This Week’s Weird and Wonderful—March 13, 2026 — Explained
It’s time for the Weekly Weird and Wonderful, a vehicular curio cabinet containing a selection of the most interesting vehicles and vehicle-related paraphernalia up for auction on BaT. This list was culled down from approximately 1,000 auctions currently live on the site, so if the below does not slake your thirst, feel free to drink straight from the fire hose.
Enjoy this week’s selection of Weird and Wonderful BaT auctions, and let us know what else you think should be on our list!
1969 Aston Martin DBS Series 1
It is fitting that a man with a squared-off name like “William Towns” would be known for his love of sharp creases and corners. Before his tenure at Aston Martin, he designed the body of the Rover-BRM Le Mans turbine car, but mostly worked on functional items like seats and door handles. He became Head of Design at Aston Martin in 1967, and over the next several years defined the company’s style with cars like the Lagonda, the Bulldog concept, and odder one-offs such as the Microdot City Car. One of his first contributions was the handsomely angular DBS, the successor to the DB6. Acquired by the seller in 2023, this 1969 example recently underwent a $60k refurbishment.
1993 Geo Tracker LSi 4×4 5-Speed w/Camso Track System
We can appreciate that a literal-minded person might look at a normal Geo Tracker and wonder “well, where are the tracks?” Rubber track conversions have come a long way since Adolphe Kégress was installing them on Citröens and Rolls-Royces in the early 1900s. These days, track conversions have become a bolt-on deal for trucks and SUVs. This Tracker features a Camso Track System with built-in gear reduction and anti-rotation arms, all secured in place by lug nuts torqued with a few extra ugga-duggas for good measure. The truck is further kitted out with off-grid essentials such as KC HiLiTES, a cargo rack, a winch, and a grill. The seller has even provided a driving video that demonstrates the vehicle’s full set of capabilities (which includes making hot dogs).
N2A Anteros Targa Coupe 6-Speed
We imagine there were some confused faces in the BaT community when subscribers to the C6 Corvette model page received a notification for this car. If you were among them, we don’t blame you—this removable-roof coupe is a one-of-one build based on a 2005 Corvette by California-based firm N2A (No 2 Alike), now part of ECITE Motors Group. N2A dubbed their creation the Anteros after a lesser-known Greek deity, the god of mutual love and avenger of scorned lovers. Accordingly, its design makes it appear as if the Maserati GranTurismo and C6 Corvette had special feelings for each other. Who knew?
Buick Fireball-Powered Auburn Special and Aircraft-Themed 1931 Cadillac 355A Special Speedster
An Auburn 8-100A Boattail Speedster is one of the most desirable pre-war classics, bar none, and even when it was new it would have taken some serious chutzpah to chop one up and convert it into some sort of oversized grand prix car. But that’s exactly what happened to this example, and by the 1950s, it had become a full-fledged hot rod with a Buick Fireball straight-eight under the hood. The boattail bodywork was discarded for an aviation-inspired look with dual fairings and a cut-down windscreen. All it’s missing is a set of biplane wings and a Vickers machine gun. Even in its old age, it remains a race car, having completed the Great Race endurance rally under current ownership. The Fireball still sounds great—just listen to it pull!
This Cadillac speedster is a more recent creation, and is much more overt in its airborne inspiration. It’s not just the pinup art on the doors and the USAAC roundel on the hood—the rear boattail bodywork was once an engine nacelle on a B-25 Mitchell bomber. Unlike the Auburn, it doesn’t need a machine gun to complete the look—because it already has one, mounted facing the tail to defend against any Huns in the sun.
When you see box flares, there’s usually only one explanation: homologation! VW was late to the WRC party, but in 1989 they built 5,071 supercharged, Syncro-equipped Golf Mk 2 hatches to qualify the platform for Group A rally racing. The cars were never sold in the US, and this one is still on the other side of the Atlantic—in Greece, specifically. It’s been refurbished, and now sports a G60 with some well-chosen upgrades as well as an AVO suspension kit.
The EXP is a racing version of a street car built by a race car builder. And don’t believe your eyes—it is not a coupe, but an open-cockpit beast wearing a prosthetic gullwing cabin. We are through the looking glass, here, folks.
