A few months ago, in the Lost and Found pages of Hemmings Classic Car, we began the hunt for the remaining Mechanix Illustrated Specials, a type of do-it-yourself car that capitalized on the late 1940s/early 1950s sport-special craze, but which combined elements of early kit car building, hot rodding and junkyard digging. Mechanix Illustrated offered the plans for the MI Special for many years during the 1950s and exhibited photos of completed examples at every chance they got, but the whole thing started in November 1951, when the magazine presented Bob Whitehead’s progenitor of the species in a “How I did this, and how you can too” type of article. How much of this is actually safe is debatable (and the aesthetics certainly aren’t for everybody), but, as we’ve written before, this is exactly the kind of DIY ethic we miss seeing nowadays.
Out-of-gallery pages: cover, page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10, page 11
