In the world of concept cars, the dustbin of broken dreams is littered with mechanical detritus. There are a handful of memorable gems, however, among those failed projects. One – featured at the recent Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance – can even claim to have made guest appearances in three 1960s television series.
The Reactor, a fancifully futuristic 1964 custom coupe, appeared in the original Star Trek series, on Batman and in the comedy Bewitched, in an episode specifically written for the car.
One look at its retro-revolutionary design tells you why. This George Jetson-meets-Popular Mechanics mashup looks like it was designed by someone inspired by psychedelic drugs. Its pointed platypus snout and wraparound glass, topped off with tail fins, makes it look a little like a folded paper airplane wrought in aluminum. It's hard to tell whether designer Gene Winfield was seriously trying to project into the future, or whether he meant the car as a joke.
It was powered by a turbocharged six-cylinder power plant from Chevrolet's ill-fated rear-engine Corvair compact, turned around and mounted in the front. The hood, doors, hidden headlights and roof could all be operated by remote control.
Equally adventurous, but perhaps more serious, was the 1967 Gyro-X prototype built for a California company that envisioned a production vehicle. Although it had just two wheels, this fully enclosed one-passenger device was no motorcycle. It used a hydraulically-driven gyroscope to keep it upright. With the gyro idle at rest, two training wheels extended to keep it from falling over.
Science & Mechanics magazine road-tested the prototype and reported it could reach a top speed of 200 km/h and magically not tip in turns. Still, it never got beyond the prototype stage. Its appearance at the Concours was its first running performance since its recent restoration.
Perhaps the biggest eye-popper of the dream-car category, though, was the 1960 DiDia 150 "Bobby Darin" Coupe. The famous 1950s singer bought the car for a shocking (at the time) $150,000 (U.S.) so that he and wife Sandra Dee could roll up to the 1961 Academy Awards in it. Built over seven years by Andrew DiDia, it had an aluminum body, double wraparound windshield and was painted with 30 coats of Swedish Pearl Essence, supplemented with crush diamonds.
The 1960 DiDia 150 ‘Bobby Darin’ Coupe took seven years to build and has crushed diamonds embedded in its paint.
Studebaker, a casualty of the 1960s, produced the 1962 Sceptre coupe with a plan to put it into production in 1966. Its full-width headlight assembly, designed to minimize glare to oncoming cars, looked like a monobrow in chrome. As the company's financial fortunes faltered, however, development of the Sceptre was suspended.
The American Dream Cars category is a first in the Concours' 67-year history.
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