This is the 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster, it’s a car that you might never have seen before as just a single example was made, and there’s relatively little information about it online.
The car was built to an original Brooks Stevens design, though modified into a roadster and given a revised front end. It was built in the 1990s as a passion project led by Stevens’ friend Robert Shaw (the “RS” in the model name), and it’s now being offered for sale for the first time ever.
Fast Facts – The Excalibur RS Roadster
- The 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster is a unique car designed by Brooks Stevens, with the project completed in the 1990s by Stevens’ friend, Robert Shaw. It incorporates modern features like scissor doors, power steering, and a 5.7 liter GM V8 engine.
- The Excalibur RS Roadster is based on the earlier 1961 Excalibur Hawk Coupe, which was built on a Studebaker chassis. The RS Roadster’s bodywork is hand-formed from aluminum, with a tubular steel spaceframe chassis developed by Chuck Rahn.
- The car is powered by a 5.7 liter GM V8 crate engine with Edelbrock fuel injection, mated to a GM 700R4 automatic transmission. The vehicle has high-performance parts throughout including Wilwood disc brakes, power rack-and-pinion steering, and a custom-made exhaust system.
- This one-off 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster, finished in Mercedes-Benz mystic blue metallic with red, white, and blue accents, will be auctioned by Mecum on May 16th. It’s the first time the car is being sold, making it an exceptional opportunity as it’s the first time it’s been offered for public sale.
Who Was Brooks Stevens?
Brooks Stevens was an influential American industrial designer known for shaping mid-20th-century consumer products and automotive design. Among Stevens’s most famous creations is the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, which he redesigned in 1958. This whimsical vehicle, shaped like a giant hot dog on wheels, quickly became a beloved cultural icon and remains well-known even today, over 70 years later.
Here we see Brooks Stevens in 1952 seated in one of his own creations. Image courtesy of the Excalibur Automobile Corporation.
In 1962, he redesigned the Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk, but perhaps his most significant automotive design was the Jeep Wagoneer, introduced in 1963. Stevens combined comfort, luxury, and rugged off-road capability into a single vehicle, effectively inventing what would become known as the modern luxury SUV – now one of the best-selling automotive genres in the world.
Stevens also left his mark on motorcycle history through his work with Harley-Davidson. In 1949, he designed the Harley-Davidson Hydra-Glide, integrating a new hydraulic front suspension and a streamlined form factor, his design cues were carried forward by Harley, and they still influence the design of many modern motorcycles from the Milwaukee-based marque.
His design of the Skytop Lounge observation cars for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad’s Hiawatha passenger trains has become famous, in the train world at least, for its forward-thinking layout and the expansive views offered by the upward-facing windows.
Beyond transportation, Stevens helped shape consumer brands through both industrial and graphic design – in the 1950s, he designed the widely recognized logo and packaging for Miller Brewing Company, contributing to the visual identity that still dominates Miller branding to the current day.
In the mid-1940s, before the end of WWII, Brooks Stevens along with Raymond Loewy and eight other influential industrial designers of the time established the Industrial Designers Society of America – an organization that still exists today.
The Original 1961 Excalibur Hawk Coupe
The 1961 Excalibur Hawk Coupe, sometimes referenced as a 1963 model, was designed by Brooks Stevens. The Excalibur series of cars was originally based on the design of the 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK, and they were built on Studebaker Lark chassis, initially making use of Studebaker drivetrains.
This is the 1961 Excalibur Hawk, it was very much a product of its time, and it looked distinctly different from the many other Excalibur designs that would follow. Image courtesy of the Excalibur Automobile Corporation.
After Studebaker stopped producing engines, and eventually stopped producing cars altogether, the Excalibur was built using General Motors 327 V8s in Corvette tune, offering 300 bhp and making the relatively lightweight 2,100 lb (950 kg) Excalibur a remarkably quick car for the time.
The Excalibur Hawk Coupe is a design penned by Stevens and based on the Lark chassis. It was a blank slate design with sweeping lines very much influenced by Jet Age styling. Just a single full-scale example was built, powered by a Corvette 327 V8, and today it remains in a private collection.
The 1962 Excalibur RS Roadster
The car you see here is likely the last automotive design that Brooks Stevens ever worked on. The project began in the early 1990s, and it wouldn’t be completed until after Stevens’ death in 1995.
The RS Roadster was based on the earlier Excalibur Hawk Coupe from the early 1960s, but the roof was removed, the rear fins were tamed somewhat, and the front end was updated with help from Herb Grasse and Dave Draper.
The project to build the car was led by Robert Shaw, a close friend of Stevens who also happens to own the original Excalibur Hawk Coupe. Shaw had a new tubular steel spaceframe chassis developed and built for the car by Chuck Rahn. This chassis has control-arm front suspension, a Halibrand rear axle with a quick change rear end, power rack-and-pinion steering, and Wilwood disc brakes.
The bodywork was all hand-formed from aluminum and fitted with Lamborghini Murcielago scissor doors, a low polycarbonate windshield, and it has power doors, a power hood, and a power decklid.
Inside you’ll find engine-turned aluminum panels and fiberglass moldings trimmed in leather. The two seats are fixed buckets, and both the interior and exterior are finished in Stevens’s traditional red, white, and blue livery – Mercedes-Benz mystic blue metallic paint was used as an homage to the 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK.
The Excalibur RS Roadster is a beautiful design, it took over 10 years to build and an extraordinary amount of money. It’s now being offered for sale for the first time.
Power is provided by a 5.7 liter General Motors V8 crate engine, this is fitted with Edelbrock throttle body fuel injection, tubular exhaust headers, and custom valve covers that were made to Shaw’s specifications. This engine is mated to a GM 700R4 automatic transmission sending power back to the rear wheels.
The car is now due to roll across the auction block with Mecum on the 16th of May, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Mecum
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