Bertha Rides Again!!

Back in 1998, when I went down to Santa Cruz, I visited E.G.'s long-time friend Mike Leeds, and took a tour of both his unique home and his equally unique workshop. Among the many ongoing projects there was Bertha, a 1941 Seagraves fire truck that had been converted into a boat-tailed roadster.

This thing had a V-12 engine, but the most amazing part was that you didn't really realize how BIG it was until you stood next to it. A normal roadster would be waist- to chest-height, but you had to stand on tiptoes to see over the cowl of this thing!

On his visit this month, E.G. mentioned that Mike had put a lot of work into Bertha and was taking her to car shows. While I was aware that Mike was planning on cutting off the first version of the boat-tail backend of the 'car', I was very impressed today after Googling up the Blastolene web site and finding the [url=http://www.blastolene.com/Bertha/]end results of the newest modifications:

I am amazed, awed and envious, all at once!

While you are on the Blastolene web site, be sure to also check out the Blastolene Special, a ground-up fabrication powered by a M47 Patton Tank V12 engine putting out 1000 h.p. - 1500 ft. lbs. of torque!!! Woah!