You Asked For It was one of a plethora of human interest TV shows that filled the airwaves across America in the 1950s. Originally titled the Art Baker Show after its host, the series ran from 1950 to ’59, with the premise of granting viewer’s requests for things they wanted to see. It was in fact presented as “TV’s all-time greatest request show.
In this short segment we get to see the wish of a viewer, one Al Rathman of Milwaukee Wisconsin, that being the building of a Woodhill Wildfire kit car out of the parts of a donor Ford sedan. The Wildfire was the brainchild of car dealer Blanchard Robert “Woody” Woodill who got the idea that Willys ought to have a sports car to compete with those recently arriving from Europe. Woodhill couldn’t get Willys’ corporate to go along with the plan so he went it alone, producing 15 complete cars and another 280 or so kits, like this one. Woodhill worked with boat builder Glasspar on the Wildfire’s fiberglass body, the first for a production car ever.
The show states that Woodhill’s estimated time for the kit’s completion is three days for three men. Since the show could muster more bodies than days, they threw 12 stout gentlemen at the task and completed the car in mere hours. Check it out—and the Wildfire’s radically tilted windscreen—and let the stress of Monday slip away.
Source: YouTube