After World War II, Harley Earl was the leader in perfecting the idea of a concept show car to test styling cue ideas for future production cars. This eventually matured into a genre of its own called “Dream Cars, or concept cars, are where the styling cues becomes the “entire car” for the styling exercise.
During the ‘50s and ‘60s, Harley Earls dream cars came under the umbrella of the General Motors Company terminology “Motorama Cars” and are now considered the most valuable historic concept cars for today’s collectors.
An interesting piece of collecting history that became part of the Bortz Auto Collection is that in 1956 a famous Pontiac Dream Car was called the Club de Mer, a two-seater fiberglass car with a dorsal fin that was eventually destroyed by General Motors after serving its show purposes. At the time that this car was produced for the General Motors Motorama show purposes, a 3/8th scale model of the Club de Mer was also produced and shown directly beside the full 1956 Pontiac Club de Mer at all the National 1956 Auto Shows in the United States.
The full scale Club de Mer was “thought” to be destroyed though there is no evidence in the General Motors files that it actually was destroyed, but on the other hand, the 3/8th scale model Club de Mer was taken over by Harley Earl after the 1956 show and fitted up with a Pontiac 6-volt electric motor and became the electrified pedal car for his grandson.
A very famous picture of the grandson sitting in the car with the police officer standing over him was titled, “Harley Earl’s four year old grandson receives a ticket for speeding in a Motorama car”. I have been told that when Harley Earl’s grandson had the 3/8th scale model with the Pontiac starter motor and its 6-volt battery to propel it, that the model could hit a top speed of 10 mph!
The reason that this car is so interesting for the Bortz Auto Collection and hopefully to our readers is that this 3/8th scale model in the 1980s was found by me in the Detroit area and immediately purchased for the Bortz Auto Collection.
It was in very tattered conditioned and eventually was fully and highly restored by the famous restorer Fran Roxas. Fran could get everything done to bring the car back to its original Motorama show and running condition except for the tires. These tires had deteriorated and had white walls on the side but also a white stripe going down the center of the tread.
Fortunately, some of the General Motors executives during the 1980s heard about the restoration of the 3/8th scale model Club de Mer, and one of them stepped up to the plate and offered to have new tires made for this car at General Motor’s expense so that they could see the car fully and correctly restored.
Fran Roxas fully restored the car and of course used the tires supplied by General Motors that not only had the white wall on the side but just as the original tires had the white line going down the center of the tread. The car was shown at many shows once it was restored. This 3/8th scale model of the Club de Mer was eventually sequestered by the design staff of General Motors and placed on display in the lobby of the General Motors Tech Center for one year in the early 1990s.
Eventually it was sold to Ron Pratt in the mid-2000s who at that time was a serious Motorama car collector. Ron sold this model at a Barrett-Jackson auction and after that time its fate is unknown to me.
I believe that most serious collectors who are interested in Motorama cars do not realize that there was a 3/8th scale model of the Club de Mer made to look exactly like the full scale model for shows and that it also traveled with the Motorama and was displayed right next to the turn table of the full size 1956 Club de Mer.
Of course I am including a lot of interesting pictures of the full scale Club de Mer and a few of the 3/8th scale model but my favorite has always been what I call “the money picture” of Harley Earl’s grandson receiving a supposed ticket by a police officer.
A fun car, a fun story and a piece of General Motors Motorama history. (Please remember that the Bortz Auto Collection is always hoping that a reader will supply us with another lead for our next concept car discovery. Contact us today at
[email protected] or 847-668-2004 cell).