1951 Muntz Jet Roadster

Earl Muntz was flamboyant. Outrageous. A huckster nonpareil. A born tinkerer, serial entrepreneur, and irrepressible wheeler-dealer too. He built a radio at eight and owned a used car lot by 20, though his mother had to sign the paperwork as he was too young to write his own deals. At 27, he headed for fame, fortune, and the bright lights of LA.

Earl soon owned several used car lots, and an alter ego, 'Madman' Muntz, an outrageous, zany rapscallion shouting from billboards and ubiquitous radio commercials, 'I buy 'em retail, sell 'em wholesale.' Wacky stunts and oddball commercials made him both famous and wealthy. Then, against all conventional wisdom, there was Earl Muntz, auto industrialist. Frank Kurtis, a well-known race car builder, had designed an ill-fated aluminum-bodied sports car. Muntz bought him out, and suddenly, the faux-crazy, used-car salesman was an automobile magnate. The newly rechristened Jet now sported a back seat, rear console bar, and 112 mph top end courtesy of a Cadillac V-8. Its wild colors and exotic interiors of alligator and leopard skin appealed to the Hollywood set.

Though stylish and elegant, it failed. Muntz advertised, 'My prices are so cheap, I lose money on every deal, but make it up in volume.' Unfortunately, this was true. He lost $1,000 on every car, and by 1954 the doors closed. 394 Jets were sold; 49 are known to exist today. This car was the second Jet built and was featured regularly in publicity shots with Muntz. The current owner rescued it from a Chicago junkyard and paid the grand sum of $60.