This Week’s Weird and Wonderful

This Week’s Weird and Wonderful—March 27, 2026 Welcome to the Weekly Weird and Wonderful, a handy little feature that collects the strangest, coolest, and most interesting cars to appear on BaT in the last seven days. This is but a taste of the variety that can be found on our site—an amuse bouche—so please head over to our live auctions page, where you can choose from our full ~1,000-course menu. Enjoy this week’s selection of Weird and Wonderful BaT auctions, and let us know what else you think should be on our list! Ex–Don Johnson Offshore Catamaran “Team USA” Project With Don Johnson at the helm and Kurt Russell on the charts, this offshore catamaran might have the best hair provenance of any vehicle we’ve ever listed. As it turns out, the man otherwise known as Detective Sonny Crocket was an accomplished boat racer during the glory days of offshore racing, and won the American Power Boat Association (APBA) World Championship in 1988. Johnson drafted builder Jon Sadowski to aid in the construction of his Team USA catamaran, and the twin hulls were once home to four (four!) 1,000-horsepower Chevy big block V8s—insuring that ample twist was received by the heavy-duty Mercury Racing Six outdrives. The boat set a one-lap speed record of 127.3 mph at the 1990 Bud Dry Marathon Offshore Challenge on the Hudson River in New York, though it DNFed when multiple engines failed. In the mini-doc above, you can see Team USA in action, running neck-and-neck with another boat piloted by none other than the late Chuck Norris. 1995 Aston Martin Vantage V550 6-Speed Ford was fully at the helm of Aston Martin when the brutal Vantage V550 was developed in the early 1990s. This hand-built bruiser was essentially a reworked Virage, underpinned by a four-door Lagonda chassis, and earned its nickname within inner circles as the “supercar killer.” Its 5.3L V8 sported four-valve heads developed by Reeves Callaway and twin Eaton superchargers force-feeding big gulps of air into each bank of cylinders. The result was 550 horsepower and a 555 lb-ft of torque. Less than 240 examples were built. This left-hand-drive car was first delivered to South Africa, later spending time in Belgium. From 2010 to 2022, it resided with a member of the Kuwait Royal Family before being acquired by its current owner. The Dolphin D-3 racer is a rare artifact from a time when composite racing specials lapped race tracks across the US. Little info can be found on this particular model, but a chassis tag bearing the Dolphin Engineering Company name offers a clue as to its origin. The firm—a SoCal outfit known for giving racers from across the pond a run for their money—was founded by Robert “Bud” Hull and British chassis whisperer John Crosthwaite. Named after Hull’s favorite cetacean, Dolphin made its first mark with the affordable Fiat-powered Mk I Junior before jumping in to more sophisticated machines, which were offered both as complete and kit cars. They even hired one Ken Miles to drive for them! This D-3 dates back to the fledgling years of the company. Restored during the early 2000s, it continued to compete at vintage events, and was offered by the selling dealer out of San Clemente, California. BaT member @Bouleybay won the vintage racer, and it’s now heading to the EU! In the late 1950s, Charles and John Cooper single-handedly revolutionized Formula 1 with their mid-engine Grand Prix cars. Prior to that, they were building small open wheelers and sports cars like this one—the T21, powered by a 1,250cc XPAG four borrowed from an MG T-series car. The car was delivered as a bare chassis to be clad with the owner’s choice of bodywork, and this one features aluminum panels beaten by Gray & Rich Panelcraft, who outfitted several examples in-period. If it looks like an early Ferrari, that’s no accident, as it was allegedly inspired by the 166 Barchetta from just a few years earlier. It features some neat weight-saving measures from the period, like plywood floors and magnesium wheels with integrated brake drums. This was a racer from the start, and campaigned into the 1980s. Since its restoration in the 2010s it’s been more for show than go, reeling in awards at concours events all over the state of Florida. 1998 Mercedes-Benz A160 Avantgarde 5-Speed ACS We were smitten by this fun-size Merc in person at last week’s BaT Meet-Up in Houston, Texas. The A160 was the Mercedes-Benz city car for the masses, with the Avantgarde spec representing the top-shelf trim level. This example’s a left-hand-drive Euro-market model imported to the US in 2025. Most notable is its five-speed manual transaxle with an electronic Automatic Clutch System (ACS), which eliminates the clutch pedal. But before the three-pedal mafia comes after us, you can still manually shift! This Autobianchi A112 from 1985 isn’t a retro-styled car. Its lines were initially penned by Gandini in the 1960s, and received only minor facelifts over its 19-year production run. Based as it was on a shortened FWD Fiat 128 platform, the A112 was a shoo-in for the Abarth treatment, and could be considered the first European hot hatch. The Abarth variant wasn’t a one-off—the cars were so successful that they even spawned their own single-make series. This car is from the final year of production, and has the Group N rally car look nailed. Marcos began giving their cars alliterative names in the early 1970s, and they never looked back. After the Mantis, Mantula, Martina, and Mini Marcos came the Mantara, a 1990s update to the long-running Marcos GT design. Co-founder Jem Marsh (the “Mar” in Marcos) led the company’s renaissance in the 1980s, and after many years of building kit cars they began to offer production vehicles again in the early ’90s. 400 of the Rover V8-powered