Rare Rides: The 1954 Woodill Wildfire-Buick, Fiberglass and Fun-sized

Today’s Rare Ride was formerly unknown to your author. A brief boutique brand in the Fifties, Woodill went away long before most of you were even born. Let’s see if we can learn a bit more about this American take on the classic British roadster formula.

In the early Fifties, fiberglass started its spread across America as an easily workable, affordable material for use in the construction of sporty car bodies. The first of this new kind of sports car to enter production was the Glasspar G2, produced by Bill Tritt (a yacht maker) in 1949. In those days such roadsters were not offered by the major OEMs in Detroit, which opened a path for smaller shed-built, or “boutique” if you prefer, cars.

In short order, car dealers entered into small-scale production of their own takes on the idea created by the G2. That’s where Woodill entered the picture: A successful dealer of Willys trucks in California, he imagined his own G2-type vehicle. The roadster would of course be driven by Willys parts underneath. Woodill commissioned a Glasspar-built body from Tritt, then took his idea to Willys HQ, where he was quickly shot down. At the time Willys was in merger talks with Kaiser, and the Kaiser-Darrin roadster was already well into its development.

“I’ll do it myself then,” said Woodill. Shortly thereafter, the new Woodill Wildfire was ready for sale. Available at his dealership, the Wildfire used Willys mechanicals as planned; a low-power inline-six and manual transmission. Starting in 1952, the car was available in kit form, or as a complete car built by Woodill.

The Wildfire dumped the mostly unsuitable Willys engine for a Ford V8 at some point, but by then a little fiberglass competition had arrived – the Corvette. Corvette spelled the beginning of the end for piecemeal fiberglass cars from car dealers when it was introduced in 1953, as consumers eagerly threw their dollars at General Motors. The Wildfire remained on offer through 1958, with roughly 300 produced. Of that figure, 15 were sold as complete cars, and 285 as kits.

But today’s Rare Ride is an even rarer subset of those kit cars. In 1954 a few kits were purchased by a Buick dealer in California, Harry Clark. Clark put his own (fairly extensive) Buickification on the Wildfire. The front featured ’53 Buick lamps, and a modified form of a Chevy grille from the same year. He used a more curved windshield than the standard Wildfire. Clark also grabbed the rear fender molds from a ’53 Buick, and made them in fiberglass for his roadster. And perhaps most notably to add an upscale Buick vibe, a continental kit was attached at the rear. Chrome bumpers front and rear were donated by Ford, for some reason.

Power for these few examples was GM as well, in the form of the new 322 cubic inch Nailhead V8 from Buick. It was luxuriously matched with a Dynaflow automatic transmission, with floor-mount lever.

The extensive changes turned the Wildfire into a Wildfire-Buick, its only badging the Buick crest on the steering wheel. Perhaps the only one left today, this fully restored roadster asks $67,500. The joy of explaining what it is every time you park is thrown in for free.

[Images: seller]