If you’re of a certain age you might recall the private eye television series, 77 Sunset Strip, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. And if you are an avid reader of Classic Car Round-Up, you probably spent more time checking out the car driven by Kookie Kookson, the car valet, than you did the plot of the show. That car is an icon of custom hot rods and was recently sold by our friends at Mecum Auction.
The crazy car driven on the show by Kookie, played by Edd Brynes, is acknowledged as the first “T Bucket” and was built by Norm Grabowski in 1952. Grabowski was quite the innovator and took a 1931 Ford Model A roadster chassis and combined the front half of a 1922 Ford Model T with the shortened back end of a Model A pickup truck for his "T Bucket". He used a 1952 Cadillac V-8 and a supercharger for power. To get the stance just right, he cut up the rear end of the rails, then stretched the front end and lowered the suspension. He added a nearly vertical steering box from a milk truck giving the bucket that distinctive driving style. Grabowski painted it black with a red leather interior. He originally called it "Lightning Bug" and got considerable press.
Since Grabowski was known by the film studios in Los Angeles, he and his car ended up in plenty of Hollywood productions. It was after a production crash that Grabowski changed the color to blue, and customizer Dean Jeffries added the flames. He also replaced the supercharger with four Stromberg carburetors. That was the version seen by America on 77 Sunset Strip.
The Kookie Kar, as it became known, was sold after the second season to a Midwest car promoter Jim "Street" Skonzakes. He immediately added his touches to the car before taking it out on the road for promotions and exclusive appearances. He had it painted rose pearl and added candy red flames with a white tufted leather interior.
Later, to change up the look again (so it would be able to make "new" appearances), Skonzakes added the dual headlights, with dual superchargers as well as dual slicks and dual bucket seats with those tall Zoomie dual exhausts. Guess Skonzakes was "dually" impressed!
Now here is where the story turns sad. Once Skonzakes stopped showing the car, he put it in storage and didn’t show it again to the public. Word has it that even journalists and historians could not get a glance of the car. Unfortunately, the car started showing the impacts of poor storage. Then Skonzakes died in 2017, so the car went to a recent Mecum Auction where it was sold for $484,000.
Now the new owner is faced with a dilemma. Does he restore it to the last rendition with the twin blowers, or does he go way back in history and bring it back to the original vision of Grabowski? Or the second more popular version of the car during the heyday of the television show? My guess is that after several years of hard work we’ll see the Kookie Kar in all its glory. What would you do?
© 2018 Mark C. Bach
Photos courtesy of Mecum Auctions