvette engine. We have no idea who cut the nose off, primered it black, or removed the bubble, seat, lights, and hood.

The car's preservation would seem equally mysterious. But we were not at all surprised when the owner's immediate reply to Mike's offers was "No se vende." Not for sale.

It turns out one of the two men who bought the car for a carnival was this guy's uncle. No one says what they actually did with the car, but he fondly remembered it from his childhood. It was passed down to him, and he thought his uncle had built it himself. Said uncle had died and wasn't around to set the nephew straight, strengthing his attachment to the hulk.

Michael's first offer was promptly refused. But he didn't earn his reputation for nothing. He visited or called the sex shop owner every day for three weeks. Finally the owner said, "I wouldn't sell it to you for dollars." Mike calmly replied, "OK, I'll give you dollars." That got his attention, but it still took three more days of haggling and finally a show of a large bundle of cash in a manila envelope to close the deal. Then he had to get it from Juarez back across the Rio Grande.

Mike called home for a rollback. The truck didn't arrive until 5:30 p.m., and by then the Mexican Customs were closed. But Mike figured he could work this to his advantage. He knew he didn't want to spend the night in Mexico with his prize on the back of a tow truck. It was a Friday in August and about 100 degrees. And the lines at the border were long. Mike paid the driver his $180 fee, plus a $100 tip to wait in line. He put one of his friends in the passenger seat and crossed his fingers. He also gave the friend some extra cash. When they finally got to the border, Customs being closed, they filled out some papers calling the derelict hulk a dune buggy and listing its value as near nothing. The friend also slipped the border guard $150. No problem, seor

As of Heasley's final report, Lightbourn had what's left of the Orbitron in his 20,000-square-foot shop in El Paso, safe if not wholly sound. Heasley said Mike's intentions were to consign the car to the R&M Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, in January, adding "It will be restored and we'll all be able to enjoy this hot rod again." However, it wasn't clear whether he meant restoration would occur before or after the sale. Given Internet activity and worldwide interest at the time of this story's writing, we wonder if it will even make it to auction. The Orbitron was not one of Ed Roth's masterpieces. But it is one of only about a dozen signature vehicles built by Big Daddy from the Outlaw through Bandit II (depending, of course, on your definition of "signature"; this doesn't count various trikes, swap-meet wagons, and so on). Some remains of the Mysterion could still turn up-that's no more far-fetched than this story. But it couldn't be in original condition like this one. So it will remain to be seen what these remains are really worth.

The bigger question, perhaps, given all this latest barn-find frenzy, is whether these so-far-untouched remains of the Orbitron should be restored or not. What price patina? Undoubtedly we will find out. This incredible Roth story will continue.HRM

Photo Gallery: Ed Roth's T Bucket Roadster - The Orbitron Saga

This seemed like a good idea. At first. Then we got into the actual machinations of selecting 100 top cars that were worthy of HOT ROD's 60th anniversary issue. We made list after list, anticipating every possible rant that could come from any direction. There would be no escaping a certain level of wrath, but in the end, we justified our actions by picking cars based on a very specific criterion. In a word: influence. The cars we chose had to make a difference to the gearhead hobby, the racing sport, or the people in them. They had to be trend starters or fad killers, landmarks of style, or shepherds of technology that put a bend in the road of hot rodding.

To narrow the scope, we also limited the picks to hot rods (a catchall that includes customs, race cars, and more) built in 1948 or later, the date that coincided with this magazine's first issue. So there will be no early Henry Ford speedsters or the like, and just one very famous stock production car. That leaves out Hemi Super Stockers, Shelby Mustangs, and COPO Camaros. Get over it. You'll also think of at least another 100 famous or popular cars that are not on the list-there's nothing here from Tony Nancy, the Alexander Brothers, Dean Jeffries, Bill Cushenberry, or another several dozen builders on your mind. Why? Remember the dividing line: influence. We couldn't name a car by any of those guys that changed the world more significantly than the 100 cars in these pages. For the same reason, don't look for legendary rods as the Pierson coupe or the Niekamp roadster, because we couldn't argue that they changed more lives than such clods as the General Lee, the Bandit Trans Am, or even the American Graffiti coupe. Fame trumps grace every time, and if fads had anything to do with style, then there'd be thousands of CadZZilla kits and just one Meyers Manx dune buggy.

Since we didn't care to shoulder this responsibility alone, we called on some friends-though none can be blamed for our final selections or our ranking order. Pat Ganahl, former editor of HOT ROD, Street Rodder, Rod & Custom, and Rodder's Journal, helped us with the significant rods and customs. Dave Wallace is a former staffer of Drag News and HOT ROD and editor of Petersen's Drag Racing who enters the Drag Racing Hall of Fame at the Garlits Museum this year, and he helped with the top drag cars of the past 60 years. Our eldest staffer, Detroit Editor Bill McGuire, focused on the icons of his generation, while 40-somethings Kinnan and Freiburger meddled with the street-machine era. Once our list was compiled, we adjusted it based on comments from Pete Chapouris, Larry Erickson, and Dave Ross (Design Manager, GM Performance Division).

