Summary

This rare car was the first fiberglass sports car built in the USA. Woody Woodill has verified the car and it has been featured in several movies.

Details

The Woodill Wildfire was the first fiberglass sports car produced in the early 1950s, even before Corvette. It was on the cover of the August 1953 Motor Trend magazine. This was a special car, dealer driven and loaned out to motion picture studios. Car number 9961 is probably the last one of only seven or eight manufactured by Woody Woodill circa 1953-54; a designer, builder and manufacturer extraordinaire. It has been in ex-Lieutenant Governor Dr. Lonnie Hammargren's Car and Space Museum in Las Vegas for 34 years. This red Wildfire was featured as the main car in the racing movie 'Johnny Dark,' filmed in 1953 and released in 1954. Tony Curtis played the hero driver, and his girlfriend was Piper Laurie. The Wildfire was the co-star in another picture, 'Written on the Wind,' with Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone. Danny Kaye had a hilarious comedy driving a Wildfire in an escape movie in 1953, 'Knock on Wood.' Woody drove to the car museum to deliver the car himself. Includes a written statement dated July 19, 1980, that this was the only production Wildfire known to exist at the time. There are several 'kit' Wildfires that survive. You can identify which are kits because they are smooth in the back end with no trunk lid.