Bobby Darrin's Dream Car

A photo of the Di Dia 150 taken at one of the Tridents Rod Custom Autorama indoor car shows in California. Photo from The Steve Arnold Photo Collection.

The DiDia Dream Car in January 1963.

The Bobby Darrin Dream Car at the 2010 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance

A photo of the The Mantaray and the Bobby Darrin's Dream Car taken during the 2017 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Photo courtesy of Cassandra Stokes.

The Bobby Darrin Dream car was a ground-up custom car built by Clarkaiser Custom Shop in Detroit, Michigan. The car is also known as the "Di Dia 150."

The futuristic custom was designed by clothing designer Andy Di Dia and Bobby Darrin in 1953. The seven-year build was completed in 1960, and according to Ed Roth, it was this car that gave him the idea for the bubble top on the Beatnik Bandit.

After the DiDia dream car was built, Lew Wolff and a friend modified the car with a more modern two leaf rear suspension, replacing the almost undriveable early Ford torque tube traverse spring set Clarkaiser used. They had to build a tunnel for the driveshaft.

Painted by Teddy Zgrzemski

Bill McMann worked for Teddy Zgrzemski at Advance Body & Paint in Wyandotte, Michigan in the 1960s, and he remembers that Teddy gave the car a Candy Apple Red paint job in the early 1960s.

Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance 2017

August 20, 2017 the Bobby Darrin Dream Car was shown along with nine other one-off creations at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. It wase shown in a special class called "American Dream Cars of the 1960s."