00:00Welcome back to Cinebuster. If you haven't subscribed yet, what are you doing? Hit the button right now, because today's
00:05episode is exactly the kind of thing we built this channel for.
00:08Every once in a while a car gets built that is so outrageous so perfectly of its moment, that it
00:13stops being a vehicle and starts being alleged, and then tragically somehow it disappears.
00:19Today we're telling 10 of those stories, cars that were built for movies, built for rock stars, built for showmen,
00:25and built for maniacs with more money than cents.
00:27And then lost, forgotten, left to rust, or stolen outright, only to find their way back into the world years
00:33or decades later against all odds.
00:35These are the 10 greatest lost and found custom cars in history, and we're going to tell every single one
00:40of them right.
00:41Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe and now lights camera action.
00:45Car number one. We start with one of the most absurd and magnificent machines ever constructed on American soil.
00:51Jay Overbird was a California customizer and Hollywood car builder who decided sometime in the mid-1980s that the world
00:58needed a limousine that was 100 feet long.
01:01Not a little long. Not stretch limo long. 100 feet.
01:0630.5 meters. 26 wheels.
01:08Two V8 engines.
01:10One in the front and one in the back, each controlled by a separate driver.
01:13And because a 100-foot limo would be useless without amenities, Overbird built it with a swimming pool, a diving
01:20board, a jacuzzi, a waterbed, a mini golf course, and a helipad.
01:24He based it on a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado using the frames from multiple donor cars welded together with a custom
01:30ladder frame in the middle, and a hinge point that allowed the whole thing to articulate around corners.
01:35He called it the American Dream.
01:37Guinness World Records certified it as the longest car in the world in 1986 and it immediately became famous.
01:44Then it wasn't.
01:45The American Dream spent years quietly deteriorating in a parking lot in New Jersey, stripped of parts rusting through its
01:51interior gutted and its helipad empty.
01:53It showed up in a 2013 video looking like something it'd find at the bottom of a river.
01:58The car that had once held a Guinness record was now just an embarrassing pile of stretched metal in an
02:03industrial park.
02:03A man named Michael Manning who ran a technical teaching museum on Long Island called Autosium, spotted it, listed it
02:10on eBay, made an offer, worked out a partnership deal, and halted to New York.
02:14It sat behind his building for another seven or eight years while funding evaporated and county politics intervened.
02:20In 2019 Florida car collector Michael Deezer stepped in, purchased the American Dream, and funded a full restoration at his
02:27Deezerland Park Museum in Orlando.
02:29The restoration cost approximately $250,000 and required donor El Dorado's new drivetrain components, a rebuilt interior, and a restored
02:37pool and jacuzzi.
02:38On March 1, 2022 the American Dream rolled out of Deezerland at 100 feet and 1.5 inches, breaking its
02:45own world record by a fraction.
02:46It now lives at Deezerland Park in Orlando, or you can actually go see it.
02:51Car number two.
02:51If the American Dream is the most excessive car ever built in America, this next one might be the most
02:56eccentric.
02:57Rocky Aoki, founder of the Benahana restaurant chain, offshore powerboat racer, amateur wrestler, amateur balloonist, and general-purpose thrill-seeker,
03:05commissioned a one-of-a-kind Porsche 911 limousine in the late 1980s.
03:09His son Steve Aoki would go on to become a world-famous DJ.
03:12His daughter Devin Aoki became an actress and model.
03:16But their father was a man built for a different kind of spectacle entirely.
03:19Rocky took two 1974 Porsche 911 Targas, perfectly good air-cooled sports cars that any purist would consider sacred,
03:26and then cut them in half and welded them together into a stretched limousine with a Porsche 959 body kit
03:32over the whole thing.
03:33The result was bizarre, magnificent, and completely of its era.
03:37Inside was a minibar, a partition with a roll-down window, custom airplane-shaped sconces, a VCR, and a rear
03:42seat that folded into a bed.
03:44Rocky used the car to compete in the 1991 One Lap of America.
03:48A week-long endurance event around the country, specifically because having a bed in the back meant one co-driver
03:53could sleep while the other drove.
03:55After Rocky Aoki passed away in 2008, the Porsche Lomo began a long, sad slide.
04:00The engine was stolen at some point, just gone, lifted from the car by someone who clearly didn't care about
04:05its history.
04:06The Targa top disintegrated, letting the elements in.
04:09The interior stripped out.
04:10The title disappeared.
04:11Over the years this thing showed up on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and various auction sites.
04:16Asking pricing ranging from $18,000 to $45,000.
04:21Always described as a roller with no motor and a fascinating story.
04:25In 2024 automotive journalist and Jalopnik contributor Sam Smith reported that a Northern California enthusiast named Ficata had tracked the
04:32car down and hauled it back to his shop.
04:34With the intention of restoring it to something like its original one-lap livery and white leather interior.
04:40Whether that restoration has fully materialized is unclear.
04:43But the car exists and it's in the hands of someone who wants it to live.
04:47Car number 3.
04:48Cadillac never built a production station wagon.
04:50Not in the 1950s.
04:51Not in the 1970s.
04:53Not ever.
04:53But if you were Elvis Presley, that detail was merely an obstacle.
04:57On the morning of September 26, 1974, Elvis walked into a Madison Cadillac dealership and commissioned a one-of-a
05:03-kind build.
05:04A full-size Cadillac DeVille converted into a station wagon by American Sunroof Company.
05:09Painted white with a pink pinstripe and a vinyl top, he wanted something he could haul musical gear and luggage
05:14in on his runs between Las Vegas and the airport.
05:17He bought four other cars the same morning and gave those away.
05:20This one he kept.
05:21Elvis used the wagon.
05:22He drove it.
05:23He reportedly made the run from Las Vegas back to Graceland in December 1976.
05:28A 1,500-mile haul that would be his last road trip.
05:31When he died in August of 1977, the wagon was sold out of his estate.
05:35And then it simply vanished.
05:37For roughly three decades, one of the most singular automobiles Elvis Presley ever commissioned was completely unaccounted for.
05:43It resurfaced in the mid-2000s, surfaced on eBay in 2015 with an asking price of $1.5 million.
05:49And eventually found its way to the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois, where it was featured on the television
05:55series Ridiculous Rides and has been on display ever since.
05:58It now shows around 8,000 total miles, which for a car that was used as a personal hauler by
06:03the king of rock and roll himself is absolutely unbelievable.
06:06The museum's manager has said he takes it out for a drive occasionally just to keep it running.
06:10A piece of Americana, lost for 30 years, found again and still moving under its own power, car.
