Finally Found: The Mystery Story of the Hot Rod That Was Off Everyone's Radar for 50 Years

The one who brought it back to broad daylight is Beau Boeckmann, president and CEO of Galpin Motors in North Hills, California. Back in the 1960s, Uncertain-T was a star. It was present at every car show across the country for five years. People traveled thousands of miles to see it. And then, it disappeared without a trace.

Boeckmann started searching for it a while ago. It took him years of traveling around the world to find it. It was sitting in a dusty warehouse, just blocks away from his family-owned Galpin dealership in Los Angeles, a business operating since 1946. "The Uncertain-T found me, I didn't find it," he says, standing right next to the elusive vehicle, in the warehouse located right down the street from Galpin Ford.

And it seems like it was meant to be. Boeckmann's father and the previous owner of Uncertain-T, Dick Nickerson, worked on the Mach IV four-engine Mustang Funny Car together in 1969. When he found it, he immediately purchased it. He wasn't going to let it get away once again.

This hot rod might not seem like much by today's standards. But back in the day, everyone wanted a piece of it. The idea came to life in the mid-1960s, when Steve Scott found inspiration in a cartoon drawn by a classmate. He was 17, and he was a teenager with a vision despite the fact that his classmates told him that building that car would be impossible. He immediately started crafting it in his parents' garage in Reseda, Los Angeles.

The design followed an abstract concept but sported styling elements inspired by the Ford Model T. Steve made the body of fiberglass, which was very rare at the time. He used a hand-made steel tubing for the chassis. It had the headlights, the radiator shell, and several other components transplanted from a 1921 Model T.

But what powered the hot rod was a 384 cubic-inch (6,330 cc) 1957 Buick Nailhead V8 engine with Holborn stack mechanical fuel injection, mated with a hydro automatic transmission from a 1955 Pontiac.

What drew attention like a magnet was its cabin steeply raked forward, making the vehicle look gruff and grumpy. Uncertain-T rode on narrow-spoke motorcycle wheels mounted on the front axle and wide five-spoke wheels at the back. Inside the cabin, Steve Scott came up with a four-spoke steering wheel mounted vertically. The upholstery was made by Lee Wells.

It had no suspension, no shock absorbers, and no front brakes. It was, after all, a hot rod, not a passenger car trailing public roads.

Five years after Scott starting working on it, it was ready. Starting in 1965, it won almost every prestigious custom-car award possible. And those were times when George Barris, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and Dan Woods were all the rage in the field.

Steve Scott got paid by show promoters to tour his hot rod around the world for everyone to see it. It was so popular that a 1/24-scale plastic model kit of the car, replicated by Monogram, sold like hotcakes in the 1970s everywhere in America.

It was on the cover of several magazines and was reportedly the muse of Tom Wolfe's first book, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby."

In the 1970s, the car, then painted in metallic gold, was sold to someone living in California. And then, it just vanished without a trace. Suddenly and abruptly. Its fate was so much discussed and mythologized.

The hot rod was so much searched for. So many stories were told about it. So much speculations spread. Multiple clones showed up, but none quite like it. They could not trick anyone into thinking that they were the real deal. The real deal was hiding away, completely off everyone's radar and into the automotive history books.

Now, it surfaced from the warehouse in Los Angeles where it had been hiding for decades, and it's got so many questions to answer. But first, Boeckmann is putting it through restoration with specialist Dave Shuten, who is planning to take it back to its debut configuration and appearance from 1965 before returning it to the car show circuit that it was once the star of. On its debut, it sported a body painted in deep candy red.

They both documented the extraction of the relic from its very long-term storage place and will do the same with the restoration for posterity. For starters, it will be on display in its "as found" condition at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California, between February 2 and 4. Later on, it will be shown at the Detroit Autorama in March before undergoing restoration.