Them going on about the car being "lost" for years is a bunch of hype and BS! It was featured in the SA Design series in the book called "How to paint your car on a budget" by Pat Ganahl. It was copyrighted 2006 so 16+ years ago its whereabouts were definitely known!
Indeed, this thread is about the auction results from last month.
However, it was
never claimed that the period of time the car was "lost" spans until its appearance at Mecum last month, [or even until its appearance at Pebble Beach in 2015].
Here is the timeline, for those challenged by a short attention span:
Jim purchased the car for $500 in 1957.
He and his girlfriend-then-wife Sue occasionally enjoyed it in public in its dented form into the early 1960's, at which point it was hidden away in his garage.
In 1988, Jim was enticed to bring it out of hiding by an offer of a subsidized restoration by qualified people, including some who once worked for Barris Kustoms.
Rod and Custom magazine documented that restoration, repairing the body damage and unwinding the movie repaint back to to its original Barris color.
Part of that restoration process no doubt made it into the 2006 car painting book you reference.
Jim passed in 2018, and Sue shortly after that.
His heirs sold the car at auction last month.
Had you reviewed any of the [admittedly long] videos that tell the back story of the car, you would have found that few people knew the whereabouts of the car for a period
spanning from the early 60's until 1988.
But perhaps that number of decades is not significant enough to rise above your standards for "hype" and "BS".
