Garage
Ed Roth’s Beatnik Bandit – BIG DADDY
Ed Roth’s Beatnik Bandit
BIG DADDY
As I’ve written before, Washington, DC is blessed with a heaping helping of history, most of it displayed in the vast expanse(s) comprising the Smithsonian. Among the most prominent of those displays are American History, Natural History and African American history, along with two buildings – one on the National Mall and one near Washington’s Dulles Airport – devoted to Air and Space. And if you believe – as I do – that DC should devote some of its space and monies to the automobile’s history (after all, far more people drive in this country than fly…), so does the Hagerty Drivers Foundation. To that end, the foundation has returned to DC at the end of this summer to add its 35th and 36th vehicles to the National Historic Vehicle Register. First up is Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth’s Beatnik Bandit, immediately followed by the Dodge Deora, designed by Harry Bradley and built by the Alexander Brothers.
If you frequented a hobby shop in the early ‘60s, you would have seen AMT’s 1/25th scale Beatnik Bandit, Ed Roth’s improvisational take on the traditional hot rod. It was to that postwar convection what Kennedy was to Eisenhower – or comedian Lenny Bruce was to Henny Youngman. Built on a shortened Olds chassis from the early ‘50s, its design was fueled by (I’ll assume) equal parts high octane leaded fuel and higher octane whiskey. Henry Ford might have understood the Bandit, while Henry Ford II would have never understood it.
On a Saturday morning Car-Ed’s Kevin Joostema and I took it all in, with the Beatnik Bandit a notably singular sensation in its single-wide display case on the Mall. Providing an assist (and perspective) was Casey Maxon, serving as the Hagerty Drivers Foundation Senior Manager of Heritage, and PR exec Steve Keyes. Even on an early Saturday morning, the Bandit was garnering its share of attention, from both 7-year olds and those of us closer to 70. For the kids it’s something they’ve never seen before, while the seniors may have seen it…but might have forgotten it.
We didn’t have a chance to preview the Dodge Deora, but from the Hagerty pics it doesn’t begin to look dated; in fact, were it not for the lack of a crush zone for driver and passenger (they would be the crush zone!) it’s easy to imagine the Deora as a modern EV. And if you missed it (the Deora is owned by Tom Abrams in Detroit) you can probably find the Hot Wheels or AMT versions on eBay.
As good as the Hagerty initiative is, it’s also an unhappy reminder of how underserved automotive history is within the nation’s capital. The Smithsonian reportedly owns acres (and acres) of historic vehicles, while regularly displaying only a handful. There needs to be – and should be – a National Automotive Museum within the DC area, and with the number of zillionaires DC’s various zip codes you’d think it would be achievable.
With all of that, a single-wide – with the Bandit or Deora – on the National Mall is a start…
