1947 Kurtis-Omohundro Comet

39 Part III of the book reveals the beginnings of the modern story—how and why the research began, the man (Alex Boeriu) who bought and restored the car in the mid ‘80 s, its restoration, subsequent appearances and engagements at museums and concours d ’ elegance events, articles featuring the 1947 Kurtis - Omohundro Comet, modern photography, and artwork commissioned of the automobile. — The Quest Begins — Back in 2006, Rick D ’ Louhy and I started a research project to uncover, discover, document, and locate examples of America ’ s early fiberglass sports cars. During this research we met people who designed, built, drove, and raced such cars. It was during this process that I connected with Phil Fleming who owned several of these kinds of cars over the years. Phil relayed to me a story about Kurtis - Kraft sports cars owned by a friend ’ s family that he remembered as a teenager in mid ’50 s Detroit (see “ Phil Fleming Remembers …” shown earlier). At first this seemed unrelated to our focus, but as our research grew, the relevance of Phil ’ s memories become more apparent. In order to document the history of the birth of fiberglass sports cars in America, we needed to learn more about the birth of sports cars in the immediate postwar era. Our question was: “ What led up to the pivotal point in 1951 that brought us fiberglass bodied sports cars like the Glasspar G2, the Lancer, and later sports cars like the Victress S1A, the Meteor SR - 1 and the Byers SR - 100? ” Good question! My contact with Phil Fleming was fortuitous, and we began exploring the history of American ’40 s sports cars— ” Sport Customs ” — as we found they were called, in February, 2007. But, as they say … “ a strange thing happened on the way to the market …” When we reviewed our research, we learned we had already found the first car—we just didn ’ t know it. Back in 2006, Fred Roth forwarded me an e - mail from Alex Boeriu seeking more information about his undocumented Kurtis - Kraft Sports Car. Alex had been documenting his car since purchasing it in 1986, and was continuing to seek additional information. Fred had forwarded the e - mail to me in December, 2006. I met Phil Fleming and started learning about the cars—missing from the records of history since the late ’50 s—in February, 2007. Now I ’ m not the “ fastest gun in the West, ” so it took me a few weeks (from February 6th, 2007 to April 21st, 2007) to realize that we had found what we had NOT been looking for—until just now. This circuitous path began our journey to documenting, writing about, and sharing what we learned about the history of American Sports Cars from the early ’40 s through the late ’50 s. A task we continue working on today. Part III — The Modern Story