This weekend’s CPotD stumper is a “guest photo” taken by a reader, so I’ll have to have him run the guessing game in the comments. When I first saw it I thought it was one of those gawdawful replicars from the 70s, but looking closer I could see that it is a genuine period chassis.
Guess away and Paul (aka “Vroomie”) will moderate the discussion.
“Guess away and Paul (aka “Vroomieâ€) will moderate the discussion.”
Eeep.
I’ll do my best! Chuck has the other photographic ‘identifiers’ so once a successful guess is posted, I’ll pass this heavy coil of responsibility back to Chuck!
I’ll give the hints till then…
🙂
This is the Bill Tishman reproduction of the fabled Bucciali car, of which only six or so were made and none were thought to exist when Tishman created this machine.
From this thread on H.A.M.B.:
“…it’s a replica Bucciali, built in the 80’s using a small block Chevy turbocharged and running on Propane and a full size Blazer driveline with a scratch built chassis and steel body for land developer Bill Tishman of Chicago. It was a replica of the 1932 Paris Auto Show car that mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night before opening day. Supposedly there are pics of it on the show floor on the night before opening day and it was gone the next morning. Paul Albert Bucciali built 6 cars total, some with Minerva sleeve valve engines, some with Sterns- Knight engines, this one has a Voisin V-12.”
“This one” refers to pictures showing a genuine Bucciali as shown at Pebble Beach. The Tishman replica now seems to be in the Museum of American Speed.
How’d I do? 😉 Many thanks to my friend Jeff (who might post here occasionally under the user name “groves”) for helping to point the way. Thanks Vroomie, a fascinating story your mystery car unfolded for me.
Hi Roger,
Very nice response. You forgot to add that this replica is sporting a René Lalique Tete D’Aigle glass mascot instead of the typical Bucciali bird.
Cheers,
Shaun
A puzzling thing about this replica is the small modern headlamps inside vintage-style shells. It’s strange that someone who would go through the expense of this sort of recreation would allow such an obvious clanger.
Ding Ding Ding! Roger nails it! It’s an astonishing replica and yet another of the plethora of interesting things to see at Speedway Motor’s Museum of American Speed, in Omaha, Nebraska.
I too wondered about the silly headlight treatment: Given they actually went to the expense of casting those gigantic wheels, ya think they’d have had the scoots to do a giant set of headlights, or at least use a real pair of Lucas P-100 ‘Flamethrowerrs.’
For what it is worth… I was lucky enough to be one of the guys that did some work on that car during the mid 1970s at Dave Kent’s Creative Car Craft in Hawthorne… we had the car for a month or so to mate the body to the chassis about 1976… it was rumored to have been in the works for several years before, and at phenomenal expense.. and as I recall the chassis was a highly modified chevy truck.. cut/extended etc… Believe the panels had been done by the guys at California Metal Shaping… would not be surprised if it took many more years to complete..so as to have been completed in the 80s
hope this helps to fill in a little more history..
Thanks
Heiti