Darryl Starbird’s Predicta… You know, this car is seriously capable of driving you crazy. No kidding. The site from which I am translating most of this article belongs to a cat who is a fan of this and only this car. He has collected dozens of models (among other things, he boasts that he has as many as eight very rare boxes of models in metallic red), found hundreds of photos, and is going to write a whole book dedicated to this particular car! He states that “this car cannot be understood and evaluated without studying the situation in which it appeared, as well as the historical and economic influences that resulted in all those modifications from 1961 to 2007.” Damn it! That’s what I call hardcore.
I will immediately state that I will not translate the book. Nevertheless, I will try to make sure that you get to know the heroine of our article as fully as possible and appreciate her. So…
What appeared in Darryl’s workshop one day in the late 50s bore little resemblance to a car, especially a luxurious Ford Thunderbird. However, these were still the remains of this particular roadster, and Starbird made a firm decision that the Thunderbird would form the basis of his project. The reason for this was that he had recently built one commissioned by a sponsor – that project was called Le Perle and received public recognition, so Darryl decided to assemble a second Thunderbird that would reflect everything he had learned about this car while working on it. Add to this the fact that in those days the Ford Thunderbird was a very expensive model, which is why we had to work with what we could find in the landfill.
The project began in 1959, when Starbird began replacing old damaged body panels with fresh factory ones so that he could have a more or less complete car to work with. The first change was when Darryl decided to use the rear panels from the ’59 Buick instead of the standard ones. They were carefully adjusted so that the shape of the car doors remained unchanged. The edge of the fin from the rear panel was lengthened and began to run along the top of the door and along the front panels, just above the wheels, and then smoothly passed into the upper lip of the radiator grille. Thus Predicta got the first hint of that “cosmic” look that accompanies all custom cars of that era. This is exactly what everyone expected from factory cars in the next few decades.
When the car acquired more or less distinct shapes, Starbird manually formed the front fenders and the headlight panel from steel tubes. After that, two hoods from the first–generation Thunderbird were put into operation: one where it was needed, and the second in the trunk. Instead of sealing the trunk, Darryl made an unusual decision: the hood was cut with a V from the front edge, and the side edges went under the base of the fins. This created a horizontal gap between the trunk and the bumper, which is perhaps best seen on the cover of an old magazine. By the way, it was on that very cover that the bubble top of the car was hand-drawn: there is no splitter on it, and the shape is clearly different. I’ll tell you why a little further.
In its first incarnation, Predicta had a radiator grille with edges formed from polished copper tubes bent in a semicircle. The front headlight hoods were completely frosted, an innovation at the time, and later it would become a standard custom technique. After the first three versions of the car, Darryl began to leave a small area clean, which was right in front of the lamps.
Between the headlights, there were originally 16 hoods from the rear headlights of the Cadillac 59th, painted white. There were 28 more similar hoods at the back, 6 of which hid light bulbs and were real headlights, and the remaining 22 were painted white like the front. It was all mounted on a piece of plywood.
16 pieces of Cadillac on the front...
And, of course, the magnificent bubble top made of clear acrylic glass, referring to a whole galaxy of show cars from the 50s by Ford and General Motors. This top was “free-blowing,” and it didn’t have a “mom”-type part that would define a specific shape. Darryl carefully inserted a white rope between the base ring and the top itself to give a sense of structural integrity.
Starbird did not forget about such a thing as comfort. The luxurious white leatherette interior with crystal buttons contrasted with both the metallic blue body of the car and the bright red floor mats. The air conditioning was excellent, and a defroster was located behind the seats, preventing moisture from accumulating under the bubble. Of course, a TV was installed for the passenger – at that time it was a real trend and the TV was in almost every concept and custom. The control panel was located on a chrome console between the front seats, and the dashboard was duplicated for both the driver and passenger, since the Predicta did not have a steering wheel, and it could be controlled from either side. Comrade Starbird developed a system by which the machine was controlled using a handle that was mounted on the control panel. This handle was connected to the steering column of a ’56 Thunderbird, which was turned on its side, which in turn powered the steering mechanism from a ’57 Chrysler. The pedals were on both the right and left seats–maybe Darryl was inspired by the Ford Mystere concept car from ’55? Despite the fact that Predicta didn’t have power-ups, ahem, steering, Starbird says it was pretty easy to operate the car, even at low speeds.
Predicta conquers the auto show
The car was powered by none other than Chrysler’s Hemi, which had everything chrome-plated that could be chrome-plated (even the firewall was chrome-plated). New wheel arches were developed, and in the left of them Darryl hid three certain devices, the only information about which is that they helped Starbird fine-tune the engine. The automatic transmission was also taken from Chrysler, and the rear axle, shock absorbers, and most of the rest were factory-made, T-bird.
Most likely, the only color photos of the first version of the car
In a little less than two months of intensive and continuous construction, Darryl completed the car and took it to California. The only thing that hadn’t been installed on the car yet was the bubble top. But even in this version, Predicta instantly became a hit and hit the covers of magazines. And yes, that’s why the bubble top on the August 60th Car Craft cover was hand-drawn.
