Anyone remember the “Dale?”

[JohnC]

I had never heard of this as I was alive but very young at the time. Essentially a “gal” (turns out “she” was a trans) creates a car company during the 1970s fuel shortages that promises 70mpg from a 3 wheel car. Claimed the body was made from “rocket” resin and could run into a wall at 30mph + and suffer little more than a scratch. Made a prototype or model that’s in the Peterson auto museum and collected tens of millions of dollars from investors and turns out it’s a scam.
I saw this last night watching “Unsolved Mysteries.” She was on the lam (or is it lamb?) at the time and thanks to the airing of the show she was captured in Texas. From the show it sounded like she took a lot of money from wealthy people who definitely should have known better despite the fact that the claims she made about the car were highly implausible. Reminded me immediately of Elizabeth Holmes.

Sounds like HBO made a documentary about this and predictably made her out to be a hero of sorts just for being trans even though she was a criminal through and through.

'The Lady and the Dale' Is a Strange, Strange Tale

New docu-series shows the three-wheeled Dale car is just a small part of a much bigger story

www.autoweek.com

What Happened to the Dale Car From 'The Lady and the Dale'

"The Lady and the Dale" on HBO tells the story of the mysterious entrepreneur Geraldine Elizabeth 'Liz' Carmichael and her seemingly too good to be true Dale car—a car that is now exceedingly rare.

www.newsweek.com

I found this to be the best article:

https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/liz-carmichael-and-the-econo-car-con-of-the-1970s/

 

[Richard150MPH]

......."He" was a criminal through and through.
And yes I am old enough to remember this scam.

 

[JohnC]

That was my thought too. Just a criminal who had a criminal record before the car scam. The Haggerty article quotes HBO who put out the documentary:

“As an HBO Documentary Films press release puts it, “The Lady and the Dale is a riveting, human portrait of an imperfect trans trailblazer, an industrious businesswoman and a beloved mother whose ambition and unwavering optimism ran headlong into widespread transphobia and media bias. Her life leaves a complicated legacy. Ahead of her time, forced to operate in an unaccommodating world, Liz Carmichael stands as a heroic reminder of the prejudices facing the trans community and a symbol of untrammeled enterprise and survival.”

What load of horse shit. She wasn’t a “businesswoman.” He/she was a con artist.
“Unwavering optimism?!” As the Haggerty article author put it, she was selling “vapor ware.”
“Untrammeled enterprise?!” Yes I guess all criminals can be considered “enterprising” on some level.
Bernie Madoff was an “enterprising” “businessman” too I guess. Other than being a white man and not trans, how are the two scams different? Why is one a villain and the other a “heroic” “imperfect trailblazer?”
Again, just a load of woke bullshit. Criminals are criminals and being trans doesn’t mitigate that fact.

Oh, and the fact that “she” was trans was not known until cops raided her hotel room and found wigs and such. So despite the apparent claims that she battled “transphobia” that had nothing to do with the failure of the business as it wasn’t known until after the fact.

 

[Richard150MPH]

As I recall for a while he was playing being two people, one male and one fake female.
But no one could ever get them into the same room at the same time.

 

[Shovelrick]

Mother? Who the heck was a business woman and Mother?

 

[JohnC]

Lol. I hadn’t even thought of that part.

 

[JohnC]

In an interview on Unsolved Mysteries which I suspect was from the early 90 or even late 80s, I found it odd that one of the investors who got swindled kept calling him a “her” even through he was aware that he was trans. I wasn’t aware that 3 decades ago people felt compelled to use their preferred pronouns instead of their biological pronoun.

I really hadn’t meant this to become a trans discussion. I just found it fascinating that people were so easily fooled into thinking that some yahoo could build a 70 mpg car in the 1970s and were willing to invest having never seen a viable prototype.

The plan was for a BMW motorcycle engine but I’d bet in 1970s those didn’t even get anywhere close to 70 mpg in a motorcycle, much less a car.
I believe there was a prototype that had some sort of motor in it but it kept tipping over when it cornered. Another model of the car was just for appearances and has 2x4s supporting the back wheel and no motor.

there is a picture of the car in one of the articles where is was on The Price is Right. Not sure how you can try to give away a car that doesn’t yet really exist but I guess they tried.

 

[Richard150MPH]

The same type of swindles continue, but now they are EV as that is the current fad in foolishness.

The Geo Metro XFI gets over 50 MPG in the real world, I am putting an engine from one into a dune buggy.
But Geo's were cheap cars and often scrapped for minor problems unrelated to the engines.