Understanding this Week’s Weird and Wonderful—July 17, 2026
For much of the North American population, today is a day to stay inside if you can, lest one be exposed to excessive smoke, tainted lettuce, and other modern perils. To keep you from going stir-crazy, we have assembled for your viewing pleasure a curated list of the most interesting and noteworthy vehicles currently on BaT. This week’s installment contains two military vehicles, three race bikes, two fantastic tribute cars, and the coolest woodie wagon you’ve ever seen. But there was such an abundance that we had to leave things like a DeTomaso Mangusta and an LS3-swapped Mercedes tour bus on the cutting room floor. Not to worry, they can still be seen on our live auctions page, which currently hosts around 1,200 vehicles.
Enjoy this week’s selection of Weird and Wonderful BaT auctions, and let us know what else you think should be on our list!
In British military doctrine, the “cruiser tank” functioned much like mounted cavalry on the classical battlefield. Their role was to slash through the front lines, find and attack supply lines, then wheel around and flank the enemy. All well and good, but to do this they traded armor for speed. The Comet’s predecessor, the Cromwell, used a 6-pounder shell that, while lethal, couldn’t take out the heavier German armor and artillery pieces. The Comet solved this with a 77mm, 17-pound shell, and threw in some extra armor protection, to boot. Speed was only slightly lower, thanks to the Rolls-Royce Meteor V12, a naturally-aspirated variant of the famous Merlin adapted for use in tanks. As a nod to this tank’s high-performance mission, the engineers included a gated five-speed shifter for the driver.
1948 Mercury Wagon Woody Marmon-Herrington 4×4
Remember Marmon? Their Wasp racer won the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, and they went on to build a series of luxury sedans and coupes that were prized by Jazz Age celebrities and entertainers. They were laid low by the Great Depression, but came back as Marmon-Herrington, a maker of 4×4 systems and even light armored vehicles (that still exists today!). These were often commercial vehicles, but this Mercury woodie conversion is one of a limited run of station wagons that were made in partnership with FoMoCo into the late 1940s. This one was refurbished and put on museum display, but was recently recommissioned. We can’t imagine risking this masterful piece of woodwork off-road, but hardpack backroads could still be plenty of fun.
The adage “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” may have been coined in the 1960s, but the concept had been proven out decades before. The Lagonda company found new life when its M45R won the 1935 Le Mans race, motivating new boss Alan P. Good and his Technical Director W.O. Bentley to use the victory as the springboard for the LG45—an updated version of their 4.5-liter line. The big Lagonda featured a number of improvements similar to those of the Le Mans-winning car, including its revised 4,453cc Meadows inline-six reworked by Bentley himself. This 1936 Lagonda LG45, one of approximately 300 examples produced, began life as a drophead coupe and was transformed with a fully open tourer-style rear sometime in the early 1970s. It has resided in California since the early 1960s, and is now offered as a project.
468-Powered 1969 Ford Torino GT Fastback 4-Speed Track Car
Cale Yarborough was the only man tough enough to take the wheel of a stock car with the name “Cale Yarborough” on the door. Thankfully, this one is a replica that was built around 1980 to promote the Charlotte Motor Speedway, so it is perhaps a little less intimidating. Yarborough never drove a regular-body Torino on the track—his Wood Brothers racing cars were either Mercury Cyclones or Torino Talladegas, though this car has been built authentically (maybe by Holman Moody) with a roll cage, stripped interior, and other racing equipment. 46 years of patina have given this car a battle-worn look, and the milquetoast 302 that once resided in the engine bay has been replaced by a monstrous 468ci crate motor. Time to go make some enemies at Goodwood!
Ex–Mary McGee 1975 Husqvarna 250 CR GP Project & Memorabilia Collection
Meet the late “Motorcycle” Mary McGee: a pioneering motocross racer who became the first person (and still the only woman) to “iron-woman” the 1975 Baja 500, reportedly aboard this very 1975 Husqvarna 250 CR GP. In 2024, shortly after she passed, she was the subject of an episode of ESPN’s film series 30 for 30 Short, which we highly recommend if you’d like to learn more about her life. Today, this bike is offered as a non-running project and includes memorabilia from McGee’s racing career.
