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Les Dunham was whiling away his time in New Jersey, customizing cars for folks who required a bit more artistic verve than your average dealer lot could offer, when the producers of Super Fly rented one of his customers’ cars to star as their film’s hero vehicle. The movie wound up as one of the cornerstones of the 1970s blaxploitation genre, and in short order, Dunham had been hired to build a “pimp car” for the 1973 installment of the James Bond franchise. Featured in Live and Let Die, the Corvorado, as it was called, melded Cadillac styling cues to a Corvette body, presaging Zimmer’s Pontiac Fiero–based neoclassic Quicksilver by more than a decade. But the seven Corvorados constructed weren’t the end of it; Dunham was just getting started. Enter the Caballista.
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Perhaps the fullest expression of Dunham’s Cad-meets-Corvette aesthetic, the Caballista found itself utterly at home in an era that venerated the brass-’n’-fiberglass T-Bucket, saw the rebirth of the Stutz Blackhawk, and exhibited a fetishistic fondness for wood paneling and high-pile carpeting. It’s generally bandied about that Dunham built 50 Caballistas between 1977 and 1982, all based on the third-generation Corvette. You’re starting to want one, aren’t you?
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Happily, there’s a Caballista for sale on Craigslist right this very minute. The seller, who is apparently friendly with Dunham, claims that there were actually 51 produced, and of those, only four were equipped with four-speed manual transmissions. This car is one of those four, and it could be yours for the somewhat reasonable price of $ 22,500. You know what else that money will get you? The basest Hyundai Sonata in all the land. The Sonata/Caballista question is easy: If you’ve got style, mojo, chest hair, or even just the slightest sense of humor, you’ll forgo modern Asian reliability. You’ll choose eight American cylinders lurking under era-appropriate stamped Moroso valve covers.
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In the 1970s, the American public cared about two things: freedom and class. Witness the excellent graphic design commissioned for our nation’s Bicentennial. Scope the tank graphics of just about any AMF-era Harley-Davidson. Recall Nixon’s resignation. If you’ve got even half a jigger of style and find yourself concerned with the well-being of our great nation, Caballista ownership isn’t just quite possibly for you, it is for you. Stop dawdling. Pick up the phone. Join the cabal.
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