A 73-year-old Playboy A48, one of the world’s first hard-top cabriolets and a specimen of the breed of around 50 units surviving to this day, will hit the auction in early December.
Louis ‘Lou’ Horwitz, who originally sold Packard vehicles, founded the company in the mid-1940s. He had intended to design and sell less expensive mass-market cars, but ended up never making anything other than the A48.
The cabriolet came powered by a four-cylinder engine mated to a three-speed manual transmission. It had 41 PS (40 hp / 30 kW) at its disposal, which enabled it to jog 0-80 km/h (0-50 mph) in lethargic 17 seconds before maxing out at 120 km/h (75 mph). Horwitz had wanted to expand the lineup, but never found sponsors. In the end, the company only produced 97 cars, of which roughly a half still survive in the USA.
This particular example has a touch over 12,000 km (7,500 miles) on the odo and is due some restoration. No asking price is mentioned, but a similar A48 in better condition fetched $132,000 three years ago.
Legend holds that Playboy Magazine founder, Hugh Heffner, borrowed the name of the company for his famous erotic magazine. One of Heffner’s colleagues claimed his mother used to work at Playboy Motor Car Corp., and when the company had to shut down, Heffner decided to reuse the catchy name.