Even in the world of novelty cars, these builds stand out. Somewhere on a dirt road in Arizona, just one hour away from Phoenix, there's a place called the Dwarf Car Museum, where magician and mechanic Ernie Adams creates the most impressive vehicles ever.
Ernie Adams has always loved tinkering with stuff. Growing up, there was a junkyard near the family home, and he could easily run there and pick up broken down motorcycle engines, which he would then repair and attach to everything he could think of: bicycles, wooden wagons, you name it.
In 1965, he built his first ever dwarf car, and he hasn’t stopped working ever since. Speaking with Barcroft Cars just recently, he says he lost count of how many he’s made through the years, though the media outlet estimates they might have been in the hundreds. Considering that each one of them is a one-off masterpiece that usually takes him between two and five years to make, even if he’s only made ten of them, it’s still an astounding accomplishment.
Photo: Dwarf Car Museum
Ernie is, of course, somewhat of a national celebrity. He’s a favorite with car shows and has made appearances on dedicated auto shows, like Jay Leno’s Garage and My Classic Car with Dennis Gage (you will also find this video at the bottom of the page, next to the more recent report). He has more trophies in his little museum than he has cars on display, with one of them so large he says he had to choose between bringing it home or the wife because there wasn’t enough room in the car. Funnily, he chose the award and joked that the wife was someone else’s.
But neither his stardom nor his sense of humor, and not even the fact that he makes dwarf cars for a living amounts to much compared to the actual builds. They are 11/16th scale models of the real things, down to the last knob or feature. As Ernie sees it, if the original has something, so will his dwarf replica, and he builds everything but the running gear by hand.
Photo: Dwarf Car Museum
His first-ever creation was a 1929 Chevrolet two-door sedan, which he made out of nine refrigerators and dubbed Grandpa Dwarf. Because he didn’t know how to make compound bends then, he incorporated the curvature of the refrigerators in the design, for which reason he says it’s not as exact a replica as his other creations. For power, he took a 2-cylinder engine from a three-wheel mail cart, mated to a 3-speed transmission.
Though this replica is pushing 60 years old, it still drives to this day.
So does another highlight from his collection, the 1949 Mercury dwarf he calls Rebel Rouser, which proudly bears the front plate WANNA V8. This one is made entirely from scratch, using sheets of metal that Ernie molded and welded by hand, sometimes even inventing his own tools so he could make the stuff he wanted. The dashboard alone was “borrowed” from a refrigerator, but everything else, from the steering wheel to the gauges, has been done by hand from scratch.
The Mercury even has a red button for a functional flamethrower, and everything else inside works, from the defroster to the windscreen wipers and the lights. If pushed, the Toyota engine in this little thing can take it as fast as 100 mph (161 kph) but, these days, Ernie is in no hurry to get anywhere.
Photo: Dwarf Car Museum
His other cars, some of which are detailed in the second video, are just as impressive, even if they tend to get comparatively less media attention. Some of them have working air-conditioning and wing windows, glove boxes, and radios. When Ernie says he will replicate everything on the original, he means it: at the onset of each project, he will spend hours pouring over photos of the model, making sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Ernie is yet to sell a single one of his dwarf cars: he says there’s simply too much pleasure to be had from driving them to part with them for money. Not that he didn’t have potential buyers: someone once offered him $450,000 for the Rebel Rouser, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
Photo: Dwarf Car Museum
Right now, Ernie is working on what he calls his “last ever” project: a 1904 Oldsmobile Pie Wagon.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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