The first transparent car also known as the “Ghost Car” built in America was sold in an auction on Saturday for $308,000 to an unidentified buyer in suburban Detroit. The Ghost Car built by General Motors is a 1939 Pontiac Deluxe Six with a Plexiglas body and was the highlight of the 1939-40 New York World’s Fair where visitors enjoyed the vision of the future.
The car was owned by one family since the early 1980s and is still in original and excellent condition. The Plexiglas body of the 1939 Pontiac Deluxe Six was made in collaboration between GM and Rohm & Haas – the chemical company that developed Plexiglas, the world’s first transparent acrylic sheet product. Rohm & Haas constructed the exact replica body of the Pontiac using Plexiglas in place of the outer sheet-metal. It reportedly cost $25,000 – a whopping amount in that time.
The see-through Pontiac offers a view of its copper washed metal underneath and all hardware are chrome plated including the dashboard. The car’s tires and rubber moldings were made in white. It only has about 90 miles on the odometer. See photos below.
The 1939-40 Deluxe Six is the only one known to survive because the whereabouts of second car that was built the following year are still unknown.
