Edsel Ford was the only son of the most famous man of the pre-1950 era, the redoubtable Henry Ford. Unfortunately Edsel is remembered today for the Edsel car, one of the biggest marketing flops of the 20th century, even though it all transpired long after his death.

Yet Edsel Ford was one of the most influential tastemakers in car design, a modernist at a time when others were designing glorified carriages. We can see the evidence in his 1934 Ford Model 40 Speedster, one of the earliest true concept cars from Ford.

This car recently drove across the block at the RM Auctions function in Amelia Island and was purchased for $1.76 million. It had hidden for decades in a Florida garage. We know the story and we’ve even driven the car.

Why Did Edsel Ford Build This Car?
President of Ford Motor Company from 1925 until his untimely death in 1943 from cancer and undulant fever, Edsel Bryant Ford designed many important cars in his day, notably the 1932 Ford and the concept that became the first Lincoln Continental. An accomplished artist who took art lessons all his life, Edsel took a particular interest in design and styling, an issue that didn’t interest his puritanical father.

Before Edsel’s involvement, Ford’s no-frills styling emanated from Ford’s ultra-conservative engineering department. Edsel established Ford’s first design group and chose E.T. “Bob” Gregorie, to run it. Gregorie, who’d worked briefly at Harley Earl’s General Motors Art and Colour design studio, was an accomplished sketch artist who was adept at translating his boss’ visions into reality.

Edsel and Bob Gregorie began their collaboration in 1932. After Edsel returned from a European trip, he asked Gregorie to design and supervise construction of a sports car like those he’d seen “…on the continent.”

A Car Is Born
The result, a custom-built boattail speedster on a ‘32 Ford chassis, was a smart-looking runabout with styling cues that foretold the 1933 Ford production cars. But Edsel wanted something even more dramatic. Early in 1934, the two men planned a second, more contemporary speedster with a unique streamlined shape. Gregorie sketched several alternatives, then built a 1/25th-scale model and tested it in a wind tunnel in Ford Aviation’s Air Frame Building.

To achieve a dramatically low silhouette, Gregorie reversed the stock ‘34 Ford frame’s rear kick-up and welded it back upside-down, so the frame rails passed under the rear axle. Using custom suspension parts, the front axle was moved forward 10 inches. A two-passenger, taper-tailed aluminum body with a vee grille and cut-down doors was mounted on a tubular framework. Wheel pants from the Ford Tri-motor airplane were fashioned into cycle fenders. The wire wheels were fitted with aerodynamic wheel discs.

Painted Pearl Essence Gunmetal Dark (a shade Edsel favored) and outfitted with a gray leather interior, the 2,400-pound Speedster was powered by a stock 75-horsepower Ford Model 40 V8, which featured straight exhausts that ran through a frame section and exited at the rear. The low faired-in headlights, a fully enclosed radiator with no radiator cap or ornamentation, and the lack of either running boards or distracting brightwork were all styling features that would not appear on production Fords for years.

Jim Farrell, author of Ford Design Department Concept & Show Cars, 1932-1961, wrote that Edsel and Bob Gregorie “…spent many spare moments discussing the car’s design, and felt they had a car that could be built, somewhat modified, as a new, limited-production sporty Ford.”

Deep Freeze
When it was not in use, Edsel stored the trim two-seater in an unheated shed on his Fair Lane estate, fearful of incurring the wrath of his father, who thought this sort of “sporty job” to be frivolous. A freeze in the winter of 1939-’40 cracked the block, so a new 1940 Mercury V8 was installed. Gregorie redesigned the grille to counter the engine’s tendency to overheat in the summer.

After Edsel died in 1943, the Model 40 Speedster was driven to Miami, then to Atlanta, where it was sold for $1,000. In 1947, the owner shipped the Speedster to Los Angeles and put it in storage. It was advertised in the May 1948 issue of Road & Track for $2,500, but didn’t sell. Four years later, the Speedster appeared in an issue of Auto Sport Review, photographed in Hollywood with an aspiring actress named Lynn Bari.

Back into storage again it went, emerging in 1957 when it was driven back to Georgia. In January 1958, registered as a 1940 “Ford custom-built speedster,” it was offered for sale on the Garrard Import used car lot in Pensacola, Florida. It was purchased for $603 by John Pallasch, a Navy sailor, who drove the car home to Sebring, Florida (though the bill of sale was in the name of his father, Earl).

