Thursday 3rd April 1947

President Louis Horowitz and Vice President Charles D. Thomas of the Playboy Motor Car Corporation of Buffalo, New York announced plans to produce a subcompact car, the Playboy. The most interesting feature of the new Playboy was the fold-down steel top. This was hinged in the middle above the passengers and the seam was sealed with a rubber gasket that company engineers swore would not leak. It was counterbalanced and manually operated and could be raised and lowered from the driver’s seat. When folded, the top formed part of the rear deck. In this endeavour, Playboy joined a few others such as Peugeot in the 1930s and Ford’s retractable Skyliner of the ’50s. Several manufacturers now offer true hard-top convertibles. Apart from the folding steel top the rest of the Playboy was pretty conventional. Its 40-horsepower Continental (and a few Hercules) four-cylinder, side-valve engine drove the rear wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. The car was quite small with a 2,286 mm (90 in.) wheelbase, width of 1,473 mm (58 in.) and over-all length of just 3,962 mm (156 in.). And the tiny 6.00 by 12-inch tires must have been taxed to support the Playboy’s 862 kg (1,900 lb) weight. The body and frame were welded together to form a kind of unit construction. The Playboy was an “assembled” car in that major components like engine, transmission and other parts came from outside sources. The company turned this to its advantage by advertising that “all standard automotive parts are used, thus facilitating servicing.” Suspension was conventional, being independent A-arms and coil springs in front and a solid axle and leaf springs at the rear.