One year ago, our Hidden Treasures column by Mark Brinker featured a well-preserved Bonneville Streamliner, the Beast III, that had originally been built by a wheelchair-bound Chet Herbert in 1952 when it became the fastest single-engine car in America at 238.095mph. The slick red beauty with the body by Rod Schapel, who also designed Craig Breedlove’s Spirit of America, had just come into the columnist’s possession. Then, in August, Brinker showed the car at Pebble Beach where the annual Concours was celebrating Historic Hot Rod Racers that had competed on the dry lakes and the salt flats. It was one of the stars of the show at Pebble and finished a respectable 2nd in its class. Brinker was then invited to display Beast III at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, where it will fascinate visitors in the main lobby through February 2011.
