well that's a candidate for project car hell if I ever saw one!

Awesome. Just....awesome. I'm crying a little, here. Tears of joy.

What an incredible find! It just goes to show that eventually anything will end up in mexico.

Save Orbitron!

Since it lacks documentation, will the INS have to get involved now?

It's a shame to see such a custom built automobile in this shape. Daryl Starbird also made many "bubble cars" in his day. I'd say they're about 40 years old or more and they still look great. I think the hardest part to replace would be the bubble top. As is, this looks like something Herman Munster would drive.

I think as a kid I had every Big Daddy model car kit they put out. I loved his "Out There" design approach. I'm glad they found this one.

As a lad in high school I would go to the Great Western Exihibit next to the Santa Ana Freway and just be blown away by the show cars back then. "Big Daddy" was about the most far out of the group. Having one of his air brushed tee shirts was a real prize. It's great the car was found and may be restored.

If that fiberglass could talk...

Very, very cool!, I would love more on the way it was found,did that sleezy little sex shop in the background have anything to do with it?,hope to see this restored just as Big Daddy Roth built it.

@2006Jeeptj:

The bubble top wouldn't be hard to reproduce. Roth's own process involved compressed air and a pizza oven.

Spectacular find. Absolutely amazing.

All I can say is "Wow". For a child of the 60's, Ed Roth and his cars were just the coolest. Check this link [www.mrgasser.com] for brief info on his work.
Also, if you haven't seen the movie "Tales of the Rat Fink" it's a cool look at his life and work. [imdb.com]

The movie is a little weak but still shows some pretty cool stuff.

It wasn't that it had a SB Chevy engine, Roth blamed its lack of showcar/model kit appeal on the fact that the engine was completely hidden. Nearly all of his other show cars had exposed engines.

One of the cooler facts about the Orbitron is that it was the project Roth was working on when Tom Wolfe profiled him in "Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby."

I believe this leaves his masterpiece, The Mysterion, as the only Roth car not accounted for. Michigan's Dave Shuten made a painstaking replica that is now in the Petersen museum.

Damn, that is about the coolest thing to be a "barn find" in years. It is pretty amazing to see these old cars take on "museum status" 30 to 40 years later. And rightfully so. I'd rather look at those old cars than so ole snouty art collection anyday. You know somewhere Mr. Roth is smiling..

inspiration for "The Homer?"

if the horn plays la-cucaracha (sp?), count me in.

I think that my panties just fell off!

@badco: That's a cool peice of information. Would be neat to see how it's done, are there any websites with info?

@2006Jeeptj: Maybe I'm a little twisted, but I'm alright with the shape of this car. Hope springs eternal, or something like that. It's not wrecked, and it's not a trailer queen. It'd be a better story if some guy was using it as his daily driver, but still, original quality is within reach, so for now, someone still gets to restore it, and they're probably going to enjoy that (they'd better, at least).

@2006jeeptj

Not sure how Roth did it exactly, but look up vacuum forming, drape forming, or thermo forming.

Basically,

1. heat a sheet of plastic with oven, an array of heatlamps, very large magnifying glass, whatever.
2. let drape over form, use vacuum to suck down over form, or use air to inflate into a nice bubble.

see, we've turned into a virtual Project Car Hell! What engine shall we fit? And what about the wheels?

Hey everyone I owned this car, traded a Jap motorcycle to a used car dealer for it (this is documented in Tony Thackers Book about Ed). I actually drove it to high school in the early 70's.It was never produced as a Revell model because the said it looked to much like the Road Agent. When I traded for it, it didn't run (had no engine internals). The car was a real pain to drive.