During the 1950s, General Motors’ Motorama shows were rolling visions of the future. Harley Earl and his design teams used them to unveil some of the most dramatic concept cars of the era, machines built to test styling ideas, technology and public reaction. Cars such as the Chevrolet Biscayne, LaSalle II roadster and Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car looked far more exotic than almost anything Americans could actually buy.
There was one problem with being a Motorama star: once the show circuit ended, GM usually had little use for the car. Keeping experimental vehicles created storage, legal and liability headaches, so many were ordered destroyed. In 1958, four particularly important dream cars were sent to Warhoops Used Auto & Truck Parts near Detroit: the 1955 Chevrolet Biscayne, 1955 LaSalle II roadster, 1955 LaSalle II sedan and 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car.
Warhoops owner Harry Warholak Sr. had different ideas. The LaSalle II roadster and Biscayne were partially dismantled and cut apart, but not completely destroyed. The LaSalle II sedan was left largely intact, while the Cadillac survived in even better condition. Its engine and drivetrain were reportedly donated to a local high school, but the body itself was hidden away, at one point inside a trailer. According to Warholak’s son, his father even dreamed of fixing the Cadillac up for his daughter’s wedding.
Rumors of the Lost Cars Refused to Die
For the next three decades, the dream cars quietly decayed behind the fences at Warhoops. Local enthusiasts knew stories about strange GM prototypes hidden among the junk, but proving they were still there was another matter. The yard became part of Detroit automotive folklore, with collectors and historians trying for years to learn exactly what survived.
Collector Joe Bortz was already obsessed with lost concept cars when the rumors finally became impossible to ignore. In the late 1980s, his son Marc contacted the junkyard after reading that some Motorama cars might still exist there. The call eventually led to Bortz acquiring all four cars from the Warholak family in 1989. What he found was not a collection of pristine museum pieces. The Biscayne had been cut into multiple sections, its special frame and drivetrain were gone, and pieces of trim had reportedly spent years buried in the ground. The LaSalle II roadster was also badly dismembered.
The Biscayne may have looked hopeless, but Bortz decided it could be brought back. Using surviving body sections, period photographs and original engineering information, restorers reconstructed the missing chassis and painstakingly reassembled the car. The LaSalle II roadster received similar treatment, while Bortz deliberately left the LaSalle II sedan in unrestored “junkyard fresh” condition. The scars became part of the story rather than something to erase. These cars were found, but was the 50 millionth GM?
Cars GM Wanted Gone Became Automotive Treasures
The irony is hard to miss. Cars that General Motors once considered disposable eventually became some of the most important surviving artifacts of the Motorama era. The restored Chevrolet Biscayne and LaSalle II roadster have appeared at major concours and museums, while the battered LaSalle sedan remains a physical reminder of just how close these cars came to disappearing completely.
The Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car followed a different path. Bortz sold it in the early 1990s, and subsequent owners completed a detailed restoration. The car was originally created for the 1956 Motorama with hand-laid fiberglass bodywork, an open chauffeur’s compartment, an intercom, elaborate rear accommodations and countless one-off details. Today it is recognized as the earliest surviving Eldorado Brougham and the only 1956 example. In a remarkable new chapter, the same Cadillac that spent decades hidden in a junkyard is scheduled to cross the block at RM Sotheby’s Hershey auction in 2026 with an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. (rmsothebys.com)
The four Warhoops cars survived largely because the people tasked with destroying them could not quite bring themselves to finish the job. For nearly 30 years, they sat among ordinary wrecks while the automotive world assumed most of GM’s great dream cars had vanished forever. Then a collector followed an old rumor to a Detroit-area junkyard and discovered that some of the future GM had thrown away was still there.
