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| Car and Driver, Oct 1990 |
The Dale was a three wheeled economy car that was proposed in 1974 by what turned out to be a con artist named Elizabeth Carmichael. The promise of an inexpensive car that incorporated the new ideas of safety in cars (the 5 mph bumper had become mandatory the year before) was appealing to people. The story that the company was run by a mother of five who was going to take on GM and the car industry made it irresistible. The venture was well-publicized and investors flocked to jump on board.
Then it fell apart. The single "prototype" was a generator-motored cobbled-together mess, there was no factory, no company and to complete the charade, Elizabeth Carmichael was actually a man, father of the 5 children. He (she) was charged and convicted on various fraud-related charges. His (her) appeals ran out in 1980 and she was not found till an episode of Unsolved Mysteries led to her arrest. She served 32 months in prison and died in 2004.
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Too bad shehe died could be our next president down here.
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