Big Daddy Roth's Tiny Marvel: The 1992 Conestoga Star Wagon Heads to AuctionAmong the many wild machines that rolled out of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's workshop over the decades, few were as charmingly improbable as the Conestoga Star Wagon. Finished in 1992, this miniature runabout ranks as one of the tiniest vehicles the kustom legend ever produced, and it is now headed to public sale through Bonhams with no reserve attached.The starting point was, quite literally, a child's pull wagon. To turn it into a functioning vehicle, Roth dropped in a single-horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine of the kind normally found spinning a lawnmower blade. Despite its diminutive scale, the little wagon genuinely drives. The pilot perches on the rear fender and rests both feet on either side of the steering shaft, then sets off on four go-kart slicks.What makes the engineering so delightful is its scrappy ingenuity. The bespoke suspension and steering were fabricated from a mix of tubing, water pipe, and assorted scrap metal. The front springs are an especially fun detail, repurposed valve springs lifted from a big-block Chevrolet V8. A lawn tractor donated the rear axle, the wheels and tires came from a California go-kart supplier, and a roster of specialists handled the chrome plating, paintwork, and upholstery to give the finished piece a proper show-car shine.AdvertisementAdvertisementA Quick Tour Through Big Daddy Roth's CareerBorn in 1932 in Beverly Hills, California, Roth grew up in a German-speaking home and divided his school days between the art room and the auto shop, a combination that would shape everything he later created. His father ran a cabinet-making business, and the family workshop became young Ed's first proving ground for building things by hand. He picked up his first car, a 1933 Ford coupe, while still a teenager, later studied engineering, and served in the Air Force before turning to fiberglass experiments in the early 1950s.His first taste of fame came not from cars but from airbrushed shirts featuring grotesque, wide-eyed monster characters hunched over outrageous hot rods. Sold at car shows and through magazine ads, the shirts proved wildly popular and gave him the money to chase his true ambition: building automobiles that blurred the line between rolling sculpture and engineering experiment. Standing six feet four, Roth picked up the "Big Daddy" nickname from a publicist, and it never left him.Roth's debut show car, the fiberglass Outlaw, arrived at the end of the 1950s on Model A Ford foundations with Cadillac V8 power. From there his creations grew steadily stranger, including the bubble-topped Beatnik Bandit with its single joystick control, the twin-engined Mysterion, the futuristic Orbitron, the beach-inspired Surfite, and the macabre Druid Princess. Most were built to actually run rather than simply sit on a stand.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe builds soon caught the eye of model-kit maker Revell, which licensed his designs and sold them by the millions, generating substantial royalties. Mattel later chose the Beatnik Bandit as one of its inaugural Hot Wheels castings. Yet his most enduring creation was a cartoon, the bug-eyed, slobbering rodent known as Rat Fink, an irreverent answer to Mickey Mouse that grew into a sprawling merchandising phenomenon and inspired an entire family of monster characters. The imagery would later be embraced by punk and alternative musicians.Roth eventually branched into custom motorcycles, founding a magazine devoted to choppers and reportedly assembling one of the first VW-powered trikes. After a religious conversion in the mid-1970s he stepped away from the spotlight for a time, working as a sign painter, before returning to build a handful of later machines, the Star Wagon among them. He passed away in 2001 in Utah, where fans still gather each year to celebrate his legacy.Coming Up for AuctionBy the creator's own account, the Star Wagon began as a child's wagon fitted with that one-horsepower mower engine, with handmade running gear cobbled together from pipe and scrap, Chevy big-block valve springs up front, and a lawn-tractor axle at the back. It may well be the only one-horsepower machine in existence riding on suspension borrowed from a V8's valvetrain. The pint-sized creation is due to cross the Bonhams auction block in mid-June with no reserve, and interested collectors can find the full listing and bidding details on the auction house's website.
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