Squint hard enough, and it looks like someone shrunk a Baldwin-Motion Corvette to almost comedic proportions. Look inside, and it’s Volkswagen architecture shines through, and sure enough there is a Volkswagen flat-four that, if it isn’t frozen, might power this thing. But what are you looking at? It’s a 1971 Shala-Vette, what roughly translates as a Baja Bug turned into a muscle car for midgets. It was created by Dick Dean, who went on to help Malcolm Bricklin with the SV-1, and if you’ve seen the original Death Race 2000, you have seen this car: it was the reptile-looking thing driven by David Carradine.
The angles look a little weird and the shrunken early C3 Corvette lines don’t quite work, but there is something about this car that looks decent enough. Maybe it is because I’m warped a little, but a hopped up Subaru engine in the back, a massive cleaning and re-do of the interior, and an actual dune buggy stance with the slot mags already equipped would make this thing fun, if not still a little weird. I’d even have a little fun with it…play up the Phase III look the car already has and make up some spoof emblems, though I have yet to settle on what I’d actually name the thing.
It’s a freak for sure, but the buyer is letting it go fairly cheap. According to the listing, “I had to buy 6 cars from a collection to get the one I wanted,” and it sounds like the guy got stuck with the Shala-Vette in the deal. Reading the ad does throw one huge wrench into the deal: there is a small possibility that the car pictured isn’t the actual car. It’s not 100% either way due to the seller’s description…either he couldn’t identify the machine, or he scavenged these pictures off of the Internet. We’d suggest making very sure what car is actually for sale first. Either way…would you like an adult-sized Power Wheels Stingray, or would you pass?
eBay Link: 1971 Shala-Vette
What’s interesting is that the same guy was working on a kit for an oversize Beetle body to fit on a Corvette frame.
Apparently GM got wind of the idea and should we say actively dissuaded him from putting it into production.
What a shame – curses, GM!
does it have a government 5 Death Star safety rating?
Hell yes on the subi power. It’d be hysterical. If you could manage AWD it would be a terror. One problem I can foresee – I’d be laughing too hard to collect money.
I would believe that’s the actual car for sale, due to the seller’s description of there being other cars in his deal and seeing the other cars in the pics such as the TVR which were probably what he was really after. For the $1525 it is at the moment, it’d be well worth it as a collectable oddball, just for the story.
Using the Corvette stuff at the rear was tragic, however. Imagine rolling up behind this at a stoplight, expecting V8 Corvette and then getting VW kit-car. Kinda like, the “sea-hag” shock. Weird, and…why? It would have stood better without it.
With all due respect to Dick Dean and his ambition and talent as a designer and modifier, he was just not up to building entire cars at anything near an OEM level. Hiring him on based on his creations on magazine covers was typical of Malcolm Bricklin’s amateur mistakes that helped make the SV-1 such a disaster…you can sure see some future-Bricklin in this “Shala-Vette”.