The First Production Fiberglass Sports Car

Want your own sports car? Can't afford a Jaguar, a Corvette, or an MG? Well then, build your own! The boundless optimism that prevailed in the U.S. after World War II could be summed up in the popular phrase, "Do it yourself." 

When Chevrolet's Corvette bowed in 1953, its GM Motorama-inspired roadster body was made of a relatively new "miracle" material called glass-reinforced plastic (GRP), better known as fiberglass. While it was one of the first production fiberglass cars, the Corvette was not the first use of plastic composite for an automobile body. Henry Ford had long been enamored with the industrial potential for soybean plastics. Ford Motor Company built a small fiberglass car prototype just before the war, and there's a classic photo of Henry fiercely wielding an axe to a prototype soybean plastic '41 Ford decklid to prove its strength and resilience.

The urgent need for war material forced a virtual shutdown of the Detroit assembly lines in 1942 and put the kibosh on any ideas Ford had for plastic cars. When hostilities ended, there was an enormous pent-up demand. With new cars in short supply, people began customizing old ones. Fiberglass was easy to work with, making it a natural material for handy guys who wanted to build their own cars.

Fred Roth of Thousand Oaks, California has his elegant Maverick roadster. Roth has a mini-museumful of early '50s sports customs, including a Nash-Healey, a Muntz Jet, a Kaiser-Darrin, a Hudson Italia, and this sleek little two-seater, the Woodill Wildfire. Its curvaceous red body is made of fiberglass, while the driveline is a hopped-up Willys six with headers and triple carbs. Roth's Woodill is the first prototype Series 1 Wildfire.

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