It’s Friday, you’re probably on a sugar crash after pilfering too much Halloween candy, and if you’re reading this, your bleary eyes are still staring at your computer screen. Your focus is fried, and only a healthy dose of four-wheeled stimulation can help you snap out of it. To that end, we bring you the Weekly Weird and Wonderful—a curated list of the highlights and the heterodox culled from over 1,300 auctions currently live on the site.
We hope you enjoy this week’s installment, and if you do, head on over and subscribe to get updates whenever the next post goes live.
1973 Iso Grifo IR-8 Series II
While most Grifo variants had Chevy small block power (and 90 of them got Chevy 427s), the IR-8 was fitted with the 351ci Ford Cleveland V8 from the contemporary Boss 351 and a raised “pagoda” hood scoop, also referred to by many as the “penthouse” (tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to), to create extra headroom for the taller Ford lump. This example underwent a refurbishment in the 2020s and is now offered on dealer consignment by our Belgian Local Partner @speed8classics.
1980 Tatra T613 Ambulance
The regular production T613 is strange enough that we included our last one in the Weekly Weird and Wonderful about a year back. Today’s ambulance conversion ups the ante considerably. Despite looking like a Modernist abstraction from the Zagreb School, the lines of the T613 were actually penned by Vignale in Italy. Guess they knew their audience. This car was used to transport patients to hospitals in its homeland of Czechoslovakia, and presumably came to the US in the great post-Soviet fire sale of the 1990s. Jeff Lane must get an itch on his elbow any time he’s within a couple thousand miles of a vehicle this quirky; this one was part of his collection until earlier this year.
1961 Robur Garant 30K 4×4 Fire Truck
Here’s another service vehicle that spent its career on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The truck was made by Robur, a government-owned company that produced utility vehicles from the end of WWII until the reunification of Germany in 1991. In good German fashion, it is powered by an air-cooled four-cylinder. Once free from the state surveillance apparatus, this beast retired to a firefighting museum, and is now being sold out of the Netherlands with a collection of period firefighting and medical gear.
1929 Pierce-Arrow Model 133 Club Brougham
Long before the term “bugeye” was ever applied to the Austin-Healey Sprite (or the early second-generation Subaru Impreza), the look was first patented by designer Herbert Dawley for Pierce-Arrow models of the early 20th century, and became woven into the automaker’s identity—or, rather, bolted onto its fenders. But that factoid was a red herring! This 1929 Pierce-Arrow Model 133 is unique for its lack of bugeye headlamps, an option that was available at no charge for customers living in states whose laws prohibited Pierce’s preferred equipment. The car wears Club Brougham coachwork and has been with its current owner since 2002.
Custom-Bodied Lancia Special
The machine before you wears a body that was hammered out in the 2010s during a refurbishment in collaboration with the son of Agostino Accadia, who originally constructed this special with pieces from an Aprilia Series II in the 1950s. As the story goes, Accadia Senior slapped a windshield on his creation after it turned out to be too heavy for competition, drove it for a while, and then let it slip from view, to resurface in Italy decades later.
1926 Auto Red Bug Buckboard
@Swingandamiss has a a real talent for unearthing the automotive oddities hiding off of New England backroads. This buckboard cyclecar is a predecessor to the go-kart, made at a time when American families were larger and could perhaps spare a kid or two. They could be purchased at high-end outfitters and toy stores—this one came from F.A.O. Schwartz—and were outfitted with electric and gas power at various times during their 11-year production run. This buckboard was already an oddity when first awarded by the AACA in 1975, and is of course even rarer today. In an alternate timeline where Charles Foster Kane was a petrolhead, his dying words would have been: red bug…
Five-Decades-Owned Custom 1969 Dodge A108 Van 318
The man who built this van said he named it “Clouded Judgment” because the police kept pulling him over for “inappropriate lighting.” Uh-huh. While it does indeed light up like a flying saucer, this cosmic voyager seems better outfitted for a journey into the mind. Its lone captain’s chair is surrounded by a drop-down video screen and 10 amplifiers powering an entire Good Guys-worth of speakers. If the trip isn’t going well, there’s room for a sleeping bag on the floor (as noted by the builder). Or, one could maybe just float away through the sliding bubble canopy up top.
Ex-Liberace 1976 Auburn Boattail Speedster Replica by Auburn Speedster Co.
Liberace! That’s quite a provenance for this boattail replica, which was used by the legendary entertainer as a stage prop in his glitzy Las Vegas stage show in the 1980s. The car was sold by his estate following his death in 1987, and was acquired by the seller in 2020. It was serviced in 2022 to the tune of $9.8k, and its red motif with gold pinstriping ensures that you won’t go unnoticed when driving it, even sans white fur cape.
13k-Mile 1985 Oldsmobile Calais 500 Pace Car Edition
In 1985, pace laps at the Indianapolis 500 would have been run between 85–110 mph, beginning right where the speedometer of the stock Olds Calais maxed out. The one-off convertible driven by James Garner for the race used a significantly hopped-up version of the Iron Duke four to keep the speed up. The commemorative cars issued to dealers were more keepsakes than factory hot rods—they got a spiffy appearance package, but the standard engine remained a tepid 92-horse version of the venerable four paired up with a three-speed slushbox. This one goes one better with the 125-horse, 3.0-liter V6.
Euro 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS Quattrovalvole w/Koenig Widebody
German racer and publisher Willy König established his tuning empire by modifying Ferraris, beginning with a 365 GT4 Berlinetta, before turning to a variety of German and English cars throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This European-spec 308 GTS QV wears a Koenig widebody kit that functions as its own German passport, allowing it to be offered as part of the 2026 DriverSource Oktmotorfest collection. Federalized in the early 1980s, it more recently underwent a timing belt service as well as getting a set of QA1 coilovers and Michelin rubber.
Honorable Mentions:
1989 Aston Martin Lagonda 2-Door Conversion
Between last week’s 4-door Barracuda and the quad-door 911S featured in the latest Question of the Week, we felt the need to switch things up. This Aston Martin Lagonda 2-door conversion took place during the 2010s, and the result closely mirrors the silhouette of the Virage 2-door prototype.
2015 Titan 33′ RIB and 2006 Zodiac Hurricane 1110 36′ RIB
Normally, local law enforcement just wave you off when you offer to help them look for “floaters.” Show up with a Thermos full of coffee and one of these bad boys on the trailer, and your odds of getting deputized will go up dramatically.
Ex-Paul Reinhart 1956 Chevrolet Corvette Race Car
We are suckers for old Corvette racers. This C1 belonged to two-time SCCA B-Production champion Paul Reinhart; it was built using parts from the original car in which he earned his palmarès, and is finished in a Union 76 “Minute Man” livery. There’s lots of great detail in the listing and comments, so we’ll leave you with this video exploring the upper reaches of the tach at Apex Motor Club in Arizona.
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