This story involves a ‘car’, a transgendered woman, four shots to the face, 14 years on the run and $30 million worth of fraud. Brace yourselves for the story of ‘The Dale’- the forgotten automotive con that rocked America.
This rather unreal saga starts deep within the decade that taste forgot, just as fuel prices began an upsurge rise and drivers began an almost forced downsizing operation from beloved V8s of the time – people simply didn't like the idea of putting an internal organ on the black market when a trip upstate in the Mustang loomed. Frankly, the public were yearning for a cheaper mode of transport. The Dale then appeared to fit that bill perfectly.
Embellishing everything you would expect of a 1970s futuristic vehicle, The Dale even had three wheels - just, because - with two wheels up front and one to support the tail. The bodywork was apparently constructed from ‘Rigidex’, which was seemingly impregnable, dubbed ‘rocket structural resin’. This could apparently survive a direct blow from a sledgehammer without issue.
Twentieth Century Motors Corporation, the company behind the revolutionary new automobile ‘designed to go to the Moon and back’, printed a brochure claiming that fuel economy would be upwards of 70mpg, top speed would sit at 85mph and price would cost under $2000. Even by 1970s inflation, that was seriously cheap.
As if that wasn’t suspicious enough, the car apparently worked with no wires, no wires, using a printed-circuit dashboard instead. Now, unless the dashboard ran the entire length and scope of the car, this made no logical sense whatsoever.
However, your biggest worry was the engine. It was a relatively sound unit - a BMW flat-twin, air-cooled motorbike mechanism - yet the brochure presented the engine in a vertical position. Now, physics probably wouldn’t allow this - and only God knows how it would leave the driving experience.
Nevertheless, The Dale found investors in their droves - and that was the work of company founder Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael. Known as Liz, she claimed to be the widow of a former NASA structural engineer and a mother of five. She was unusually large, at least 6ft and 200lbs, but there was a reason for this - Liz was actually a man. His name was Jerry Dean Michael and he was actually wanted on counterfeiting charges. Just to add to her story, Liz apparently held degrees in mechanical engineering and marketing - traveling to Los Angeles after her husband died in 1966.
Producing a few prototypes, Liz could certainly talk her game and managed to raise $30 million in funds, resulting in a barely working prototype meandering in for display during the 1975 Los Angeles Motor Show. It was here that they claimed high-volume production by June that year - an insane target, just like getting the vehicle crash tested and Environmental Protection Agency approved.
Strangely, at this point, time was spent selling stocks and shares rather than developing the car itself - despite not holding a permit to do so. Liz even began to sell dealerships - without a permit for that, either.
Then, as January 1975 came to an end, The Dales salesman, William D.Miller, was found in his office having been shot four times in the face. The main suspect for this rather brutal murder was fellow employee Jack Oliver, having previously served with Miller in prison - a nice, friendly, law-abiding work force, then.
After this Murder-He/She-Wrote style event, the entire firm and all its persons within underwent an investigation. This is where the car came under scrutiny. It was clearly not the vehicle it claimed to be. It was a con.
As disaster of epic proportions hung over Liz and her ill-fated company, she escaped from LA towards Dallas, Texas to re-establish the business - renaming the creation from The Dale to The Revette. Just because there are a number of transsexual woman with three-wheeler-future cars from start-up companies in the world…
Then, in a move even Inspector Clouseau would face-plant, Liz went about promoting the new Revette vehicle with gusto, following the exact same strategy implemented previously. It was even endorsed as a prize on The Price Is Right in early 1975 - the murder of Miller still creating a storm at this point- although, luckily, the contestant failed the challenge and the embarrassment of winning a car unable to move under it’s own power was unrealised.
However, almost immediately after that, things began to fall apart, with an injunction from the Superior Court of California - assisted by an engineer hired to help develop the Revette - claiming that the company was, in fact, unable to physically produce a car. Always a step ahead, Liz escaped from her house just as police arrived, leaving a meal on the table - and a device used to disguise sexual organs.
Finally arrested in April 1975, convicted of all his charges as a man, and then charged with all her accusations as a woman for the fraudulent Dale/Revette, Liz was sentenced to $30,000 in reimbursement to investors and given twenty years in prison. A weirdly small sentence, considering the scale of money effectively stolen. Yet, none of that mattered, as she managed to escape. Again.
It wasn’t until mid-1989 that Liz was eventually re-captured, the police receiving tip-offs after NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries programme aired the story.
Calling herself Katherine Elizabeth Johnson, she was found in - of all places- Dale, also in Texas, running a roadside flower-stall staffed mainly by children. Finally doing ten years in prison, Liz died from cancer in 2004.
Supposedly, ABC-TV acquired the rights to the entire story, but we hope it doesn’t end up a small-screen special. This holds all the hallmarks of a Martin Scorsese picture for the cinema screen - perhaps with Jason Statham or Nicholas Cage in the lead role.