As unlikely as it seems, the contemporary peanut butter jar, the first clothes dryer with a window, and this striking 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster have the same creative common denominator. They all owe their existence to visionary industrial designer Brooks Stevens, who passed away at the age of 83 in 1995. But it’s this open-top one-off that we choose to remember him by.
Though Stevens was responsible for conceiving approximately 3,000 products during the course of his career, this piece of automotive exotica, based on a concept he penned several decades ago, was commissioned to be built by his friend, Bob Shaw, as a tribute. Finished in 2006 and now offered to the public for the first time, the rolling remembrance will cross the auction block through Mecum as part of its Indy 2025 event at the Indiana State Fairgrounds on May 16.
As diversified as his portfolio was, Stevens was drawn to the automobile and founded a boutique operation to make his Excalibur cars, born from a defunct project he had worked on for Studebaker in the early 1960s. In an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, Bob Shaw—who has since passed away—confirmed that the car on offer was the last automobile Stevens envisioned, though it never came to fruition until Shaw was given the design and had its construction completed approximately 19 years ago.
“Bob Shaw’s relationship was very tight with the Excalibur organization,” says Tom Snellback, president and CEO of the Last Detail, a classic car restoration house in Chicago. Snellback is the vehicle’s current caretaker before it heads to auction. He tells Robb Report that Shaw “used to take [Excalibur’s] vintage race cars up to Elkhart Lake [in Wisconsin] and race them in the vintage events.” According to Snellback, Shaw recruited Dave Draper, owner of the Michigan-based Time Machines shop, to help complete the car.
The one-of-a-kind Excalibur RS Roadster comprises a steel-tube space-frame chassis built by Chuck Rahn, dressed in hand-formed aluminum bodywork. At its heart lies a 5.7-liter GM V-8 crate engine with Edelbrock throttle-body fuel injection. As Jay Leno notes in the episode, the power plant delivers “about 500 hp,” and is mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. Other features include a polycarbonate windshield, power scissor doors—which, according to Mecum, come from a Lamborghini Murciélago—and a power-operated hood and decklid.
“The styling is so unique . . . the hood has got the [Ford] GT40 scoops in front . . . the color combination is stunning, and the quality is to-the-moon spectacular,” says Snellback. “It’s just, really, a well-sorted-out piece of jewelry.” And it’s one that took nearly a decade to finish. After Shaw’s passing, his widow contacted Snellback to give it any needed care and oversee its upcoming transfer of ownership. “I’m the one who brought the relationship to Dana [Mecum],” says Snellback. “I’ll be at the auction representing the car on behalf of the family.”
When asked what his expectations are for the car when the bidding begins, Snellback estimates that it could fetch in the neighborhood of $500,000 or so. “Because of its uniqueness, it’s impossible to say,” he says, noting that its cost to build was “well north of a million.” Yet at a time when the market seems to be in a state of transition between demand for classic automobiles from the middle of last century and growing interest in cars from the 1990s and up, the Excalibur RS Roadster combines elements of both.
“In all fairness to the market and the family selling it, I think the market is going to speak, and I think they [the family] are prepared to let it go at a reasonable number,” says Snellback, though he adds, “there’s definitely a reserve.”
Click here for more photos of the 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster.
