This Pontiac Ghost Car Was The Talk Of Town During The 1939 NY World’s Fair

World’s Fairs have always provided a unique venue for companies to showcase some of the more radical products and offerings they’re developing in their labs and design incubators. And automakers have taken advantage of this, with some using the fairgrounds to bolster interest in everything from strange concept cars to Ford’s iconic Mustang, which debuted at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

Advertisement

As wild — and cool — as designs for concept cars can be, few have been as strange as a Pontiac that wowed World’s Fair visitors a quarter-century before the Mustang. That 1939 debut also happened in New York, at a fair whose theme was “The World of Tomorrow.” In General Motors’ “Highways and Horizons” display in the “Futurama” exhibit, Pontiac gave attendees a glimpse of one possible automobile future with its aptly-named Ghost Car.

The Ghost Car, also known as the Glass Car, was presented as America’s first transparent vehicle, a claim largely lived up to as its body was made of Plexiglas instead of the traditional steel. It was essentially the innards of a Pontiac Deluxe Six encased in Plexiglass, and outfitted with all-white tires. Nonetheless, few vehicles on display at the ’39 World’s Fair were as captivating.

Advertisement

Of course, Pontiac’s showstopping World’s Fair concept vehicle wasn’t a Ghost Car by the term’s strictest definition. After all, beneath its Plexiglas body, you could still see its steel frame and many of its functional components. You could even see the white spare tire resting comfortably in the trunk. 

Advertisement

Pontiac shelled out some serious money to make the Ghost Car a reality, dropping roughly $25,000 to build it – in today’s money, about $567,000. Given that sum, one could hardly question Pontiac if it had made the Ghost Car a one-of-one original. However, the Ghost Car was such a hit at the World’s Fair that Pontiac commissioned a second transparent car in 1940, based on Pontiac’s Torpedo Eight. It wowed attendees at the 1940 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, but hard as it might be to believe, the second Ghost Car has been lost to time, with its whereabouts unknown after embarking on a Pontiac dealership tour at the end of the exposition.

Thankfully, the O.G. Ghost Car’s whereabouts are well documented, having been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in the 1940s before passing through the garages of several private owners in the decades thereafter. The vehicle turned up for auction in 2011, selling to another private owner for a reported $308,000. Given its now-one-of-a-kind status, the Ghost Car should be ranked among the most collectible Pontiacs ever made (if you could find it).

Advertisement