I feel like I've been handed the keys to the family jewels. And in a sense I have, because the low-slung two-seater parked in front of me is an irreplaceable piece of Motor Trend history. It's Kurtis Sport Car serial number KB003, the actual car that appeared on the cover of the very first edition of the magazine way back in 1949, in a photo taken by Motor Trend founder Robert E. Petersen. That same year Wally Parks, Petersen's right-hand man and the founding editor of our sister publication, Hot Rod, took KB003 to a sizzling 142.515 mph on the glistening white salt at the inaugural Bonneville National Speed Trials.

More than 62 years ago, this car helped launch the storied automotive media brand I'm now honored to be a part of. And I'm about to drive it...

The Kurtis Sport Car was a product of the astonishing explosion of automotive creativity that occurred in California after World War II. After enduring a grinding depression and a grueling war, Americans were ready to celebrate as the booming economy provided jobs and prosperity. They'd had enough of cars for hard times -- the somber and sensible Depression-era sedans and coupes they'd nursed through the war years on old tires and rationed gas. California was where the party started. And Frank Kurtis, the son of a Croatian blacksmith, was at its epicenter.

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Kurtis began his car-making apprenticeship in the early 1920s at the body shop owned by L.A. Cadillac dealer Don Lee that specialized in building custom cars for Hollywood stars. Not only did he learn to shape and weld metal, he also picked up tips on drawing and body design from none other than Harley Earl, the future GM design chief whose family coachbuilding company, Earl Automobile Works, had been bought by Don Lee Corporation in 1919. Kurtis was a rock-star car builder in his own right by the late 1930s, having briefly worked for Howard A. "Dutch" Darrin to craft the elegant custom-body Packard-Darrins, while his midget racers dominated America's ubiquitous dirt track ovals in the hands of drivers like Rex Mays. After the war, his Kurtis-Kraft, Inc. operation in Glendale churned out hundreds of midget racers, plus a string of Indy roadsters for the famed 500-mile race. Kurtis cars won five of the six 500s held from 1950 to 1955.

Kurtis was a thinker and an iconoclast. Watching the prewar midgets bucking and bouncing through the turns at dirt tracks like L.A. 's Gilmore Stadium, he realized their center of gravity was way too high, and their suspensions way too stiff. His racers were lower and more softly sprung, easier to handle through the turns, and quicker because of their better stability and traction. The development of his new sports car was approached in the same thoughtful manner.

The 1949 Kurtis was not Frank's first road car. A decade earlier, he'd built a handsome, Mercury-powered one-off sports car for a wealthy Denver cattleman, Bill Hughes. According to a story in the May 1952 issue of Auto Sport Review, Kurtis charged Hughes just $900 for the car, and Hughes later sold it to a Hollywood director for $3200. Just after the war, the car changed hands again, this time for a reported $8000. It's highly likely Kurtis would have heard about the sale. Around the same time, he had customized a 1941 Buick, turning it into a two-seat sports car he drove to Indianapolis for the 1948 500. It impressed a lot of people in Gasoline Alley, including Ford scion Benson Ford, who urged him to build copies.

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All this would have undoubtedly got him thinking: Perhaps there was a market for this new type of sports car -- something that combined easy American power with more responsive, European-style road manners and fresh, modern styling. He formed a partnership with his St. Louis Kurtis-Kraft race car dealer, Ed Walsh, to create Kurtis Sports Cars, Inc., and set to work designing and developing a sports car that could be put into production.

Kurtis designed an innovative steel frame that resembled the inner structure of a modern unibody, with front and rear rails to support the engine; suspension components with integral cross-rails that supported the sills and the steel floor; a steel firewall supporting the dash that was joined to large box-section beams that ran down either side of the engine to the front of the car; and steel rear fender walls that linked a high-mounted cross-beam behind the passenger compartment to the rear frame rails. Non-load-bearing body panels were to be bolted over the top. Photos published in Hot Rod of the prototype being tested by Kurtis at Rosamond Dry Lake in December 1948 sans bodywork showed the rigidity of the basic chassis.

