The Dale brochure in full

Thanks to Kevin Gibbs, I recently got to pen one of the most interesting stories I’ve written lately. Certainly the strangest. See, Kevin wrote in asking us whether we’d heard of a fiberglass three-wheeled car from 1974-1975 called the Dale – he keeps a scrapbook of such oddities, but had yet to collect photos of one for his scrapbook.

We not only found photos for him, but also a long and sordid story involving scams, men on the run from the feds, and a transsexual. You can read the whole story in the March 2010 issue of Hemmings Motor News, out on newsstands now, but in the meantime, thanks to our friend Geoff Hacker, we have a set of scans from the original Dale brochure.

Note the careful, yet random placement of the shock absorber and the BMW motorcycle engine stood on end to become completely useless. I’m shocked – shocked! – that some people would claim this car was a hoax. I mean, “Dale” is a perfectly reasonable name for a car. Same goes for “Herman,” “Jimmy,” and “Harry.” It also doesn’t help when your office building (16055 Ventura Boulevard, Encino, California) is the type of place that eventually rents space to both a plastic surgery center and numismatic business.

If you are interested in examining a Dale in person, one of the three prototypes is in the Petersen Museum’s collection, though not currently on public display.