Crazy novelty cars they just couldn’t resist making

Some people say that today’s cars are boring. Certainly when observing a traffic jam half full of medium-sized crossovers, we might sometimes agree. This, however, is an antidote to homogenised cars: it’s about cars that were genuine novelties, designed to grab public attention and to usually promote one product or other. Let’s take a look.

TOM EVANS

Studebaker giant car

Studebaker’s President range evolved to a peak for the 1931 model year and is considered the finest the company ever produced. To promote it, Studebaker built “the largest car in the world”, a wood and plaster-cast model 41 feet long, 15 feet wide and 13.5 feet tall, and weighing five tonnes. The roadster featured in a nine-minute film played in RKO cinemas across America, where it was used as a prop by entertainers called the ‘Studebaker Champions’. It was located outside the gate of Studebaker’s proving ground near South Bend, Indiana – incidentally now operated by Volkswagen’s Navistar arm – complete with a silhouette of a six-foot man to emphasise its scale. Sadly, by 1936, company bosses decreed that the giant car had outlived its usefulness and burned it to the ground in just 30 minutes.