If you've played with Hot Wheels cars in the last forty years, you've seen the Dodge Deora concept. It was a one-off custom A100 Cabover concept loaded with far-out style. Now it's going to auction in real life.
The Deora was the work of two brothers, Mike and Larry Alexander, who won the Detroit Autorama Ridler Award many times over, and they wanted to do something in the mid-60s with the slew of cabover pickups hitting the market. Starting with a stock 1965 Dodge A100 Cabover (which the project designer Harry Bentley Bradley considered the ugliest of the competition) provided by Chrysler, they unitized the body, chopped and channeled and massaged and smoothed the trucklet down to something they liked. Then there was the problem of the door. Instead of doors on the side, they went with a huge two piece front hatch adapted from a Ford station wagon to provide the entry point. After all was said and done, they dusted it with a metallic yellow-green paint, took it to the '67 Detroit Autorama and the rest is history.
Now the creation instantly recognizable to any hot-rod history buff is heading to the RM auction block Saturday, September 26; Expected haul in the neighborhood of $350,000-$550,000. But really, what's money when you're driving around something this unique? And yes, that is a rip-snorting 115 HP slant six with an Offy intake under the... um... hood? (Thanks for the tip Matt) [RM Auctions]
Photo credit RM Auctions