1975 Toyota Celica 2000 GT 5-Speed
This rare twin-cam Celica from the Swig Family Collection was instrumental in the creation of the 24 Hours of LeMons, though the car itself is obviously far too nice to pass scrutineering for the event. Shortly after we posted @sludgo‘s interview with @hardtuned, this car went live, and hardtuned Jeff sent us a note saying that this is the very car Martin Swig drove to the “No-Frills Iron Bottom Dinner” where Swig, Jay Lamm, and Jeff first came up with the idea of endurance racing with clapped-out cast-offs. But back to the car—the Liftback Celica was undoubtedly inspired by late 1960s American musclecars, and while it never approached them in terms of brute power, the rare 2000 GT variant got a hot DOHC four with a Yamaha-designed top end and two brilliantly-constructed Mikuni Solex carbs.
1959 Alvis TD21 Graber Special Fixed-Head Coupe
When Alvis sought to update its luxury portfolio, it turned to their Swiss partner Graber Carosserie to style their new model—the Alvis TC21. The Graber-penned TD21 succeeded the TC21, and while Park Ward built the majority of the bodies, Graber hammered out a limited number itself. This example is one of 785 Series 1 cars built, and it features a fixed-head coupe body produced by Graber. The selling dealer @finecarsgmbh is offering this specimen out of Schöftland, Switzerland, on behalf of its longtime owner, who carried out a bare-metal repaint and restored a number of components.
Modified DUKW 6×4 Amphibious Vehicle
This rare Studebaker-based DUKW never had its draft number called, and instead lived a peaceful maritime existence hauling tourists as vessel in the Ride the Ducks Seattle fleet until 2021. It was brought to us by star seller @Symbolic_International who, along with other commenters, have included a hefty tranche of duck jokes at no additional cost.
Ferrari V8-Powered 2000 Scuderia Maranello-Nogaro Technologie MR400 Prototype
We love coming across prototype racers on the site, and BaT Local Partner @GemClassicCars brings us this gem. The MR400 prototype was built by Belgian firm Scuderia Maranello for a one-make racing series that never came to fruition. The design came from one Claude Fior, whose work spanned a variety of two- and four-wheeled vehicles. Just 10 examples were produced, and this one’s powered by a screaming longitudinally-mounted Ferrari V8. It was owned by one of the firm’s accountants until 2022, and has since appeared in a number of events.
1970 MV Agusta 750S and 1977 MV Agusta 750S America
Ducati is often thought of as the motorcycle equivalent of Ferrari, but MV Agusta is a much more precise analog. Much like Enzo Ferrari, Count Domenico Agusta sold motorcycles to support his racing addiction (37 different championships between 1950 and 1976), and for the most part they were cripplingly expensive, achingly gorgeous machines. This 750S from 1970 is one of the rarest from the company’s golden era, made just one year before Count Agusta passed. Just nine were built that year. To quote Ian Falloon, its appearance was “massive and brutal, close-up the individual components had an intricate, almost delicate character. Inside it was a masterpiece of precision castings, gears, needle and ball bearings.” Peter from @moto.borgotaro picked up this bike in 1994, and spent a considerable sum getting it renovated and running. There’s no video included with the listing (yet) but the 2023 video above shows the very same bike on the streets of Brooklyn, New York near the moto.borgotaro facility. You’ll have to listen close since there’s narration, but you can still hear what Falloon described as the best-sounding motorcycle engine ever.
The 750S America continued the thought started by its predecessor above, but with updated race-inspired styling proposed by US-based MV importer and distributor Chris Garville and MV retailer and racer Jim Cotherman. It also got US-spec equipment like turn signals and left-side shifting. This one also has the optional fairing.
Honorable Mentions:
1981 Ford Escort EV 4-Speed Project
This little Escort was transformed into an EV by the Electric Vehicle Associates of Cleveland, Ohio, in the 1980s, and served as a pilot-program vehicle for the Indianapolis Power and Light Company. It packs period electrical tech, and the seller says it could benefit from modern battery technology.
221 Flathead-Powered Kurtis-Duvall Southern California Plating Delivery Wagon Re-Creation
The famed Kurtis-Duvall Southern California Plating Delivery Wagon, a stylish customized runabout used by the company who made Kurtis race cars, has unfortunately been lost to time. More fortunately, the seller and his son recreated the missing artifact atop the platform of a 1936 Ford Fordor Sedan.
1948 Packard Super Eight Deluxe Extended-Wheelbase Sedan for Packard Proving Grounds and 1956 Packard Patrician for Packard Proving Grounds
The people at Packard Proving Grounds have provided proof of their proven Packards, and the proceeds from their proffering purportedly profit the Packard Proving Grounds philanthropy.
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!
