This Week’s Weird and Wonderful—February 13, 2026

This weekend, we are all going to be bombarded by advertisements from new car manufacturers and local dealer networks. We don’t know how car-buying and President’s Day got linked up, but we are in the business of selling automobiles, so we are duty-bound to try to entice you, our audience, into purchasing all sorts of different things on wheels (not that you need much prodding). Of the 800 or so listings currently on our live auctions page, we have selected here a handful a of the most interesting, unique, strange, and fantastic from the last seven days. We hope you dig it.

Enjoy this week’s Weird and Wonderful, and let us know what else caught your eye in the comments!

1969 Citroen DS21 Henri Chapron Serie 2 Cabriolet Conversion by Karl’s Autowerkstatt

It takes a truly gifted coachbuilder to improve upon the shape of the Citroen DS, and Henri Chapron’s less-is-more approach added an undeniable elegance to its avant-garde lines. Citroen initially rejected his cabriolet design, but after Chapron purchased and converted some 300 cars on his own dime, the main office in Poissy agreed to fund his project, and ~1,500 more were made through 1971.

Chapron’s legacy is now managed by his family, and they’ve licensed the cabriolet design to a German shop called Karl’s Autowerkstatt, which specializes in DS restoration and customization. This car received its roof-ectomy at Karl’s in 2019, and looks stunning in metallic bronze over cognac leather. Bidding is already into six figures, but hopefully there will still be room in the budget for a matching Hermès scarf.

Ex–Vic Edelbrock Jr., 292 Flathead-Powered 1932 Ford Roadster by Roy Brizio

In his early days, Vic Edelbrock Sr. purchased his first project car: a 1932 Ford roadster. Around the same time, he also developed his first upgraded part—the iconic “Slingshot” intake manifold. His Deuce became the test bed, and three weeks before the invasion of Pearl Harbor, Vic Sr. ran a best 121.45 miles per hour at Harper Dry Lake. With the fenders back on, his racer doubled as the family runabout. He eventually sold it in the ’50s “because he didn’t like things laying around.” But the car left its mark on his son Vic Jr., who teamed up with Roy Brizio to recreate his dad’s Old No. 3 hot rod in the early 2000s at a cost north of $200k.

1988 March-Chevrolet 88C Indy Car

The listing for this open-wheel racer reads as follows: “This 1988 March 88C was driven in American Indycar Series competition by J.W. Mitchell, who achieved a third-place standing in the 1997 season and was awarded Rookie of the Year.” A couple of facts in that statement imply a whole lot of backstory. Designed for the 1988 season, the car somehow, nine years later, achieved a third-place standing in the 1997 American Indycar Series championship. What on earth was a decade-old Indy car doing on the podium? Most of us probably remember the CART vs. IRL conflict going on at that time, but the lesser-known American Indycar Series was formed earlier, in the late 1980s, as a budget alternative to CART. Instead of the latest chassis and turbocharged Buick or Chevy-Ilmor engines, AIS teams ran outdated cars that were initially powered by carbureted 5.89-liter Chevy small-block V8s like the one in this car. When it comes to vintage racing, the simpler powerplant is ideal, and with 589 horsepower on tap it should be able to terrorize some of the more expensive open-wheelers on track.

2005 Ford Focus Saleen N2O 5-Speed

The Focus N2O was a peculiar chapter in the Saleen-Ford story. After dutifully imbibing 2 Fast 2 Furious, conducting “real world research out on the ‘streets’,” and becoming enamored with NOS, Steve Saleen launched his nitrous-equipped Ford Focus in limited numbers. Based on the ZX3, the package included a body kit, bigger wheels, an upgraded ECU, and most notably, a direct-port wet nitrous system. With the bottle wide open, power output spiked to 225 horsepower and 250 lb-ft of torque. A showroom car equipped with nitrous was unheard of then, as it is now, and flipping on the gas voided the factory warranty. This example comes from the latter of the model’s two production years.

561-Mile 1974 Honda Civic Hondamatic and 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback 4-Speed

The dealer sticker on this first-gen Civic shows a price of $2,695 in 1974. For that money at that time, there were plenty of other options—but few were as efficient as the little Honda. This one was driven for just one year and then placed into storage—maybe there was a Mach 1 in the garage waiting for the OPEC crisis to wane. Whatever the circumstances, the Civic was parked with 561 miles on the odometer, and if it’s not the lowest-mileage example in existence, it’s close.

This next Civic is stripped down beyond poverty spec. “Equipment consists of crank windows and a heater.” Only the most stubborn of cheapskates could have ordered this Honda—someone who orders their cheeseburger with no cheese and no bun. We can imagine the salesperson sweating as they scratched every last piece of optional equipment off of the list.

SALESPERSON: Radio?

BUYER: No.

SALESPERSON: Floor mats?

BUYER: No. And I’m saving the wiper blades off of my trade-in.

SALESPERSON: Cloth seats…?

