This Week’s Weird and Wonderful—May 29, 2026 You Should Know
It’s Friday and you’re back on BaT for another round of the Weekly Weird and Wonderful. Today’s edition does not disappoint, for among the requisite oddballs are some vehicles with serious provenance. These are not the only interesting autos on the site, of course, and if you’re looking to spend your evening in a soundbath of internal combustion engine noises, we encourage you to explore some of the more of the >1,000 cars currently posted on our live auctions page.
Enjoy this week’s selection of Weird and Wonderful BaT auctions, and let us know what else you think should be on our list!
1953 Aston Martin 2.0-Litre “DB1” Spider Paul Jackman Special
A question that is always tucked away in the corner of our mind is: what if Anne of Green Gables were a car? Well, now we have our answer. This here “Aston Martin” is a junkyard special that was built on the damp floor of a shared garage bay in the early 1950s, and, like plucky outsider Anne Shirley, was later adopted into a noble family. The car was the side project of then-Aston development lead Paul Jackman. Starting with a stout but rusty prewar BMW 320 chassis, he sawed and welded and bolted parts together, then dropped in a spare motor that was hanging around in the workshop in Newport Pagnell—a race-tuned 2.0-liter OHV inline-four that had previously powered an Aston Martin DB1 to 11th overall at the 1949 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The coachwork was beaten and rolled by Green & May over a tubular framework of Jackman’s own design. He recounted the car being quick, and capable of cruising comfortably at 90 mph. It became a beloved member of the Aston Martin community when it was given a chassis number, which is now recorded in the DB1 registry as a “Works Experimental Chassis.”
Ex-Briggs Cunningham 1961 Cooper Monaco Mk III
The listing title name-checks Briggs Cunningham, but the provenance of this T61 Cooper Monaco goes a little further back. A 24-year-old Bruce McLaren initially completed the car for its privateer owner and took it racing in the US with hopes of capturing generous SCCA and USAC prizes. After a few top-five results, it was sold to Briggs Cunningham, and it was Cunningham who transformed it into a winning car.
Lance Reventlow was chosen to oufit the car with a Buick V8—a sort of proto-King Cobra, and Bridgehampton ace Walt Hangsen drove it to victory at his favorite track twice. But sports car racing was advancing rapidly, and by 1963, its King Cobra cousin and other larger V8-powered machines were crowding the podium, and Can Am racing was just over the horizon. Though its time in the limelight was short, this car played an important role in the golden age of American auto racing, and we’re honored that @FantasyJunction has brought it here to find a new owner.
1988 Panther Kallista for The Automobile Gallery
The classic short-boot-long-bonnet British roadster returned in the 1980s as part of the Neo Classic trend, though this Panther came back with a Korean passport. Korean industrialist Young C. Kim saved Panther Westwind from its demise in the 1980s, and revamping the Morgan-ish Panther Lima into the Kallista was his first order of business. To keep costs in check, the Kallista’s aluminum bodywork was stamped in South Korea and shipped back to King Arthur’s land to be assembled atop a boxed chassis powered by a Ford four-pot.This LHD example was one of approximately 148 cars sold in the US.
Twin-Turbocharged 2014 Falcon F7
Who among us hasn’t at some point harbored a desire to build a snarling mid-engine supercar? Jeff Lemke, who founded Falcon Motorsports in 2009, was one of the rare few who had the wherewithal to make good on this impulse. The result was a carbon fiber and kevlar-bodied machine that paid tribute to many of his favorite performance cars, powered by either a naturally aspirated or twin-turbocharged Lingenfelter-built LS7 V8. This particular example was the only one fitted with the latter, and produces over 1,100 horsepower. Keep your foot planted long enough and it’ll carry you to the far side of 200 mph.
If you asked your fairy godmother for the ultimate Z, she’d give you the Z432 (unless she could come up with the even-rarer Z432R homologation special). The 432 is a high-performance Z car powered by the Skyline 2000GT-R’s S20 inline-six, featuring four valves per cylinder, three side-draft carburetors, and two overhead camshafts. Some 420 examples were made for the Japanese market, and chassis 524 was treated to a refurbishment during the early 2000s. It was featured on BaT back in 2015, and @Raffi brought it back on behalf of its current owner. All that’s missing now is a driving video. We need to hear the song of its people!
