Restored 1956 Bangert Manta Ray, the embodiment of “Forgotten Fiberglass,” to debut at Amelia Island

The nearly restored 1956 Bangert Manta Ray. Photos courtesy of Geoff Hacker and Forgotten Fiberglass.

Bangert Enterprises bloomed as a manufacturer of fiberglass-bodied kit specials for a very brief period, from roughly 1954 through 1957. In this time, Noel Bangert penned three unique designs, and it isn’t clear exactly how many kits were produced or sold (estimates range for 15 to 300) before he turned to other pursuits. Today, surviving Bangerts are a rare find, but on Sunday, March 12, a just-restored 1956 Bangert Manta Ray will make its debut at the 2017 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.

Noel Bangert was a man of many talents, from car designer through automotive styling critic and later, Hollywood producer. His time as an automotive designer was brief and likely didn’t bring him much notoriety, but his later marriage to Tippi Hedren (1964 – ’84) and growing career in the movie business certainly did. Following his car design days, Bangert changed his last name to Marshall, and is perhaps best known as the executive producer of the 1973 horror blockbuster The Exorcist.

Bangert’s first fiberglass kit car offering was the Stag, introduced in early 1954. Designed to resemble an Indy roadster, the Stag’s simple, fender-less design could be easily customized by buyers seeking a purpose-built race car, or a road-going car that just looked like a racing car. His next product, the Manta Ray, offered far more sophisticated styling, and Bangert cited the 1954 Buick Wildcat II concept and a Chrysler Maserati Special raced in the early 1950s as influences on the Manta Ray’s design. The name of his final offering, which sported a conventional Ferrari-inspired design, has been lost to history; Bangert (then, Marshall) died in 2010, and in interviews preceding his death could not remember if the last model ever received a formal name.

Noel Bangert’s design for the Manta Ray.

In 1954, Elwood Cauffman purchased a Manta Ray body for one reason: Unlike the other fiberglass specials of the day (from manufacturers like Glasspar and Woodill), the Manta Ray looked like nothing else on the road. Opting to build his own frame (from two-inch by three-inch rectangular mild steel tubing), Cauffman spent two years constructing his Manta Ray, using a 1941 Mercury as a donor car. Power originally came from a flathead Ford V-8, enhanced with Edelbrock heads and a full-race camshaft and fed by a pair of Stromberg 97 carburetors.

Blueprints showed a variety of front-end styling suggestions.

Cauffman paid $495 for his body, delivered in just two sections. The rear carried forward to meet the firewall (to be fabricated by the builder), while the entire hood section was designed to tilt forward on a hinge joint, allowing easy access to the engine and front suspension. No provision was made for trunk or doors, though some builders (such as Cauffman) cut and reinforced the fiberglass to add these features.

Elwood Cauffman poses with his completed Manta Ray in 1956.

For those not able to build a frame from the blueprints supplied, Bangert offered its own mild steel frame for an additional $195, but even this required the fabrication of floor pans and a firewall. Some decisions, like whether to add a full windshield and where to locate the headlamps, were entirely up to the discretion of the builder.

Cauffman’s car prior to the installation of the windshield.

Once his Manta Ray was nearing completion, Cauffman contracted with a local shop for upholstery work and a tonneau cover, then sprayed and sanded the 14 coats of red lacquer himself. Given the amount of time and energy he put into building the car, it’s logical to assume that the builder kept it for decades, but that wasn’t the case, and by the end of 1956 the Manta Ray, with a more powerful small block Chevy replacing the original flathead Ford, was titled in a new owner’s name.

As found in Texas.

In 1996, Cauffman sent a letter to Harold Pace, outlining his build of the Bangert 40 years earlier. Pace was the editor of the “Kit Carchives” column in Petersen’s Kit Car magazine, and thus had an interest in documenting rare and obscure creations like the Manta Ray. In 2007, Pace shared the letter with Forgotten Fiberglass’s Geoff Hacker, and in short order, Geoff was able to track down Cauffman, living just a few towns away in Florida.

Sadly, Cauffman died just three months after he and Geoff met, and it would take another two-plus years before the Forgotten Fiberglass team tracked down his Manta Ray through an online ad in Texas. Though the car had been stored in a barn, the years had not been kind to it. Much of the original fiberglass needed repair, the trunk floor was rusted through in spots and both doors sagged on worn hinges.

Geoff Hacker and Elwood Cauffman.

In 2015, Geoff and Rick D’Louhy made the decision to restore the car, using Rick’s Manta Ray to create molds for irreparably damaged pieces. Instead of preserving Cauffman’s design, which featured nacelle-mounted headlamps integrated into the hood, plus doors and a trunk, the decision was made to restore the car as Noel Bangert sketched it, with headlamps fitted inside the grille area and no cuts to the rear section.

The current small-block Chevy.

As of Saturday, March 4, the Manta Ray restoration was nearing completion. The frame, as built by Cauffman, has been restored, and the drivetrain (still a small block Chevy, since as Geoff put it, “the flathead looked too small in there”) has been sorted and repainted. The body sections have been painted and reattached, and the next step is to get the upholstery finished by Wednesday, March 8. If all goes as planned, final assembly will take place on Friday, March 10, and the Manta Ray will make its trek to Amelia Island on Saturday, March 11.

Cauffman’s original hand-built frame, awaiting the refinished body.

Its appearance at the concours is a fitting tribute to Rick D’Louhy, who died last December, and to the crew at Forgotten Fiberglass. Look for pictures of the finished Bangert Manta Ray in our upcoming Amelia Island coverage.