Yes.  It's actually a customized show car.  Pretty nice though.
I would'nt mind having something like that.  Much better then a boxy Chevy.
Of course it will cost $45,000 and I would never be able to afford one.

Not in a '48 but in a '53-55 coupe, you might be surprised.  There's a
reason they were so popular with Bonnevile racers.

OF course I won't buy one... dropping an R1 ('63 Avanti engine) in my
*real* '55 as soon as I get the frame painted and steering box swapped
out :)  Seriously, I have heard tell of people driving similar cars and
with the 3/OD trans and a light foot, you can reportedly get over 20 MPG.

nate

Ditto for the 300C -- not a literal imitation of any particular
classic, but with a lot of the design language from the early-mid 50s.

Interestingly, although a sizeable car by today's standards, it is
several inches narrower and a couple of feet shorter than its namesake.
Of course, modern design and construction practices let you get more
useable interior space out of a given footprint and silhouette, but
still, luxury cars of that era were BIG!!!  (almost by definition) and
improved aerodynamics can only do so much to compensate for that huge
cross section.  Basically, once you got out of the Ford/Chevy
everyman's-car class, you had something pretty comparable in size and
weight to a lot of today's SUVs.

The other thing that classics-made-modern vendors might do well to keep
in mind -- and I think this is something Ford goofed with the new-retro
T-bird, is to bring the bling a little.  Chromium comes from the Lost
Dutchman Mine or something there, guys?  Dechroming is a school of
thought in the rod-and-custom world, not the way those cars were
originally.  Something about many of the colors seemed slightly "off"
to me as well -- the original two-seater Bird palette captured its time
and place perfectly and should've just been brought back as best they
could.

Oh, yeah, and a really hot engine option coupled to a good manual
tranny -- although the Bird always was  more a boulevard cruiser than a
raceable sports car, there needed to be a modern answer to the 430 CID
and supercharger options of the original.   Things might've been
different for that reintroduction if at least a limited edition had
been available with a Cobraesque treatment from SVT...

My wish-list revisitation is the slightly postwar Jeepster, only with
more engine (always an aspect in which Willys was found wanting) and a
modern driveline and running gear.  The Liberty chassis ought to do
nicely as a platform, or maybe the Dodge Dakota pickup.  They had a
concept Jeepster at the shows several years ago, but I think it missed
the mark -- they went for a sort of Hot Wheels meets Tonka Toy look,
whereas the original is all about "well-off older alumni heading up to
the lake."  

--Joe

But unless we can use the hydrogen radically more efficiently than we
do gasoline, there's no advantage to hydrogen, as it will take as much
or more energy to produce said hydrogen than we are currently directly
using in the form of gasoline or Diesel motor fuel.  There are
theoretical limits to the efficiency of an IC engine that aren't
present in a fuel cell/electric motor combination.  That is why
everyone is waiting for a practical fuel cell before making the switch.
(well, everyone but GWB, that is.  I guess nobody's clued him in that
using H2 in an IC engine won't do a damn thing to solve our dependency
on oil.)

nate