The Holy Grail Of Hot Rods Has Been Found After Being Hidden For 50 Years

We use the term “Holy Grail” a lot around here, referring to a car that possesses a rare and unusual set of traits and characteristics that makes it something rare and desirable and unquestionably fascinating. These cars can come from any part of the automotive world, from tiny econoboxes to genuinely exotic things. And yet, I’m not sure we’ve ever told you about a car that holy grails as much as this Holy Grail holy grails. It’s something that is almost literally the definition of a Holy Grail: impossibly rare (it’s one of one), is shrouded in myth and legend, and has required a genuine quest to find it, since it has been deliberately hidden for about half a century. It also has a strange beauty all its own, just like that famous cup. It’s the legendary show rod Uncertain-T, and it has finally been found by our very own Autopian co-founder Beau Boeckmann, and will be restored by hot rod restoration guru Dave Shuten.

In the hot rod/show rod community, Uncertain-T is something that has taken on the status of a legend. The car itself is absolutely remarkable as a work of art and engineering, but the story behind the car is equally incredible.

The seed of what would become Uncertain-T was born in 1960, when high school student Steve Scott of Reseda, CA saw a cartoon drawn by a friend of his in an advanced physics class. The cartoon portrayed a highly stylized Ford Model T-style hot rod, and the image so moved Scott that he decided he was going to turn that crude sketch into reality, and began work on the car in his parents’ one-car garage that very night.

It took five years for Scott to finish the car, but when he did, it was a masterpiece. The overall design was simple but striking, with a fiberglass body that looked like a “phone-booth” Model T coupé, but canted forward at a really shocking and rakish angle, evoking the look of a hat worn shoved forward. Real Model T headlamps and a wind-up key at the rear completed the surreal look, and everything was mounted on a boxed aluminum frame. That frame even had coolant circulating through it to help keep the fuel-injected 1957 Buick “nailhead” engine running cool.

Unlike a number of show rods of the era, Uncertain-T was very drivable, with an MGA rack-and-pinion steering setup and big finned drum brakes at the rear. The car made at least one drag strip run in 1965 at the Bakersfield Fuel and Gas Championships. That’s pretty astounding on its own!

When it came to shows, Uncertain-T wowed everyone, leading to an infamous event in the history of show rods. At the. 1965 Winternationals show, Steve Scott, barely in his 20s, and his Uncertain-T took home the coveted Special Sweepstakes Award, beating out perennial favorites like George Barris. Barris did not take the loss well, slapping Steve in front of everyone at the show.

Steve took Barris to court, winning a restraining order against Barris that would keep him 100 feet away at all times, and inspiring Big Daddy Roth to draw this hilarious rendering of the Uncertain-T, piloted by one of Roth’s trademark monsters holding a rolled-up court summons reading “Big George, Notice to Appear,” referring to Barris. Amazing!

The Uncertain-T became a model kit from Monogram in 1966, but was only on the market for a few years. Scott went on to work at Car Craft magazine, then later for Petersen publications, but in 1967 experienced a major shift in his interests. According to this quote from Scott in Kustomrama:

 “One day driving home from my job at Petersen Publishing Company, I suddenly, and very noticeably, totally lost all interest in anything to do with the automotive world. It just happened. It was like the channel on a TV just changed while I was watching a program that up until that moment was everything I had lived for, and I was left with a total understanding of what had happened, and why, and no desire whatsoever to try to change the channel back. I knew that even if I had tried to change the channel back, the program wouldn’t be there. I gave notice the next day that I was quitting, and from that moment on, I just simply went about my life with very different interests and focus.”

And that was it for Scott and his amazing show rod building career: he built one show rod, it became an absolute legend, and then he was done. That’s that.

The fate of Uncertain-T gets very murky from this point, which is where this latest chapter in the saga begins. By the early 1980s, the car’s whereabouts was unknown, with the car being allegedly sold to a friend of Scott’s, but then actively and deliberately kept hidden for decades, sometimes moving locations if the owner sensed people were too close on its trail.

Uncertain-T was never truly found by anyone: eventually, the owner reached out to Beau’s late father, Bert Boeckmann, because Bert’s reputation for fairness and honesty made him one of the only people the reclusive Uncertain-T’s owner would even consider trusting. From there, Beau became involved, as he explains in Galpin Motors’ press release:

“This time, the Uncertain- T found me, I didn’t find it,” said Boeckmann, president and CEO of Galpin Motors. ”While this historic hot rod has been a worldwide phenomenon, with its whereabouts unknown for so many decades, I love that it was built and found in the San Fernando Valley right down the street from Galpin Ford. What makes it even more sentimental is the connection between the previous owner, Dick Nickerson, and my father, who all worked on the Mach IV four-engine Mustang Funny Car together in 1969.”

The re-emergence of this car from the unknown is truly remarkable. It will first be shown in its as-found at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, Feb. 2-4, and at the Detroit Autorama in March, and then lead restoration specialist Dave Shuten will restore the car to the exact look, configuration, and design of its 1965 debut.

This is truly a Holy Grail of show rods, and is likely one of the last remaining unfound, unrestored legendary hot rods of the era.

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