In turning their race car-inspired Stradale back into a race-car-inspired race car, Dallara was treading familiar ground. The car features pro-level equipment like air jacks, fire suppression, an FIA-certified fuel cell, onboard telemetry and video capture, and host of adjustable settings. Oddly enough, air conditioning was carried over from the street car. The aero package is said to provide more than 2,700 lb. of downforce at 180 mph (the whole car weighs less than 2,000 lb.), and the chassis can supposedly endure a brain-displacing 2.7 G of lateral acceleration. With a reworked turbocharged 2.3-liter EcoBoost engine making 500 horsepower, it should have no problem reaching terminal velocity.
1961 Checker Superba Station Wagon for the Gilmore Car Museum
This Checker wagon was never for hire, and this is only the second time it’s ever been for sale. The wagon, one of very few built during Checker’s brief foray into consumer vehicles, remained in the same family for 60 years before becoming part of the Gilmore Museum collection in 2021. Don’t be fooled by the 7,200-mile odometer reading—this car has rolled the clock three times over its lifetime! We would expect nothing less from a Checker.
Cummins 6BT-Powered 1950 Pontiac Deluxe Catalina
However a 5.9-liter Cummins turbodiesel came to be under the hood of a 1950 Pontiac Catalina, ’tis not ours to question why. Perhaps the seller needed to pull up some stumps on the way to the Grand National Roadster Show. The car itself sports a hot-rod-style build including a boxed frame and a Heidts Mustang II IFS with rack-and-pinion steering and front disc brakes. But the agricultural, 1990s-Dodge-pickup exhaust note is sure to confuse the old heads at the filling station. A burning question: where’s the tow hitch?
Tesla-Powered, Grullón GT8–Bodied Custom EV
We suspect the creators of the Grullón GT8 kit car never imagined it paired with anything other than an LS—certainly not EV power. But this isn’t merely a kit car. Builder @dlud purchased just the McLaren F1-inspired fiberglass body—absolutely no refunds—from the Florida-based firm DDR and fabricated a custom chassis. A Tesla-sourced electric motor provides propulsion, while the battery pack doubles as a structural component. This isn’t the builder’s first EV build, either; his previous project was a Jaguar XJS. And while EVs are a polarizing point of contention, it’s hard not to admire the craftsmanship involved here. It even comes with its own operation manual!
If at first glance you see a Pontiac Fiero that’s been stretched out and cross-bred with a Cadillac, you wouldn’t be far off. Zimmer—founded by father-and-son team Paul and Robert Zimmer—was known for building neoclassics during the 1980s, and among the stranger of them was the Quicksilver, designed by none other than ex-GM stylist Don Johnson. For this model, Johnson essentially took a Fiero and stretched it in both directions—13 inches out back and 16 inches up front—before giving it a dose of opulent, oh-so-’80s styling. Underneath, it remained all Fiero. Around 170 examples were built, and this one was purchased by the seller in October 2025.
Now we’ll hi-yo, Quicksilver, away and leave you with this period road test from Car and Driver‘s April 1987 issue for your Friday afternoon reading pleasure.
Honorable Mentions:
Jeep Crane Claw Arcade Machine
Skeptics of the Jeep “ducking” trend might slap their foreheads, but think of it this way: has anyone ever won anything out of a claw machine? If anything, this device makes it more difficult for Jeep fans to obtain colorful rubber ducks to put on each other’s vehicles. In that sense, it’s as ingenious as it is devious.
Westinghouse J34 Jet Engine Display
When a rare vehicle appears in a BaT auction, it sometimes seems to hit a vein, and more examples come through on its heels. This is the first time we’ve had that happen with jet engines. Last week, a Westinghouse J34-powered Krispy Kritter Mustang sold right here; lo and behold, this week brings us this funky J34 turbofan floor lamp. Illumination comes from a trio of light bulbs running off of a 120V wall plug, which produce a much more soothing light than what would have come from an operational engine’s 1,200º exhaust.
Auto Union director William Werner was so impressed by Ford’s then-new Thunderbird during a Stateside trip that he instructed chief stylist Josef Dienst to design something similar for the 1000 SP. The result became known as the “German Thunderbird,” though the resemblance ran only skin deep. This is one of 5,000 coupes made between 1958 and 1965, and it’s back on BaT with Local Partner @911r.
Continuing with the mythical creature theme, we have this 1953 Kaiser Dragon. The name comes not from its bodywork, but from the reptilian upholstery used inside the cabin. This example is one of 1,277 cars produced for the 1953 model year. And don’t worry, no flying reptiles were harmed in its making—the supposed hides are made from a unique patterned vinyl.
Thanks for checking out this edition of the Weekly Weird & Wonderful! Follow this page to get updates when new installments post, and tell what caught your eye or what you think we’ve left out!
