To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE at RM Sothebys' The Boeckmann Collection | Online event, 4 February 2027.

Offered Without Reserve | $30,000 - $50,000 USD A pioneering American post-war “compact car”The 65th of 91 examples produced; one of 51 known survivorsEquipped with a retractable hardtop!Formerly owned by Harrah’s Automobile CollectionVery seldom available for sale; a fascinating piece of mid-century Americana The brainchild of Louis Wurwitz, a Buffalo, New York-based Packard dealer; Pontiac engineer Charles Thomas; and service station owner Norman Richardson, the Thomas-designed Playboy debuted at Buffalo’s Statler Hotel in the fall of 1946.

While the prototype for their car was a tiny three-passenger runabout with a canvas top, propelled by a rear-mounted Hercules four-cylinder engine, the eventual production model featured a front-mounted engine, either Hercules or Continental, as well as a clever manually operated retractable hardtop—some 10 years before the Ford Sky...