So it's not a perfect list, but it's pretty freakin' close. Your flames will be given due attention if you send them to HOTROD@sourceinterlink.com. Meanwhile, enjoy HOT ROD's 60th anniversary celebration of the 100 most influential cars of our time. -David Freiburger

Photo Gallery: Hot Rod Magazine's Top 100 Most Influencial Hot Rods of All Time

by Bill Holland
intro by Patrick Hill
photos from Bill Holland and the Hot Rod Archive

Back in the February '08 issue, we had a pic in the Bench Racer columnof Bill Holland and John Guedel's Art Linkletter's All American frontengine dragster from the Santa Claus Lane Parade down Hollywood Blvd.Recently Bill unearthed some photos of the car being used in a photoshoot for Vogue magazine with an unknown female model, and male stand-inby the name of Michael Douglas (YES! That Michael Douglas!). Here's alittle more history from Bill about the dragster and some of its famousexploits:

The car was originally built by Don Tuttle (California ChassisEngineering) for Rocky Childs and Jimmy Albert. It debuted at the 1968Winternationals and driver Dwight Salisbury was runner-up to JamesWarren. They had a clutch problem and couldn't make the final.

My partner John Guedel and I bought the car in early 1969, as the newlyinstituted SFI chassis specs rendered our car obsolete. We had Tom Hannabuild a nose for the car, used our existing Ed Pink 392 power, and BillCarter painted it in a patriotic theme. This was in the thick of theVietnam war, and it was our way of showing a little bit of nationalpride. As our sponsor Art Linkletter's show "House Party" had just goneoff the air, we simply called the car "Art Linkletter's All-American."

We mostly ran the car locally, and had some match races. About this timeI got hired by Wally Parks to become editor of National Dragster, so itgot increasingly difficult to do justice to both the job and racing. Thejob won. In 1970 we did the Vogue gig, a Certs commercial and a "B"movie, raced sporadically, and parked the car. Last I knew it had asmall block Chevy in it and was bracket raced in the Northwest.

As for the mechanics of the car, the engine was a cast iron 392 Chrysler(1957 variety) with a 6-71 blower and Enderle "bugcatcher" injector.Drivetrain was a direct-drive coupler and Schiefer 3-disc "slider"clutch. Rear end was a Mopar 8-3/4 with a spool. I think the best it ranwere 6.8s at almost 230 mph.

This car and Dwight Salisbury's "Smothers Bros./Beach Boys" car weretowed side-by-side down Hollywood Blvd. in the 1969 Santa Claus Laneparade. I've also attached a shot of our car in the 1968 parade withArt Linkletter.

Fuelers On Hollywood Blvd. (From February 2008 issue of Hot Rod)

I was perusing the September issue of HRM and came across the feature onTony Nancy's Top Fuel car doing a burnout on Hollywood Blvd. (Where itAll Began). I thought I'd let you know Tony didn't have the first diggerto grace Hollywood Blvd. While we didn't get to do a burnout, our T/Fcars (John Guedel and I) were in the fabled Santa Claus Lane Parade downHollywood Blvd. in 1967, 1968, and 1969. At the time, it was one of themost popular special events on TV and broadcast around the world. Iconvinced the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce it would be a cool deal, andthey bought into it. The first year we had the star of a long-defunct TVshow called Good Morning, World, Julie Parrish, riding on the Enderle (Ibuilt a special padded seat to go on top), and the next year ArtLinkletter's daughter Diane was our star (she was co-starring on Link'sHouse Party show, but later died a tragic death). The final year therewas our car and Dwight Salisbury in the Smothers Bros. Beach Boys fuelertowing side by side. Here is a photo of Art and Diane Linkletter, withme kneeling and John Guedel in the cockpit. The shot was taken in frontof the old A.E. England Pontiac store, a couple of blocks west of theold PPC building at 5959 Hollywood Blvd. We raced on a limited schedulebut did manage to hold the track record at OCIR, Hawaii Raceway Park,and Firebird Raceway (Boise) for a spell during those years. I wanted tobuild a rear-engined car in 1968 to replace the one shown, but everyonetold me I was nuts. Also, I still have the award we got in 1967 at theHot Rod Magazine Drags in Riverside for Best Appearing Car & Crew.

Bill Holland
Los Angeles, CA

Photo Gallery: Art Linkletter's All American in Vogue Magazine - Hot Rod Magazine