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It’s a Ruxton, one of 96 built in 1929-1930.  The sedans with the wild Joseph Urban multi-toned horizontal paint scheme are better-known, but most were produced with the Woodlite headlights as seen on this roadster here.

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1929 Ruxton Model C Roadster. From Cars and Motorbike Stars of the Golden Era, FB.

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A Ruxton prototype from 1929, showing off the Joseph Urban-designed paint scheme meant for the showcars, with an interior following along with the multi-toned theme.  If you wanted to remain anonymous, you bought yourself a black Buick.

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It’s a Ruxton, recently restored to better-than-new condition, and sporting the Joseph Urban paint scheme once though to have only shown up on the cars built for the auto shows.

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Elegance of the Golden Era: 1930 Ruxton Model C Roadster. Quite a Beauty!

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1929 Ruxton, Model C Roadster, Petersen Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, California.

In contrast to the four details of 1930s design (above this Ruxton Roadster), all of which reveal the intention to integrate doorhandles, turn-signals and most any other external device with their bodies, the 1929 Ruxton headlight is designed as a separate element. Clearly it is intended to stand out as a piece of sculpture. There is no intent to integrate it into the body of the car. It is directional and faces forward, yet it looks more like some elegant sconce than an automobile headlight.

Popularly called the “cat’s eye headlamp,” it was designed by William G. Wood and was officially known as the Woodlite. It was standard equipment on the Ruxton, but often became a replacement part, for purely aesthetic reasons, on other expensive cars of the period. If one drove at night, this was clearly a problem that forced many owners with Woodlites to purchase auxiliary driving lights. As David LaChance wrote for Hemmings Motor News (October, 2008), for nighttime driving, the Woodlite proved “itself inferior to practically every useful factory headlamp that it replaced.”

The world’s greatest car museum.

The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles is 100,000 square feet of car nirvana.

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1930 Ruxton Model C

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1930 Ruxton Hansom

This is page 3 of a 4-page ad which appeared in Aug. 2, 1929 Life magazine.

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1930 Ruxton Roadster

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When the Blue Streak was released in 1932, the Graham company incorporated streamlined styling by Amos Northup. The laid-back grille, body-colored headlights, wrap around “skirted” fenders, "pearl-essence" paint (fun fact: originally made using fish scales!) and a totally concealed frame, were all elements quickly adopted by other automakers. In 1933, the Blue Streak was touted as, “the most imitated car on the road.” Furthering the important place in history, the Blue Streak was engineered with an innovative banjo-style frame where the axle ran between split frame rails lowering the car’s overall stance and improving its handling characteristics over its contemporaries.

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Ricockulous. Gimme my weed.

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Plymouth Barracuda conversion on a modern Challenger.