Roadster



Tom Verrill, a University of Maine mechanical engineering graduate, worked in the aircraft industry before building road going vehicles. The car he came up with was the Verrill Wolfwagen Roadster, which - as legend has it - was built to surpass the Bugatti Royale as the longest car in the world. Beginning with a 1952 Chrysler chassis, it was given a 331 cubic-inch Chrysler Hemi V-8 engine and a Fluid Drive transmission. The car is nearly 24 feet in length and weighs 5,100 pounds. The body is constructed of 3/4-inch fiberglass and there are custom-made bumpers and wheel covers. It weighs 5,100 lbs. The 24 four foot long vehicle has a wooden frame and fiberglass that's up to three-quarters of an inch thick in places. It has a large steering column with a horn that has a unique sound. There are two levers on the dash which serve as the gear shift lever. Those two levers appear to be from a marine craft.

This is the prototype automobile and it has many unique and unusual parts including the door handles, which came from a vintage refrigerator. The door handles are only on the inside of the doors, creating a smooth and undisturbed appearance from front to back. There is a full convertible top with side curtains. The exterior is finished in Mellow Yellow with a red leather interior.

After ramping up for tooling, Verrill finally realized that the car was too long to fit in the average garage. Thus, the Wolfwagen was never put into production and this is the only car that was ever constructed. It is not known if Verrill tried to interest other auto manufacturers in building the car.

Its name, 'wolf' was a common slang term for a 'skirt-chasing bad boy.'

After receiving a restoration by the students at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, the car made its restoration debut at The Elegance at Hershey, in Hershey, PA in 2014. The car is currently part of the Swigart Museum. Mrs. Swigart's late husband, funeral director Harry G. Trefz, purchased the car circa 1980, from the now-defunct Asbury Park museum. Prior to that it was part of a private collection.

Though the car initially had Chrysler mechanicals, it currently is powered by a Cadillac V8 and mated to an automatic transmission.