For the first cars, the fenders, hood, and trunklid were fiberglass. While Kurtis considered switching to aluminum as production ramped up, later cars had steel fenders, which were much cheaper to fabricate. The dash and rear deck around the cockpit were cast aluminum, and the doors were steel. The simple surfacing was clean and elegant, and the proportions good, with the front wheels pushed well forward to give a nice long dash-to-axle ratio. Faired-in rear wheels added to the modern, streamlined look, and the full-fendered body over the wide track gave it a muscular stance compared with the more delicate European sports cars of the era.

Two prototypes were built. KB003 was the first production car, completed in early 1949. Well, sort of. According to contemporary reports, Kurtis toyed with the idea of offering a choice of different engines in the car. Legendary road tester Tom McCahill, who drove what appears to be an unfinished KB003 for Mechanix Illustrated in early 1949, reported Kurtis was considering custom-designed Offenhauser and British Lea-Francis race engines, and a less-expensive American production V-8 with and without a supercharger.

The car McCahill tested was powered by a supercharged Studebaker Champion side-valve straight six, and KB003 was originally designed to have a Stude engine. It also had Studebaker suspension -- independent up front, with a transverse leaf spring-differential, brakes, and wheels, all sourced from the Champion. But when Studebaker failed to come through with an engine deal to enable production, Kurtis took up Benson Ford's offer of Ford parts, and he installed a flathead V-8 instead.

KB003 had a hard life. After hitting 142 mph at Bonneville, its full-race engine, built by Bobby Meeks at Edelbrock, was removed and a more streetable flathead installed. The car was used as a promotional vehicle by Kurtis and Ed Walsh for a number of years before being sold to an East Coast racer who destroyed the engine in the early 1950s. KB003 was then sold again, shipped to Colorado, and fitted with a Cadillac engine, then sold once more and crashed in Kansas in 1960. The car then went through a string of owners until Salt Lake

City collector DeWayne Ashmead received a call five years ago that an almost completely restored Kurtis was on the market.

Though the Kurtis looked fairly fresh when it arrived at Ashmead's shop outside Salt Lake City, it was, he says, "a basket case" under the new paint. A lot of the frame was rusted and needed replacing. And finding the VIN number during the teardown, which made clear this particular car's unique provenance, only made the job more difficult. "It was a real thrill to discover we had the Bonneville car," says DeWayne, "but we then realized the previous restorer had tried to force all Ford parts onto it. We had to go and buy a Ford parts car, and a Studebaker parts car." And start over.

A number of parts, such as the unique three-outlet exhaust and the Kurtis badges, had to be fabricated from scratch, referencing photographs published in Motor Trend and Hot Rod. The hardest piece to find was a windshield frame -- the original, a chrome-plated cast bronze piece, had been destroyed in the Kansas crash 50 years ago. Ashmead had located a windshield from a Muntz Jet (see sidebar) and was about to use that when he finally located a Kurtis item.

Ashmead is a stickler for detail -- every bolt on the Kurtis is period correct, for example, sourced from the parts cars and junkyards. He communicated frequently with Parks and Frank's son Arlen Kurtis during the restoration, gleaning nuggets of information to get the car as close to the way it was back in 1949. One key fact came out of a conversation with Parks about his Bonneville run. Parks told Ashmead: "I got in [the car] and Bobby Meeks says, 'Don't drive this over 6000 rpm.' I came back from the first run and said there must be something wrong as I could only get 3500 rpm. I discovered Kurtis had put a marine tach in the car [with a 2:1 drive], and it was only reading half-speed."

"That's when we realized the tach drive had to be changed," says Ashmead. "We had it running off the generator, but we realized it should have been coming off the crankshaft. We got the engine all built, and then a photo turned up and proved we'd built it correctly."

I slide into the roomy cockpit -- the Kurtis feels as wide as Wyoming next to contemporary British and Italian sports cars. The bucket seats are broad and flat, more like a bench cut in half than something to hug your hips up the Stelvio Pass. You sit close to the floor, comfortably ensconced in the Kurtis' high-waisted bodywork, the giant Ford Crestliner steering wheel close to your chest. A glittering engine-turned instrument panel houses what appears to be the entire Stewart-Warner catalog-smaller vacuum, water temperature, fuel pressure, fuel level, ammeter, and oil pressure gauges complement an 8000-rpm tach and 140-mph speedo. The odometer reads just 28.4 miles, the total distance the car has traveled since its two-year restoration was completed.