Mantara coupes were built, and the Cosworth Silver color on this one is appropriate since Frank Costin, the “Cos” in Cosworth, was also the “cos” in Marcos. Ex-Ken Block 1978 Ford Escort Mk2 Gymkhana-Spec Drift Car and 4/3 Day Experiences for Charity, from the Block Family and the 43 Institute We particularly enjoyed the way writer Brendan McAleer encapsulated the legacy of Ken Block in the Car and Driver writeup about this car: “Never has so much positivity flowed out of what was clearly an abiding and persistent hatred of tires.” The wild Escort Mk2 you see before you was one of #43’s first purpose-built rubber-burners—a 9,000-rpm, rear-wheel-drive, widebody road-skate that has likely never been driven in a straight line. The listing includes many videos of the car being driven the way only Ken Block could drive it, and we particularly loved the footage of him teaching his daughter Lia the family business of drifting. 4/3 Day Experiences for Charity, from the Block Family and the 43 Institute The Escort ends on 4/3, which is also the day that a series of charity auction experiences benefitting the Block family’s 43 Institute come to a close. All of those involve doing ridiculously fun things in vehicles being piloted by some of Ken’s close friends and colleagues, and the proceeds for each (including the BaT buyer’s fee) benefit 43i’s mission to provide scholarships, mentorship, and opportunities to “motivated misfits.” To name just a few of the experiences, there’s racing up Pike’s Peak with Jeff Zwart, sliding rally-prepped Porsches on a frozen lake in Sweden, launching all manner of vehicles off of ramps with Travis Pastrana, and learning rally technique with pro skateboarder, rally driver, and real life inspiration for the “Bucky Lasek” avatar in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Bucky Lasek. Grand Prix of America Race Car Like many wacky automotive ideas in the 1970s and ’80s, the Grand Prix of America originated with John DeLorean. Delorean partnered with his brother Jack to build four go-kart tracks in Michigan, and they stocked the grids with fleets of 3/4-size open-wheel racers. These weren’t your average go-kart—they were serious pieces of kit, designed by ex-Pontiac and Chaparral engineers with Kelsey-Hayes disc brakes, Hoosier slicks, torsion bar suspensions, and ~20-horsepower rotary engines. Drivers competed for lap times—head-to-head racing seemed like a bad idea even in the 1970s. The business folded after just a couple years, and its assets and intellectual property were purchased by California entrepreneur Ron Cameron, who had far more success with the concept as the Malibu Grand Prix. The kart above was refurbished by the seller, who notes that these karts are perfect for autocross competition. Custom-Built Auto Union Type C-Style Single-Seater Auto Union—an amalgamation of Horch, Audi, DKW, and Wander—went Grand Prix racing with the help of Ferdinand Porsche, thanks in part to Adolf Rosenberger for making the connection. The Type C evolved from the earlier Type A and B, and quickly proved itself a formidable competitor, taking checkered flags from 1936 to 1938. This re-creation is an ode to the original rear-mid-engined racer that was handbuilt by its previous owner, who reportedly traveled to Europe to study the dimensions and layout of an original Type C. Rather than a madcap supercharged V16 mill, this faithful re-creation is powered by an aluminum 4.2L GM straight-six engine—also known as the “Ameri-Barra.” The DOHC engine itself is capable of copious amounts of power when boosted—similar to that of the Australian Ford Barra engine—though this one remains naturally aspirated. The listing is accompanied by a number of build photos, and the craftsmanship alone is certainly worth admiring. Honorable Mentions: Euro 1993 Ferrari Mondial T Coupe Valeo A Ferrari with a gated shifter—cool! But wait, there are only two pedals. That’s because this Mondial was outfitted with Valeo’s ultra-rare semi-manual transaxle—a unit initially developed for the Lancia Delta Integrale rally car, which linked the shifter with an electro-mechanical actuator that operated the clutch. 1993 Toyota Caldina Sky Canopy 4WD This is what happens when Toyota does a Vista Cruiser. We dig it! 1991 Mercedes-Benz 560SEC AMG 6.0 Widebody and Widebody Euro 1988 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC Though these two Mercs are both widebody C126 cruisers, they are a bit different underneath. The 560SEC is a pre-merger AMG that apparently received its due by the firm’s Japanese arm, which included DOHC heads, a revised exhaust system, and suspension upgrades. Dubbed the Marakaito Missile, it’s one of fewer than 50 widebody coupes built by AMG. Under current ownership, the car was fitted with rebuilt calipers, custom engine mounts, and a replacement torque converter and tires. The second car is a Euro-market 500SEC that underwent its own widebody conversion and was topped off with AMG-style pieces, to boot. It received a multi-stage paint correction, an overhauled A/C system, and mechanical work following its owner’s acquisition in 2023. The Quadro Sherp Ark is an amphibious vehicle with room for 19 people and, presumably, seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean bird, animal, and creature that moves along the ground. Thanks for checking out this edition of the Weekly Weird & Wonderful! Follow this page to get updates when new installments post, and tell what caught your eye or what you think we’ve left out! 2 Comments Loading more comments… Please enable JavaScript to engage in the discussion on this site. Confirm Your Comment Did you mean to enter this number as a bid? If so please use the bidding box above. Error Posting Comment There was an error posting your comment.