With educations in both engineering and auto design burning a hole in his head, along with the joyful determination of youth, Bob Johnson set out to build himself a car. It was 1966, and Bob had just finished two years at the Art Center School in Los Angeles when he decided he wanted to pursue engineering, so he enrolled in Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, moved back in with his parents, worked at the Rockleigh Esso station evenings and weekends, and began building his sports car in his parents’ one-car garage.
Volkswagen-based, the car had more of the proportions of the contemporary muscle cars than of the low-slung fiberglass kit cars that appeared the following decade, but employed razor edges just about everywhere but the wheelwells. Bob said he finished it in 1968, then simply gave it to his boss at the Esso station, who moved the station to Toms River in 1974, and who let his sons play with the car. Bob lost track of it then, but went on to a successful career in design, starting with Bob Bourke Associates from 1971 to 1975, where he said he was responsible for the Rabbit pickup and the Volvo 760, among other automotive, industrial and consumer design projects.
Back to the car: Can anybody help us help Bob locate it?