Like most of the customisations of that generation, Predicta soon underwent some changes. Just a couple of months after his debut, Darryl restyled the front grille, replacing the copper tubes with a chrome-plated metal oval. The same fate befell a piece of plywood at the back, and a splitter appeared on the bubble top.
Between the first and second versions, the front is already chrome
Cadillac’s white headlights have given way to chrome bullets, but so far only at the front. However, despite some differences in the design of the front and rear, Predicta continued to remain in the spotlight.
For unknown reasons, the rear-mounted phalanx of Cadillac headlights will not give way to chrome bullets for more than a year.
I must say that Predicta was not the queen of trailers. Despite some criticism, Starbird rode her to the 60th national drag meet in Kansas and swept across the strip, squeezing everything out of Hemi. On that track, he was able to accelerate to 162 km/h! For comparison, the standard ’55 Thunderbird accelerates to about 136 km/h at a quarter mile. After such a performance, Darryl firmly decided to use the car as an everyday one.
Predicta on the highway
After a few years, Predicta has grown overgrown with dents, chips, and all the related details of an ordinary workhorse. This really got on Comrade Starbird’s nerves, and therefore, when Monogram Models called and asked Darryl to repaint the car in cherry red and sell it to them to create models in the 1/24 format, the custom creator did not hesitate for a long time. However, he could not simply repaint the car in red, and therefore Predicta underwent its first major redesign.
The Everyday Dream car
Perhaps the most important change was the new bubble top. It was smaller in length and height and rounder in its shape. The metal ring base of the top, which used to just lie on top of the body, now began to fit into the body of the car, into a neat channel that Darryl cut out for it. The new splitter was also much neater, emphasizing the much more streamline style of the new version of the custom car. The wheel arches were widened to a flat, round shape, as a result of which the edge of the fin running along the sides of the car was interrupted at the front wheels. Chrome bullets have given way to a real polished aluminum grille on both the front and back. The trunk was finally sealed tightly into the body of the car, but only after Darryl made a slight bend in the center of both the trunk and the hood, giving a new touch to the lines of the car. A single large panel was installed behind the rear grille instead of the headlights. The new spinning wheels have found their place on the new rubber with a thinner white sidewall. The interior also changed: it was at that moment that all the appliances were removed, and before the pile, Starbird changed the seats and the contrasting red rug was replaced with a white one.
After that, Predicta was colored red, and in this form it was sent to Monogram. The author of the original article considers this version of Predicta to be the best of all. As a translator, I would like to express my disagreement. The original, very first version, although it may borrow a few details from its subsequent incarnations, is nevertheless the most complete and meaningful of all. Maybe the headlights from Caddy and the tubes as the radiator grille look a bit artisanal, but nevertheless it is all this that most accurately and fully conveys the spirit of the era when Predicta was created.
The most famous, the third version
But time passes: in ’69, Monogram decides to liquidate the car, and Predicta is bought by a certain Darrell Zipp, who drove it to an auto show for a while, and then exchanged it for a motorcycle.
After that, the custom car reappears in public, already owned by American Chopper in Los Angeles. They painted the car silver and applied the stripes and stars that were gaining popularity at that time to match the color of the American flag, and then, after a little thought… We cut a hole in the hood and installed a huge supercharger from GMC! Yes, yes, Predicta suddenly became almost a street freak for a while.
A few years later, Darryl came across his car in very poor condition. Obviously, Predicta was abandoned at some point. Starbird decided to buy back his car. He restored it without any major changes, the most notable of which was the disappearance of the splitter on the bubble top, repainted it back to blue, put it on several shows, and then hid it from the public for almost a decade. Predicta reappeared only in the 89th year, but, again, without any special changes. A massive redesign awaited the car only seven years later, in ’96.
Predicta, back in the hands of its creator, but even before its last restoration
At that time, Darryl didn’t have time to work on the car himself, so he gave it to Carl Green. This is the only time in the history of the custom car when someone other than Starbird himself worked on it, but unfortunately the author of the article does not share the details, and therefore I cannot tell you anything.
The latest version of the car at the moment
The next major restoration took place in 2007, although it is more appropriate to call what happened a perestroika. Darryl completely disassembled the car, all the mechanical parts were disconnected, all the paint was stripped off, the interior was removed. The only thing left on the frame is the body of the car. The body was reinforced, the bottom was essentially replaced with a new one, and the chrome was applied anew. Every detail was either put in order or replaced with a new one. Starbird mixed the blue paint himself, and Darryl entrusted the painting to his son Rick. For the first time in a long time, a splitter reappeared on the bubble top.
The auto show is conquering again
Since then, Predicta has been in Darryl Starbird’s personal museum. His website says that admission costs only 15 bucks, so if you’re in Oklahoma, come on in. What else can I say? Predicta is a very lucky car. She was lucky not only not to be thrown into the dustbin of time, but also to reunite with her creator, who had the means and desire to buy her out, put her in order and shelter her. And Darryl keeps his car to this day, so we can safely say that as long as Comrade Starbird is in good health, Predicta is safe. Only time will tell what will happen next. In the meantime, Predicta is one of the few vivid examples that have survived to our time that the future often shows something completely different from what we expect.
Source: http://thepredictaproject.org/?page_id=534