1981 Chevrolet Citation X-11 4-Speed
Everybody knows that the Beach Boys sang about cars like the 409-powered Chevy Impala, their Deuce Coupe, and a T-bird, but few remember that the girl from whom they were picking up “good vibrations,” was the one who gave was giving them X-Citations. The X-11 Citation arrived in 1980, but the 1981 model year was the sweet spot for Chevy’s hot hatch. It picked up a high-output 2.8L V6 to better deliver on its sporting ambitions, and in this Burnt Orange example, the 135-horse engine was paired it with a four-speed gearbox.. It made it through the Malaise intact and looks remarkably clean today!
“Airnado” Oldsmobile Toronado-Powered, Airstream-Bodied Camper
The Oldsmobile Toronado is a creature that has its own steel exoskeleton, but on rare occasion, if left outside too long or injured in an impact, it can become a symbiont, adopting the outer covering from another creature in order to extend its life. In this case, the Toro found new shelter in the form of a 1967 Land Yacht 20’ Globetrotter travel trailer. The grafting was done in the early ’80s by a former toolmaker, and the interior of the shell was made over by the current owner, a YouTube creator who goes by “Mav.” The video of his interior buildout has over 850,000 views, so if you’re looking to move into the hermit community and make lots of new friends, this could be your ticket.
Twin-Engined, Custom All-Wheel-Drive 2002 Mini Cooper S NASA Race Car
Every major commercial airline opts for planes with two or more engines. Why? Because redundancy equals safety. Clearly that’s what motivated the builder of this twin-engine Mini. Why else would he have opted for all-wheel-drive? Why else would he protect himself with a roll cage? If your parents or significant other are the kind who worry about your safety on the road, we suggest you bring them straight to this listing page to show them the safest vehicle you could possibly drive. It’s even Jay Leno approved!
Ex–”Mad Mike” Whiddett 1974 Mazda Rotary Pickup Drift-Style Pit Truck
For those of you struggling to make sense of this truck, please view the above video of “Mad Mike” Whiddett and his menagerie of rotary-powered, tire smoking creations torching the bales at Goodwood. This REPU is perhaps the mildest vehicle he was known to operate, though it strikes an aggressive pose with its drift-ready look. If its bridge-ported 13B rotary doesn’t do it for you, there’s plenty of room left in the engine bay, and Mad Mike might have something else rattling around in the back of the shop.
1936 Railton Fairmile Drophead Coupe
We should all have the kind of persistence that Railton founder Noel Macklin had. His first automotive enterprise, Invicta, produced spectacular small-batch cars from costly materials, but ultimately struggled to find buyers. So he started over, and this time set out to build a budget-friendly sports car: the Railton. Hudson provided the chassis and running gear, famed vehicle designer Reid Railton (responsible for the Napier Railton and the Blue Bird) gave his name, and a whole gamut of British coachbuilders supplied the bodies. They briefly held the title of the fastest production car in the world. Macklin’s company was purchased by Hudson in 1939, then quickly done in by the war. This Fairmile drophead coupe underwent a refurbishment toward the tail end of the 1990s, and a number of its systems were most recently refreshed in November 2025.
Honorable Mentions
One-Owner 2004 Saleen S7 Twin Turbo
Fun fact: the Saleen S7 was designed to have twin turbos from the git. It finally got them in 2005, making this 2004 example one of the final naturally-aspirated cars built. Its owner wasted no time calling up Saleen and demanding the factory twin-turbo conversion, and today it sports a new twin-turbo setup put together by Nth Moto.
3.8-Powered 1966 Jaguar XKE Series I Coupe Rally Car
The cool thing about cats is that they are essentially half-domestic creatures, equally at home hunting in the woods or curling up inside a cozy garage under a cover.
“These are speed holes. They make the car go faster.”
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