Two years ago, Stephen O’Brien came to us with a photo of a fiberglass car that he owned while stationed at Williams Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arizona, in the mid-1950s, but never knew exactly what it was, noting the unique sidemount spare tire wells cut into the body, the dual-carburetor six-cylinder engine and the electronic door poppers. He sold it after moving to Texas in 1956, and had just a couple fuzzy photos of it. Our best guess at the time was a Glasspar with a modified grille area.
In the meantime, John has come forward with a photo of a fiberglass car his father once owned, looking for information on it and where it might be. He writes:
I am trying to identify and hopefully track down a vehicle that was in my family back in the mid 50’s in Phoenix Arizona. I am attaching a photo that was taken by my father in Phoenix some time between 1952 and 1955. I am not sure of the exact year of the photo.
It shows a car that appears to me to be a Glasspar. This car, per my father (who has since passed away) was white with a red Moroccan leather interior. He described it as having some sort of fancy solenoids that operated the doors as well.
Looks to be the same car, doesn’t it? Stephen agreed that John’s father was indeed the prior owner of the car, and even recalled a few extra details (it had an automatic transmission behind the six), so now both Stephen and John are on the hunt for more information on the car. They still don’t know who built it or when exactly it was built, nor do they know what happened to it after Stephen sold it.
Geoff Hacker of Forgotten Fiberglass thinks he might be able to help them on that latter quest; he’s found two Glasspars in Quartzsite, Arizona, that seem to match that unusual grille opening. In addition, one has similar tube bumpers, while the other has a similar steering wheel and hole cut into the dash for the tachometer; yet one has a Chevrolet W-series V-8 engine, while the other hasn’t yet had its doors cut out. Neither Glasspar has the spare tire wells, but as Geoff noted, those could very well have been smoothed over in the intervening 50-plus years. John is currently arranging a trip to Quartzsite to inspect the two cars.
So what do you think? Could one of the two Quartzsite cars be the car in question? Or is it still out there, waiting to be discovered?