I twist a key that by today's standards looks frail and tiny, and punch the starter button. The flathead fires instantly and settles down to a smooth idle. I reach forward and pull back toward me the shifter that sprouts from the left-hand side of the transmission tunnel. Ease out the clutch and feed in some revs, and the old Kurtis pulls smoothly away, just like that.

The old Ford V-8 is crisp and peppy -- no wonder hot-rodders loved 'em. Working from recollections from Arlen Kurtis and Parks, Ashmead built the Kurtis flathead to virtually the same spec as the Bonneville engine, using period performance parts. The engine runs Edelbrock heads, a hot cam, Spaulding dual ignition, Fenton headers, and an Offenhauser intake with two Stromberg carbs. A Ford truck oil pan was fitted to give an extra quart of oil capacity. As this car was originally intended to be Studebaker-powered, the engine sits slightlyhigher in the frame than normal -- too high, in fact, for air filters to be fitted atop the carbs.

It takes about three minutes to realize that, by old car standards, this thing is an absolute sweetheart to drive. There's torque aplenty, enough to pull the 2300-pound Kurtis cleanly from 20 mph in third. At 30 mph, it's humming along at a relaxed 1350 rpm. With the supercharged Studebaker six under the hood -- Kurtis claimed the blower boosted output 40 percent over stock, so it was probably cranking out about 120 horsepower -- Tom McCahill reported 0-60 mph in 11.5 seconds and a top speed over the measured mile of 104.6 mph. Pretty impressive figures for 1949, when a regular Ford sedan took more than 19 seconds to get to 60 and an MG TC more than 21 seconds.

The three-speed transmission is fingertip light, though you don't want to rush the second-third change, and you'll need to master a proper double-declutch, heel-and-toe downshift if you want to get back to first while on the move without grinding gears. Fortunately, the pedals are well placed, and I quickly put to use a skill I perfected while learning to drive in a 1960 Land Rover. The car is fitted with the optional Borg-Warner overdrive for relaxed highway cruising. According to the story in Auto Sport Review, Kurtis used to regularly cruise at 90 mph through the Mojave Desert in the car en route to the Colorado River to fish for black bass, much to the dismay of the local cops. "I'm really being considerate," Kurtis is quoted as saying. "The car will do 140 mph as easily as 90."

The drum brakes are a bit of a shock after years of discs and ABS, but I've been warned they'd need a double pump before they'd start to bite properly, so the first stop isn't quite as heart-stopping as it could have been. I wasn't expecting all the slop in the steering, though. There must be 30 degrees of freeplay around the on-center position, and steering the Kurtis along the straight sections of the two lanes is a bit like helming a yacht in a gale. Parks must have been pretty busy at 142 mph, even on the wide-open spaces of Bonneville.

The biggest revelation is the ride. By the standards of the day, the Kurtis feels agile and responsive like a sports car, but it's not rock-hard. As with his race cars, Frank Kurtis carefully tuned the suspension to keep the wheels following the contours of the road as much as possible, while keeping roll, dive, and squat to a minimum. As a result, the Kurtis displays a rare calmness on indifferent surfaces, rather like an early '60s Alfa Romeo. "The car is far more comfortable than most foreign cars," wrote Tom McCahill, "and takes the bumps smoothly."

The Kurtis's combination of easy, American V-8 muscle and European-style chassis tuning must have seemed sensational back in 1949. Frank Kurtis had demonstrated a compelling formula for an all-American sports car: The Kurtis Sport Car was well-engineered, well-detailed, and well-built. So why were only 16 ever made?

Arlen Kurtis told DeWayne Ashmead that, while his father was a talented and likeable guy, he was a poor businessman. The funding promised by Ed Walsh as part of the Kurtis Sports Cars deal never materialized, leaving the company grossly undercapitalized. So when serial entrepreneur and Kurtis customer Earl "Madman" Muntz offered cash-strapped Kurtis $70,000 to $200,000 (the figures are disputed) for the rights to the Sport Car in late 1949, it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

The bitter irony is that Frank Kurtis was, perhaps, the right man in the wrong place with an idea that was simply too big for him. Within two years of the Kurtis Sport Car appearing on the cover of Motor Trend, a very senior GM executive in Detroit instigated a secret backroom program codenamed Project Opel, a proposal for a fiberglass-bodied two seat sports car that used many regular production-car components under its shapely skin. The GM exec's name? Harley Earl. And the car? Well, it first came to the public's attention as the EX-122, one of the stars of the Motorama Show at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, in January 1953.

