Guitar car to be re-stringed

by Bill Buys IT once was a sparkling pink, now its paint is dull and its bonnet is pockmarked with rust cancer and it certainly needs a lot ...

by Bill Buys

IT once was a sparkling pink, now its paint is dull and its bonnet is pockmarked with rust cancer and it certainly needs a lot of tender love.

It’s the famous Git-Tar or Guitar Car, a 12.5m-long piece of mobile rock’n’roll history, created in the 1970s, that has not been seen on American soil in decades.

It once was lost, but now it’s found and Elvis fans will soon be able to get up close to it in Dezerland Park, Orlando.

The one-of-a-kind custom Cadillac was the work of Hollywood car customiser Jay Ohrberg as a tribute to the King of Rock and Roll.

Elvis Presley is known to have driven the single-seat Guitar Car on a few occasions, including to a show in Las Vegas.

Despite its size, the guitar-shaped car was somehow road-legal – and for city parking, it needed at three to four city parking meter spaces...

It started life as a 1970 Cadillac Eldorado, but by the time Ohrberg had worked his mojo on it, the Caddy looked more like an outsize Gibson guitar on wheels.

It still has the original 300kW 8.2-litre V8 engine and Caddy front end, with a tubular steel neck for the strings.

The driver sat in the soundboard area at the rear. 

The car features musical notes running down the sides, oversized tail fins, a snug seating area once topped with a transparent dome and a logo on the side, which includes a Rolling Stones tongue symbol plus two girls in boots and bikinis -- it reads ‘Hollywood Star Cars.’

The vehicle has spent years overseas, some of them apparently stored out in the elements where it decayed somewhat until it popped up on eBay, where the seller was asking 10,000 euros for it (about $17,500 Aussie dollars).

“Few cars capture the spirit of American music and culture the way this one does,” Michael Dezer, owner of Dezerland Park, Orlando said.

He is one of the world’s foremost collectors of classic and celebrity vehicles. 

What he paid for the guitar car has not been revealed. 

His Orlando Auto Museum has more than 2500 rare and famous vehicles with a combined value of more than  AU $350 million. 

The collection includes cars from movies, international oddities, military vehicles, antiques and the world’s longest limo (also an Ohrberg creation).

That car, called The American Dream, was nearly 31m in length, ran on 26 wheels and had a pair of V8 engines -- front and rear.

It can be driven from either end, or used as a rigid vehicle.

It had a central hinge so it could turn corners and it had material pleasures fit for a king: a large waterbed, a swimming pool complete with a diving board, jacuzzi, bathtub, mini-golf course, a helipad, and can accommodate 75 passengers.

Dezerland Park, Orlando will soon unveil the Guitar Car to the public before embarking on a comprehensive restoration project that guests can watch unfold live inside the park’s auto museum.

Once fully restored, the Elvis Guitar Car will take its place as the centrepiece of a new exhibit dedicated to Ohrberg’s iconic creations many of which have appeared in films, TV action and pop culture for decades -- plus cars from James Bond, Batman and the Fast & Furious franchise. 

 “We are proud to bring this extraordinary piece of Elvis history back to the US and to make it available for fans to see up close," Dezer said.

 

Git-Tar, 1989. American designer Jay Ohrberg next to his guitar-shaped car

 

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