BUYER: Anything cheaper?

SALESPERSON: Passenger mirror and cigarette lighter are standard.

BUYER: Not on my car!

SALESPERSON: Five-speed transmission.

BUYER: I’m not paying for all those gears!

SALESPERSON: (sigh) Well, all of our cars get undercoated, so that’s an additional—

BUYER: ONE DOLLAR MORE AND I’LL BURN THIS PLACE TO THE GROUND.

MG-Powered 1934 Singer Nine Sports 4-Speed

There’s a certain irony in an MG-powered Singer Nine, given that Singer and MG were direct competitors at the time. The Nine Sports was Singer’s four-seater touring model that featured shortened front wings, no running boards, and styling akin to the contemporary Riley MPH and MG J-type. Like those cars, it was competitive; a Nine Sports secured 13th place at the 1933 Le Mans, paving the way for the Singer Le Mans. But that’s a story for another day. This 1934 example sports a larger 1,275cc four-pot sourced from a later MG Midget. The seller acquired it after two previous appearances on BaT, and it’s now back for round three. The removed 972cc inline-four and four-speed gearbox are included in the sale.

c.1880 F&R Shanks Road Coach

Time was, it cost 21 shillings to get from Exeter to Falmouth on the Regulator coach. That’s about 100 miles as the horse clops, and would have taken about 11 hours on dry roads. Even at the time, the railroad would have been both cheaper and faster, but the Regulator was a luxury transport of the late 1800s coaching renaissance. The fare was equivalent to one guinea, an outdated denomination considered the “gentleman’s price” among the upper classes of Victorian England. To put it all in context, this coach would have provided scenic transport through the West Country for somewhere around 18 people from well-to-do families on their way to the shore. The important questions in the discussion are coming from @Pennoak, who has previously auctioned two horse-drawn vehicles here on BaT and seems to be one of the very few folks left able to drive a four-in-hand team.

1960 Edsel Ranger Two-Door Hardtop

This week, BaT seller @nguess25 showed up with a small multitude of late-1950s American iron, including this handsome 1960 Edsel Ranger. By late 1959, Ford was all but done with the Edsel lineup, and the Ranger was the marque’s swan song. The two-door hardtop model essentially shared its greenhouse with the Ford Starliner, with a nose and tail by Edsel. Only 2,846 examples were built across all models in the truncated model year, and this Ranger is one of 243 Standard hardtops.

1914 White Model Thirty Roadster Project

Fun fact: over half of new cars registered in the US in the early 1900s were steam-powered. The White Motor Company was a large manufacturer of such cars, but by the early 1910s, steam had given way to gasoline; the 1914 Model Thirty roadster was one of the company’s early gas-powered vehicles. This two-seater spent the last 35 years on museum display, most recently at the LeMay Collections at Marymount in Tacoma, Washington. As expected, it hasn’t moved under its own power in years, and its 226.4ci inline-four will need some encouragement to run again.

Left-Hand-Drive 1993 Subaru E12 Super Deluxe 4WD 5-Speed

You don’t see many kei vans on the road in the US, though their number does seem to be increasing. Two of the main impediments to more widespread adoption are the limitations of right-hand-drive in a LHD country and the inability to maintain modern American highway speeds. That makes a van like this Subaru E12 (aka Domingo, aka Libero) an ideal alternative. The dimensions are nearly the same as Subaru’s Sambar kei van, but the motor is almost twice as large, and the driver sits in the conventional spot for us Norteamericanos. Add to that four-wheel-drive and seating for six, and this van fits a lot of capability into a very small package. We’ll take two.

Honorable Mentions

Sbarro Replica BMW 328 Standard

The BMW 328—originally produced between 1936 and 1940—was one of the most successful racers of the 1930s, claiming more than 200 wins in just a few years. In the 1970s, Franco Sbarro licensed the design from BMW and built around 138 replicas as an homage to the prewar champ, offering four- and six-cylinder powerplants. This one was the second of 10 Standard replicas sent to the US.

Volkswagen-Powered EMPI Sportster Dune Buggy

A few facts about the EMPI Sportster: its introduction predated that of the Meyers Manx by four years. The body is made of steel, not fiberglass. The idea of a foreshortened VW pan came from EMPI—in fact, the Manx’s 14″ tummy tuck is close, if not identical, to the length specified for the Sportster conversion.

1965 DKW Hummel 115

Yellow might be the most appropriate color choice for a motorcyle affectionately known as the “Tin Banana.” Though it’s classified as a moped, this DKW lacks pedals and the rider assumes a more traditional motorcycle-riding position. Frankly, it doesn’t matter what the DMV wants to call them, so long as they can be registered for the road. Pulling up next to this fantastical little bike in regular traffic would put a smile on anyone’s face.

Thanks for checking out this edition of the Weekly Weird & Wonderful! Follow this page to get updates when new installments post, and tell what caught your eye or what you think we’ve left out!