SECTION: ESCAPE ROAD; Pg. 60

LENGTH: 935 words

HEADLINE: 1953 Arnolt-Aston Martin;
'Wacky' Arnolt's wonderful roadster boasts looks, pedigree

BYLINE: By John Matras; John Matras is working on a book on Wacky Arnolt and his cars with Mike DiCola and Lee Raskin.

BODY:
One need not look any further for the origin of the Arnolt-Bristol shape than to the Arnolt-Aston Martin. Of course, that's easier said that done because if the Arnolt-Bristol is obscure, known mostly to A-B enthusiasts, the Arnolt-AM is arcane.

There were, if one is generous, only eight Arnolt-Aston Martins made. The facts are hard to pin down, but the flow of the story starts at the 1952 Turin show with American industrialist Stanley "Wacky" Arnolt contracting with Bertone to produce 100 each roadsters and coupes on MG-TD chassis. The cash saved Bertone and allowed the tiny coachbuilder to continue to build exotic on-offs as series production improved, the latter including the Arnolt-Bristol. But in 1953, while the Arnolt-MGs were being made, Wacky commissioned to have six Aston Martin DB-4 Mk I chassis fitted with Bertone coachwork. How this came about isn't recorded, but we do know that Wacky was persuasive. Also, it didn't hurt David Brown to have a quick, tidy sale of this size. They were in fact among the first DB2 chassis made, numbers LML 502 through LML 507. The factory kept LML 501 as a chassis. Not to become a tract of which chassis went where, but when there are only six . . .

All but 504 and 506 were roadsters, 502 and 507 being racing versions with spare skin over the sturdy square-tube frame that was the Aston Martin DB2 which, with its integral cowl structure, was ideal for such a project. LML 502 was driven some on the street and track by Jim Hartman, who was killed racing the car. It remains in the ownership of his widow.

LML 503 is a mystery. Perhaps kept by Wacky for his own use, it has disappeared, perhaps in the fire at his Chicago dealership. Maybe it's in a barn somewhere. LML 505 is similar to 502 and 507, which are as close to identical as custom-built cars get. There are differences, but 505 was street-equipped with luxuries such as rudimentary bumpers, a full height windscreen and a top with side curtains. It was at last report in Switzerland. LML 504 and 506 were convertibles, with more creature comforts and different bodies.

Then to bring the total to eight cars, Wacky bought two more Astons in 1954 and had them shipped to Turin. They were not completed until 1957. Wacky forgot about them, and finally Bertone had to write and ask what to do with them. These were LML 762, a convertible, and LML 765, a fixed head coupe, with body designs completely different from the earlier cars.

LML 507 is now owned jointly by Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel and by Frank Opalka, owner of Import Service, Inc., in Evanston, Ill. One source gives the first owner as Phillip Stewart of Lake Forest, others cite E. C. Kiekhaefer of outboard engine fame. The latter was an enthusiast of exotic cars, which were usually torn down by his engineers to see what made them tick. A Wisconsin auto dealership took it in on trade in 1958 and promptly sold it to Peter Luan who sold it to Opalka in 1970.

There is no concession to practicality in 507, which like the five other early cars was probably drawn by Franco Scaglione, then head of design at Bertone. There are no bumpers, the fenders with their crisp upper edge lead with their headlights. The interior is spare. The doors have no liner and the simple door latches are opened by a cord. The windscreen is low, racer-style and the dash is simply a place for instruments. Rear fenders end in unprotected knife-edged arcs; the whole shape a subdued rendering of Bertone's aerodynamic B.A.T. deisgns. Over the Aston keyhole grille is Wacky's concession to vanity, a cloissone Arnold badge, the big A and Pegasus with, in this case, Aston Martin written below.

Under the hood is a 2.9-liter inline six, a dual overhead cam design by W. O. Bentley himself. Opalka, who vintage races the car (and drives it to events at Elkhart Lake), replaced the original SUs with a trio of dual-throat Webers. He also raised the seat because, well, he's no Butkus. That put my head up in the windstream during a surreptitious blast around the streets of Evanston -- or at least as surreptitious as one can blast in a loud red roadster.

The car is heavy to steer around town, but shifting is simple despite a stiff clutch. Blipping the throttle makes great baritone noises. Opalka confesses to not having the carbs dialed in for city driving; it takes a moment before they clean out and come full on the main jets. Britain's Autocar tested a DB-4 with a full coupe (2772 pounds) aluminum body at 18.9 seconds in the quarter and 120 mph top speed. The steel Bertone version is probably equal to that.

The stiff ride in the British tradition with skinny tires on 16-inch wires gives vintage handling which outshone its contemporaries. Opalka claims the car comes into its own cruising at 80. Who's to argue, except maybe the Illinois State Police.

Why were so few Arnolt-Astons built? Perhaps David Brown disliked Wacky's selling the Bertones for less than standard versions; that might be an exaggeration. Not many Arnolt cars were made, and Wacky's sales manager Jack Nakagawa recalls the specials were a pain in the neck.

It may just be that Aston didn't need the chassis sales. For Arnolt, it was probably time to move on to other things, most notably the Arnolt-Bristol and the sale of standard cars (he was an Aston Martin distributor) which of course has gone on all the while. The Arnolt-Aston Martins in the end became a small, fascinating footnote in the history of the automobile but the template on which the Arnolt-Bristol was laid.

GRAPHIC: Photos 1 and 2, Design by Scaglione, body by Bertone, ingenuity from Chicago yielded impractical but appealing road car. Lines combine Aston Martin heritage with hint of Arnolt-Bristol to come later.