1948 Playboy Playboy
- Engine
- Continental inline-four, front-mounted, paired with three-speed manual and overdrive
- Colour
- Seafoam Green
The Playboy was a compact American post-war startup automobile conceived by Buffalo Packard dealer Louis Horwitz, Pontiac engineer Charles Thomas, and service station proprietor Norman Richardson. Debuting in Buffalo in autumn 1946, early prototypes used a rear-mounted Hercules engine before the design transitioned to a front-mounted Continental four-cylinder with a manually operated retractable hardtop. Approximately 97 cars were completed before the venture collapsed; this 1948 example is among the very few survivors.
Ownership
- —Auction saleSold US$132,000
- Date unknownAcquisition unknownFlorida collectorpartial documentation
Owned the car from the 1960s until selling it to the current owner; location was Florida.
- Date unknownPrivate saleCurrent ownerpartial documentation
Purchased from the Florida collector and commissioned a bare-metal repaint in period Seafoam Green color approximately eight years before cataloguing.
Competition
No competition history extracted from the catalogue.
Maintenance & restoration
- —Bodywork
Full bare-metal repaint carried out in a period-correct Seafoam Green colour, completed roughly eight years before the time of cataloguing.
Work was commissioned by the current owner after acquisition from the Florida collector.
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