But we know it better as the Chevrolet Corvette.

Ask The Man Who Owns One

You could say DeWayne Ashmead has a thing about sports cars with American engines. His fascinating collection includes a number of 1950s American sports cars such as a Kaiser Darrin and a Glasspar G2, as well as hybrids like the Chrysler-powered Facel Vega and the Ford-powered Sunbeam Tiger. He had been hunting a Kurtis for at least a decade after reading a story comparing the car with an Allard, a British-built sports car that used Ford, Mercury, and Cadillac engines (he also owns a 1951 Allard K2 roadster). "I was impressed with the article and thought I'd like to have a Kurtis," he recalls. "It was easier said than done."

WHY IT LIKE IT: "I like the styling and the engineering that went into the development of this car. The styling was unique and cutting edge for the period. Frank Kurtis was a master race-car builder, and when he decided to build a sports car, he incorporated most of his racing expertise into it. This was an outstanding performance automobile by 1949 standards.

WHY IT'S COLLECTIBLE: "It was built by Frank Kurtis, and every car he made is now collectible. It set a land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats, which makes it historically significant. It was driven by Wally Parks first and Dean Batchelor second on the Bonneville Salt Flats, which also makes it historically significant. It is the first of only 16 cars produced. And it became the genesis of the Muntz Jet."

BEWARE: "Restoration of an early Kurtis is a very difficult project. Frank Kurtis initially intended to use a Studebaker engine in his cars. He started construction on this car before he had the engine, so many of the components, such as the suspension, differential, and steering box, were sourced from Studebaker. When the engine was not forthcoming, Kurtis elected to install a Ford V-8 in the car instead. Consequently, he then sourced the remaining parts from Ford."

EXPECT TO PAY: It is difficult to establish a price for a Kurtis. A non-running disassembled car may cost $60,000. A tired runner may cost $80,000 or more. A solid runner may cost about $150,000. A concours-ready car would probably be above that price.

OUR TAKE

THEN: "The Kurtis Sports [sic] Car apparently has all the features a sports car should have: speed, maneuverability, acceleration, power, and sleek looks. "

-Walt Woron, Motor Trend, September 1949

NOW: Frank Kurtis showed what an all-American sports car could be like years before Chevy built the Corvette and Carroll Shelby thought of the Cobra.

SPECIFICATIONS

Engine 239.8-cu-in/3929cc side-valve V-8, 2x2-bbl Stromberg 97 carburetors Power and torque 160 hp, 225 lb-ft (est) Drivetrain 3-speed manual with overdrive, RWD Brakes Front: drum; rear: drum Suspension Front: control arms, transverse leaf spring; rear: live axle, leaf springs Dimensions L 169.0 in; W: 68.0 in; H: 51.0 in Weight 2300 lb Performance 0-60 mph 11.5 sec (Mechanix Illustrated, 1949; with supercharged Studebaker I-6 making an estimated 112 hp)

Price when new: $3495-$5000

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Earl "Madman" Muntz made a fortune selling cars and another producing low-cost televisions. He also invented the four-track cartridge player and would become a pioneer in home theater equipment. A Kurtis customer -- he'd bought one of Frank's customs -- he bought all the rights, tools, and inventory to the Kurtis Sport Car from Frank Kurtis in 1950. Muntz claimed he paid $200,000 for the lot; Kurtis said it was $70,000.

The car was renamed the Muntz Jet. Though he retained the same basic styling, Muntz changed the character of the car considerably. He lengthened the chassis so a rear seat could be added, and used steel panels. A Cadillac engine was initially installed under the hood, but GM apparently declined to supply engines, so Muntz switched to the 336-cubic-inch Lincoln side-valve V-8. Later cars used an overhead valve Lincoln engine.

Initial production of the Jet was undertaken at Kurtis' Glendale shop in 1950, but then transferred to a new factory in Evanston, Illinois. The Jets were softer and more flamboyantly finished than the Kurtis cars. Celebrity owners included Mickey Rooney, Mario Lanza, and Grace Kelly.