The ugly ducklings at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering

1966 Cheetah -- Owned by Californian Mark Boen, who was tragically born without a sense of taste, the Cheetah was designed to go after Shelby's Cobras. Designed and built by Bill Thomas Race Cars, these cars would have "rewritten the record books," Boen says, if they had been built in enough numbers to be homologated.

The car's stupendously weird configuration, which puts the driver's butt on the rear axle, was intended to give the car better weight distribution. It also gives it the profile of a toothbrush. In any event, the car was fast and evil-handling, says Boen, who quested after this copy for 30 years. When asked why, he could only shrug.

 

1960 MGA with special "Savoy" body -- The question here is, naturally, what the hell? Someone stripped off the lovely bodywork by Syd Enever and installed sheet allow and wood that looks like it was designed in reform school shop class? There's sawtooth fins and walnut body pieces and carpet that looks like astroturf and a grille with high-tension wire that looks like a very large cheese slicer. And the atrocious shade of green looks like the rest room in some awful pro shop.