If you could design your own car from the ground up, which cars would you take your inspiration from, and would the end result look better than all the cars that inspired it? In 1955, Jim Byers of El Segundo, California set out to design his own sports car, cribbing from the best sports cars of the day from Italy and England. Two years later, the SR-100 made the cover of Road & Track's February issue (as shared by Undiscovered Classics) with the cryptic words "WHAT IS IT?" printed underneath. In that issue, publisher John Bond asked if the car was the most beautiful thing on the road. He must have believed it was, because he subsequently bought and built his own to drive around. The article concluded that the car had "Truly a beautiful body and one for which we predict a great future."
That future was maybe not quite as great as John Bond predicted, but the model was around for a bit. Between 1955 and 1963, only an estimated 25 examples of the Byers SR-100 roadster kit bodies were built in handlaid fiberglass sheet (which can also found in more recent affordable high-performance kits). That number just barely doubled in the years after, and while there were hundreds of other fiberglass kit cars in the era, none look quite as good as a finished Byers.
From every direction, you can see the inspiration Byers took from his favorite European designs. The Road & Track article begins by saying the car has "a little of Bertone, Farina, Vignale, and even Touring" in it. That's high praise, but not at all incorrect. Despite predating the BMW 507, I think it also carries a bit of that car with it.
As these were all home-built machines, there's no exact specification for what makes a Byers. Customers only had to choose a donor chassis with a wheelbase of 100 inches and a track width of no more than 56 inches. A Buick Roadmaster or Nash Rambler would have worked perfectly, for example. The one featured in the video below is built on a 1949 Ford sedan chassis with the middle chopped out to shorten it to 100 inches, maintaining the front and rear leaf springs and drum brakes. It is also powered by a 220 horsepower Chevrolet 265 cubic inch small-block V8. Hot-rodders and garage hacks alike could put basically anything they wanted to under this beautiful bodywork.
Although the beauty of a Byers is largely skin-deep, being small and lightweight with a full fiberglass body, it kind of didn't matter what chassis it rode on. Pop an American V8 in a car that weighs less than 2,000 pounds and it's going to be a quick one. Because so few of these were built, they don't come up for sale very often. A couple have sold on Bring A Trailer over the last decade, but I've never even seen one of these in person. And it's unlikely you have, either, even if you managed to lay your eyes on other exceptionally rare cars. There was an effort to get these kits started up in production again back in 2018, paired with a modified Corvette chassis for better handling and power, but the company folded before any significant inroads could be made.
What do you think, is it actually the most beautiful car in the world, or do you think you know one that looks better? Let's fight it over in the comments section.