Elite Cars: A Period Relic of the Automobile’s Nadir

As a child, I gravitated to books on cars the way I did to Hot Wheels and Matchbox. I beat everything from Richard Scarry’s Cars & Trucks & Things That Go to Matt Stone’s 365 Cars You Must Drive into the ground as my childhood elapsed. Between books, magazines, and online essays, my intake of written words on the motor vehicle may be classified as ‘unhealthy.’ After flipping through countless codexes on cars, I believe one of them needs a paean more than any other: 1979’s Elite Cars.

What a godawful year 1979 was as a car enthusiast. With the malaise era in full swing, the output of even the most revered marques got placed in a stranglehold. “Get set to shift your imagination into high gear,” the book’s introduction declares. Sure, only if the cruise control hovers at 55. Yeah, Elite Cars spills considerable ink over the expected candidates, like the Ferrari 308, Maserati Merak, and Porsche 928 (‘78 owner here!), but the real fun lies elsewhere.

Hideous neoclassics populate the pages, with “highlights” including the Excalibur (NOT the lithe, sexy first iteration, but one of the later, bloated examples), an Auburn Speedster replica, and the Sceptre 6.6S. Who the hell remembers the Sceptre 6.6S? I reckon these retro pastiches, more than anything else, drew me to the book as a young one. Cars so shitty that nothing else I read would give them the time of day. I suppose only a book published at this point in history could get away with such ubiquitous crappiness. At one point, Elite Cars examines an abomination called the “Corvette America,” a four-door version of the then-new Corvette. The America’s engine, an L-82 V8 with a meager 225 horsepower, is described as “hot.” Great.

Looking back in 2025, though, there are a couple of entries in Elite Cars which take the crown above every other mediocre machine. Two vehicles that offer, by today’s standards, less than the bare minimum. The gasoline-huffing proprietors behind each vehicle charge prices which, adjusted for inflation, dectuple what the most delusional party might pay for them.

First up, the Duesenberg. Just the Duesenberg, and a mighty-poor relation to the illustrious, road-going locomotives of old. Not to be confused with the far-cooler ‘60s attempt at a revival, boasting an elegant design courtesy of Virgil Exner, the Duesey Mk. III looks like shit.

Blunt my summation may be, but one look at the prototype and you’ll see what I mean. The book pulls no punches: “Unfortunately, the Duesenberg is about as eye-catching as a Ford Grenada,” laments the write-up, and driving the thing “may just make you feel embarrassed about owning a car that has a name of such illustrious heritage tacked onto what is essentially a rebodied Cadillac.” 

The asking price? The highest of the whole book, a staggering $100,000. Elite Cars lets you know the idiocy of the valuation by reminding the reader that classic Duesenbergs are going for “as high as $150,000.” 100 grand in ‘79 bucks works out to around $465,000 in 2025. Ouch. 

The Caddy V8 in the prototype is quoted at a miserable 195 horsepower, though Elite Cars makes mention of a supposed “Renaissance” package with a twin-turbo, 650-horse motor. Yeah, no. The kicker underscores how much of a let-down this barge was even in the doldrums of ‘79: “Perhaps the biggest disappointment in the new Duesenberg is that it fails to carry on the legend of its name.”

The excrement-brown Duesenberg out of the way, on page 87 we find an offering from the Electric Automobile Corporation. Imagine warping back to 1979 for a moment. You see an ad for the “Silver Volt” and EAC bellowing from the rooftops that the time is right for their electric car. All of the other Elite Cars have hamster wheels under the hood; the Troy, Michigan enterprise may have a point. At $14,500 (around $67,500 today), the price is steep, but short of Duesenberg-style unobtanium.

The hammer drops during a test drive. “Jesus!,” you think. “This thing is ass cheeks!” The trouble with the Silver Volt: there’s not much of a hammer to drop. Power is quoted at “50 kW peak, 20 kW continuous,” which works out to a maximum of just 67 horsepower. A number like that for a two-ton, tweaked Buick Century wagon? No wonder top speed hovers around 70. Range? Provided a steady-state 50 miles an hour, the driver can hope for 60 miles per charge. Did I mention the two-cylinder gasoline power plant that has to run alongside the batteries, to motivate the heat, A/C, power steering, and brakes?

The Elite Cars entry gives this pathetic dinosaur some leeway; while noting that the Silver Volt “doesn’t make very good economic sense,” or much sense “as a car,” the publishers print the following blatant lie: “The Silver Volt is called ‘pollution-free and cheap to run’ by its manufacturers. That may be true,” the book sighs, “but the practical electric car is still some years away.” I’m willing to bet that zero examples of the EAC Silver Volt survive today, but how I would die to see a head-to-head with one and, say, a Lucid Air Sapphire. Have at it, Jason Cammisa! 

Something tells me this book stands alone – once you get your fix, nothing else compares. I own a similar book, with the same name, published by the same folks at Beekman House, from 1987, and this one doesn’t surprise you every few cars the way the ‘79 original does. Where else can you bask in the shadow of the Clenet, or the Stutz Blackhawk?

I’ve owned a couple of Elite Cars over the years – my first one sustained water damage when it was used in the construction of an outdoor road course for some model cars. My second copy suffers from something of a collapsed spine, and the dust jacket disappeared into the ether, but I cherish the slim, red volume all the same. Here’s hoping you can purchase a long-neglected example online, or from Half Price Books, and laugh with me.