This is one of four surviving examples of the Le Gene Californian Roadster, a low-production American sports car built in the mid-1950s with sleek styling and a Mercury V8 under the hood.
This example of the Le Gene benefits from a full restoration that was completed in 2010. Since that time the car has been displayed at the prestigious Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, it appeared on Discovery Channel’s “AmeriCarna” TV show, and it won two awards at the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance in 2014.
Fast Facts – The Le Gene Californian Roadster
- The Le Gene Californian Roadster is a rare American sports car from the mid-1950s. Only four of the six originally produced cars are known to exist today. Created by father-son duo Lee and Gene Dodson in San Bernardino, California, this fiberglass-bodied roadster was designed to fit various production chassis. The company offered both complete turnkey cars and standalone bodies, with its name chosen to sound both exotic and memorable.
- This particular Le Gene example has undergone a full restoration completed in 2010. Since then, it has been showcased at prestigious events, including the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. It also appeared on Discovery Channel’s “AmeriCarna” TV show and won awards at the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance in 2014. The car’s history was largely forgotten until recently uncovered by Geoff Hacker of Undiscovered Classics, who revealed its true origins.
- Built on an early 1940s Ford chassis, this Le Gene features a dropped front axle, live rear axle, and leaf springs front and back. It’s powered by a 239 cubic inch (3.9 liter) flathead V8 engine from a 1948 Mercury, upgraded with Offenhauser “Speed Equipment” including aluminum high-compression heads and dual Stromberg carburetor intakes. Power is transmitted through a 3-speed manual transmission, typical for its era.
- The Le Gene Californian Roadster represents a unique piece of automotive history, offering an interesting alternative to first-generation Corvettes. Its fiberglass body showcases entirely original styling, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful and well-built from the 1950s low-volume fiberglass era. Currently for sale on eBay out of Fenton, Missouri, this rare vehicle has 9,259 miles on the odometer and comes with a mileage exempt title.
The Real Story Le Gene Californian Roadster
The Le Gene Californian Roadster is an exceedingly rare American sports car that even managed to remain anonymous to the team at Undiscovered Classics for a number of years, the number one experts in handbuilt American cars from this era. Fortunately, Geoff at Undiscovered Classics did uncover the story and publish it for the world to see, resurrecting a key piece of automotive history and telling the story of the father and son team who defied the odds to successfully put their own car into production.
This is a modern Watkins Glen poster featuring a Le Gene Californian, a car that competed in the event a number of times. Image courtesy of Watkins Glen + Undiscovered Classics.
The La Gene story starts in the mid-1950s in San Bernardino, California. Lee Dodson and his son Gene Dodson formulated a plan to design their own sports car and built its right out of their garage and workshop. Fiberglass was the carbon fiber of the 1950s, it’s strong, lightweight, impervious to rust, and easy to form into complex compound shapes.
As a result of the properties of fiberglass, it was being taken up as a key material for automotive bodies in the 1950s. There are many who believe the Chevrolet Corvette was the first car with a fiberglass body but this isn’t the case, there had actually been a number of low-volume automakers producing sports cars from the material for years before Chevrolet adopted it.
The first fiberglass-bodied car is widely considered to be the Glasspar G2, with the first mass-produced example being the Kaiser Darrin, both of these vehicles debuted before the C1 Corvette in 1953. By the mid-1950s there were a significant number of companies selling both low-volume fiberglass sports cars and fiberglass bodies that could be bought and then fitted to a pre-existing road car chassis – essentially allowing people to create sports cars in their own garages.
Once of these companies was Le Gene, the firm took its name from the first names of its founders Lee and Gene Dobson. This company name was both memorable and exotic sounding, almost European, belying its humble origins of an automative workshop in San Bernardino.
Building The Le Gene Californian
Lee and Gene worked together to design a new sports car body with a wheelbase that would fit over a number of production chassis of the time. The styling of the body was entirely unique, this certainly wasn’t any kind of replica, and the body is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful and well-built from the 1950s low-volume fiberglass era.
The Le Gene Californian Roadster is a good-looking car from any angle, and it offers excellent performance thanks to its low curb weight and powerful Mercury 239 cubic inch (3.9 liter) flathead V8 modified with Offenhauser high performance parts.
Named the Le Gene Californian Roadster, this new car offered seating for two, a trunk in the rear that could also accommodate a spare wheel, a door on either side, and a hood covering the engine bay. When ordering a Le Gene you could choose either a complete turnkey car or just the body which you would then fit to a chassis yourself.
It’s believed that just six turnkey cars were made, as well as six additional bodies. Today only four of these cars are known to still exist, along with one body. The story had been largely lost to history, with some calling the car the Atlas Ford, but the true history has been uncovered more recently thanks to Geoff Hacker over at Undiscovered Classics.
The 1955 Le Gene Californian Roadster Shown Here
The car you see here is one of the four known surviving examples of the Le Gene Californian Roadster, from the six that are thought to have been made. This car was built on an early 1940s-era Ford chassis with a dropped front axle and a live axle rear end, with leaf springs front and back.
Power is provided by a 239 cubic inch (3.9 liter) flathead V8 sourced from a 1948 Mercury. This engine now benefits from the fitment of Offenhauser “Speed Equipment” including aluminum high-compression heads and dual Stromberg carburetor intakes. Power is sent back through a 3-speed manual transmission, a standard choice for the time.
This Le Gene benefits from a full restoration that was carried out in 2010, it was restored specifically to be shown at the 2010 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, one of the most prestigious concours events on the world stage. As noted in the introduction up top, the car would then later appear on the Discovery Channel’s “AmeriCarna” TV show, hosted by Ray Evernham, and seen by millions around the country (and around the world) for the first time.
In standard tune from the factory this Mercury flathead V8 was good for 95 bhp and 170 lb ft of torque, this example is likely exceeding these figures due to the fitment of aluminum high-compression heads and dual Stromberg carburetor intakes.
The car is now being offered for sale on eBay out of Fenton, Missouri. It has 9,259 miles on the odometer and it comes with a mileage exempt title.
This is the first one of these we’ve seen come up for sale, so it presents a unique opportunity for someone looking for an interesting alternative to a first-gen Corvette. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of eBay
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