By now, the much-traveled Speedster was painted red with matching red leather upholstery. Pallasch claimed he could “bury the speedometer at 120 mph.” He drove the car for a few years before disassembling it in 1960 for an engine rebuild. But then Pallasch shipped out for Vietnam, and when he returned the engine had seized.

The 1934 Ford Model 40 Speedster remained in storage for nearly 40 years.

On the Road Again
In 1999, Bill Warner, the founder of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, was searching for the Edsel Speedster for a special display. Warner had read an article in Special-Interest Autos that told the story of Edsel’s roadsters, and noted that all three of the cars had dropped out of sight. The last owner of the 1934 Edsel Speedster was listed as Earl Pallasch, in Deland, Florida. Warner called then-SIA Editor Mike Lamm, who helped him locate John Pallasch. Invited to bring the car to Amelia Island, Pallasch replied that it hadn’t run for years, and said he really wanted to sell it.

Recognizing a unique opportunity, Bill Warner hitched up his trailer and drove to nearby Deland to investigate. Sitting in the Pallasch garage, dusty and forlorn, the long lost Edsel Ford Speedster was complete except for its custom wheel discs. Incredibly, the car’s odometer read just 19,000 miles.

Warner eagerly wrote Pallasch a check on the spot and hauled his discovery away. “I decided to show the Speedster to Bob Gregorie [who was then 91 and living in St. Augustine] on the way home,” says Warner. “So I called and said I had something I wanted to show him. Mr. Gregorie came out of his house, smiled and ran his hands over the surface of the car. ‘I haven’t seen it since 1940,’ he said. ‘The old girl still looks pretty good for her age.’”

After considering a ground-up restoration to the Speedster’s first iteration, complete with narrowed V-grille and Pearl Essence Gunmetal finish, Warner instead elected to preserve this car’s remarkable patina. “It was prettier with the front end that was designed in 1934,” he said, “but the 1940 grille was original. It would have been a travesty to restore it.”

Ford’s First Concept Car
A few years ago at the Meadow Brook Hall Concours d’Elegance, Bill Warner kindly allowed us to drive the Speedster. Respecting this car’s rarity, we were reluctant to really get on it. Yet we were surprised at its peppy acceleration and enjoyed the visceral rrappp of the unmuffled exhausts. The gearshift is a three-speed setup on the floor, and the shift lever extends out from under the dash.

Once inside, you sit comfortably low in the narrow cockpit, and you can actually watch the front fenders move as the wheels respond to the changing road surface. The steering is a tad lazy in a way that’s characteristic of early Ford V8 models. There’s virtually no cowl shake; cushioned by the extended wheelbase, the ride is pleasantly firm.

The Model 40 Speedster sits much lower than a typical ‘34 Ford roadster, and its long hood stretches majestically forward like a prestigious 1930s classic. Despite its “push and pray” cable brakes, Edsel’s Continental Speedster remains a stylish performance car, just as its patron and creator intended.

Sold! Sold! Sold!
One of the featured lots at the RM Auction at Amelia Island, Florida, this March, the Speedster sold via a telephone bid for a remarkable $1.76 million.

While it’s not the most expensive concept car ever — that honor belongs to the GM Futurliner Bus sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2007 for $4.2 million — it’s easily the most expensive hot rod ever sold at auction. The bidding was spirited, with representatives of Edsel Ford II among several interested parties. After the gavel fell, we learned the Speedster would go to Houston to join the 850-car John O’Quinn Collection.

It’s taken more than 70 years, but Edsel Ford has finally proven his father was wrong about the value of that “sporty job.” Out of sight for 40 years, sympathetically preserved and benefiting from a careful mechanical restoration, Edsel Ford’s Continental Series II Speedster — essentially a hand-built and operational concept car from the 1930s, conceived and designed by two automotive legends — is one of the most famous and well-documented Ford specialty cars in existence.

Interestingly, in order to test the new, longer chassis, Bob Gregorie and Edsel Ford built a third prototype Continental Special Speedster, with a makeshift open four-seater body. In the winter of February 1935, with just a flimsy convertible top and no heater fitted, Bob Gregorie bravely drove this one-off car to New York City, but he was unable to secure a production agreement with John Iskip at Brewster & Co. Edsel Ford decided not to try any further to put a Speedster concept into production. He gave the car to Gregorie who kept it for a time, then sold it. The third speedster passed through subsequent hands, and was last seen in California in 1952. story source

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