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Stout Scarab, Indiana-built cars to highlight Southwest Michigan Concours

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Stout Scarab photo by Mark J. McCourt. Photos courtesy Southwest Michigan Concours d’Elegance

Known since its inception as the Krasl Art Center Concours d’Elegance, the eighth annual edition of the show in St. Joseph, Michigan, will go by a new name – the Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan – and will feature an exceedingly rare example of William Bushnell Stout’s Scarab as well as a class dedicated to automobiles built in Indiana.

The Scarab is often described as the first minivan, and Stout envisioned it as the future of the automobile. It incorporated not just a rear-engine drivetrain (using an off-the-shelf Ford flathead V-8), aerodynamic shape, and independent suspension all around – common attributes for many cars of the future in the 1930s – but also a tubular space frame borrowed from his experience engineering airplanes, which helped him create his vision of a simple, practical and comfortable automobile. After building the first prototype Scarab in 1932, he then built a number of “production” Scarabs (most sources put the number at nine) in 1935-1936; but at a price of $5,000, even Stout’s modest production plans of 100 per year proved overly ambitious. The Scarab that will appear at the Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan belongs to Milwaukee-area resident Ron Schneider, who not only restored it but also drove it in the Great Race during the 1980s.

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The name change for the concours this year should highlight the fact that it takes place closer to some of the automotive towns of northern Indiana than to the traditional automotive hub of Detroit; so accordingly, the concours will feature cars built in the Hoosier State. “There were at least 198 different Indiana-built automobiles produced in 42 cities and towns back in those days,” according to Dar Davis, founder of the concours. “People will recognize such names as Studebaker, Duesenberg, Cord, Stutz and Marmon, but that’s just scratching the surface. Also, some of the most gorgeous cars of the day were built in Indiana, and we hope to have some stunning examples on hand for the 2012 Concours d’Elegance.” Two examples of cars in the Indiana-built class include the 1937 Cord 812 Beverly sedan owned by Howard E. Payne of Northville, Michigan; and the 1919 Haynes 45 Light Six touring owned by Bill and Cheryl Haynes of Batavia, Illinois.

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The Concours d’Elegance of Southwest Michigan will take place on Saturday, August 4. Admission is $5 per person or $10 per family. For more information, visit the concours on Facebook.

Editor’s Note: Before our sharp-eyed readers point it out, the lead photo is of Larry Smith’s Stout Scarab, not Ron Schneider’s. However, Mark’s photo was just too good to pass up. Schneider’s Scarab can be seen in Special Interest Autos issue #123.


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