The original concept images for the car were done by famed hot rod designer/illustrator Joe Henning, who envisioned it in a tall T style. The Outlaw (and The Beatnik Bandit) were painted by Roth, clearly inspired by the work of custom painter Larry Watson who would paint other Roth vehicles.Īs The Outlaw was drawing tons of attention and trophies at shows and in the hot rod press, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth was already designing his next automotive creation, Beatnik Bandit. Although not built from a production car, The Outlaw was built with a lot of custom pieces from existing cars, such as 1959 Rambler headlights, 1958 Chevy Bel Air taillights, a 1959 Chevy grille, 1922 Dodge windshield frame, and a 1958 Impala steering wheel, to name a few. The 1950 Cadillac engine (from a junkyard) originally was built with four Stromberg 97 carburetors on a Cragar manifold, and Cal Custom valve covers. The Outlaw's unique handbuilt body sat on a Ford Model A frame, modified with a 1925 Ford Model T crossmember. The Outlaw was Roth's first vehicle built using a buck to form a mold for a fiberglass body.
Roth abandoned the practice of building rods from existing production cars, instead choosing to create bodies from scratch. It has been reported that Roth, like Ivo and others, drew inspiration from the Kookie T when he built his first fiberglass bodied creation, The Outlaw, in 1957. This is Norm's original Model T, recently restored to its Kookie T version at Roy Brizio Street Rods. Several clones were built over the years. After Grabowski sold the car in 1959, it went through a few odd makeovers. A year later, the car would become even more famous as the Kookie T, driven by a popular character named Kookie on the popular TV series 77 Sunset Strip. The blower had been replaced by four Stromberg carburetors atop a Horne intake manifold. By the time it appeared on the April 1957 cover of Car Craft (and in an issue of Life magazine the same month), it had been painted the now familiar 1956 Dodge Royal Lancer Blue, sporting flames and pinstripes. It was called the Lightnin' Bug when it appeared at the 1955 Grand National Roadster Show and on the cover of the August 1955 issue of Hot Rod. The 1952 Cadillac 331 engine was originally topped with a 3-71 blower, and the car wore black paint. The resulting combination is generally acknowledged as the first T-bucket. Grabowski blended a cut-down 1931 Ford Model T Touring body with a modified Model A pickup bed, shrank the frame rails by 20 inches in back and stretched them five inches in front, and relocated the front axle ahead of the crossmember. Norm Grabowski's 1922 Ford Model T was probably the best-known hot rod in the late '50s and remains famous to this day.
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