This 375-HP Phone Booth Is Faster Than 5G and Can Be Yours for $130,000
Hello, 9-1-1? I’d like to report a sick burnout.
Ever since the Tesla Model S introduced huge, tablet-like touchscreens to the auto industry, carmakers as a whole have done their best to make their cars as phone-like as possible. They needn't bother with all that hoopla about apps and connectivity, though, because Canadian hot-rodder Gerry Nimz figured out the right way to combine cars and phones more than four decades ago, and it wasn't by sticking a big and distracting touch screen to the dash.
Inspired by another phone booth hot rod made by noted movie car builder Carl Casper, the brain behind KITT and the General Lee cars, Nimz built the hot rod you see here in the late 1970s on a Ford chassis using a Northern Electric phone booth for its body. He first showcased his creation at the Canadian International Auto Show, where it got enough attention to warrant touring other North American auto shows. In 1981, the vehicle made its European debut at what's now known as the Essen Motor Show in Germany, where it caught the eye of a well-to-do local who decided it had to be theirs. After the show, the German arranged to buy the hot rod from Nimz, squirreling it away in a private collection.
Thirty-five years later, the hot rod resurfaced as part of an estate sale, selling on eBay for $29,000 according to the eBay Motors Blog. From there, the phone-rod's new owner set about turning it from the static display model it had been its whole life into a running, driving vehicle, by way of a General Motors small-block V8 from the late 1960s. This four-barrel carbureted V8 is believed to produce around 375 horsepower, which is sent to the rear wheels through a Turbo-Hydramatic 350 automatic transmission, and controlled by a throttle cheekily rigged up in the booth's phone dial. It also features a hydraulic handbrake and power steering, though it's hard to imagine how one steers this hot rod with no apparent steering wheel.
Now back on the market, the phone-rod is sadly no longer a running vehicle and is speculated to need a transmission replacement before it can be driven. That won't be much of a hurdle to prospective buyers of this hot rod, who will first have to surmount its asking price of over $130,000 to get behind its... uh, receiver. It's also a lot of money to ask for a vehicle that is said not to be street-legal, but then again, the law clearly doesn't stop some people from pulling shenanigans on the public road.
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