In 1974, the United States was basically falling apart at the pump. Gas lines stretched for blocks, the economy was a mess, and everyone was desperate for a miracle. Then came Liz Carmichael. She was six feet tall, spoke with a booming authority, and promised the world a three-wheeled yellow savior called the Dale car.
It was supposed to get 70 miles per gallon. It was supposed to cost less than $2,000. Most importantly, it was supposed to be "untippable" and safer than any Cadillac on the road.
But there was no miracle. There was barely even a car.
The Hustle of the Twentieth Century
Liz Carmichael didn't just want to sell a vehicle; she wanted to destroy Detroit. She founded the Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, a name ripped straight from the pages of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Honestly, the bravado was incredible. She claimed she was a farm girl from Indiana with a mechanical engineering degree from Ohio State. She told the press she was the widow of a NASA structural engineer.
People wanted to believe her. They really wanted to believe her.
The Dale was marketed as a high-tech marvel made of Rigidex, a rocket-structural resin supposedly nine times stronger than steel. Liz would tell reporters she drove a prototype into a brick wall at 30 mph and walked away without a scratch.
The reality? The "car" on display in her posh Encino office was a hollow fiberglass shell. One of the prototypes didn't even have a steering wheel connected to anything. Another was powered by a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine. When investors came for a demo, the car nearly flipped over.
Who Was Liz Carmichael, Really?
To understand the Dale car, you've gotta understand the woman behind it. Long before she was an automotive mogul, she was Jerry Dean Michael, a man who had been on the run from the FBI since 1961 for a massive counterfeiting operation.
Liz had been living a double life for years. She had a wife, Vivian, and five children. They moved constantly, often in the middle of the night, staying one step ahead of the law. By the time she surfaced in Los Angeles in the early '70s, she had transitioned and was living as Elizabeth Carmichael.
The media eventually caught on, but not because of the fraud. Not at first.
A local reporter named Dick Carlson (yes, Tucker Carlson's father) started digging into the Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation. He found a lot of nothing. No factory. No assembly lines. Just a rented hangar in Burbank that was totally empty. When the fraud began to unravel, the press pivoted from "genius female entrepreneur" to a much more transphobic and sensationalist narrative. They "outed" her, focusing more on her gender identity than the fact that she’d pocketed millions in deposits for a car that didn't exist.
The Murder and the Manhunt
Things turned dark pretty fast. In early 1975, the company’s PR director, William Miller, was found murdered in his office. He had been shot multiple times. The investigation into his death brought even more heat from the California Department of Corporations.
Liz didn't stick around to answer questions. She fled.
She was eventually caught in Miami, wearing a wig and trying to jump out a window, but she managed to post bail—using money from a local TV station that wanted her story—and vanished again.
For nearly a decade, Liz Carmichael was a ghost. She lived in the tiny town of Dale, Texas (the irony is almost too much), running a flower shop under the name Katherine Elizabeth Johnson. She might have stayed there forever if it weren't for a 1989 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. A viewer recognized her, and within two weeks, she was in handcuffs.
What’s Left of the Dream?
If you’re wondering where the Dale car is now, you can actually see it. Or at least, the shells that were left behind.
- The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has one of the original mock-ups. It looks like a spaceship from a low-budget 70s sci-fi flick.
- The Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed in Nebraska has another. This one was found rotting on the roof of a muffler shop before being restored.
Was Liz Carmichael a visionary who just lacked the technical skill to build her dream? Or was she a pure con artist who knew exactly how to exploit the energy crisis? It’s probably a bit of both. She was obsessed with the idea of the "little guy" winning, even while she was taking that same little guy’s money.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs and Investors
If you're fascinated by the intersection of business fraud and automotive history, here's how to dive deeper:
- Watch the Documentary: HBO’s The Lady and the Dale is the definitive look at this story. It uses incredible paper-cutout animation to fill in the gaps where no footage exists.
- Visit the Petersen Museum: Seeing the car in person makes the scale of the scam hit home. It’s tiny, cramped, and clearly not a "Cadillac killer."
- Research the "Rigidex" Claim: It's a classic example of "technobabble" used in modern startups. If a founder claims a material is "9x stronger than steel" but won't show you the data, keep your wallet closed.
- Study the Legal Fallout: The case against Carmichael is a foundational study in California securities law and how the state handles corporate fraud when the "product" is entirely theoretical.
Liz Carmichael died of cancer in 2004, still claiming that the Dale would have worked if they’d just given her more time. She was a woman who lived a thousand lives, most of them built on a foundation of brilliant, yellow-painted air.