The Stout Scarab

Apparently it’s Insect Car Week at the Bug Blog!

I think everyone knows the Volkswagen Beetle–the iconic Coleopteran car. But how many of you have heard of the 1935 Stout Scarab?

“The Stout Scarab was a 1930s U.S automobile produced in small numbers by Stout Engineering Laboratories of Detroit, Michigan. Among a host of novelties and innovations, the Stout Scarab is credited by many as the world’s first production minivan.”

I had a chance to see one of these lately, and it is both astonishing and ADORABLE.

Only 9 of these were ever built–the idea was that it would function as a hotel on wheels. The back seat is about 6 feet wide, and folds down into a bed.

You can see this cute mega-beetle in action here:

Check out the scarab as hood ornament. stout What a great little tidbit of Michigan History!

This entry was written by Bug Girl and posted on September 13, 2009 at 8:23 am and filed under Entomology with tags , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

6 Comments

  1. izaakmak
    Posted September 13, 2009 at 9:17 am | Permalink

    What a really cool car! I wonder if Jay Leno has one? But maybe minivans aren’t cool enough! :-)

  2. John
    Posted September 13, 2009 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    That looks like a pretty cool car.

  3. bed bugs
    Posted September 13, 2009 at 11:20 am | Permalink

    i loves those old fashion cars that looks like bugs !

  4. Dave
    Posted September 14, 2009 at 12:01 am | Permalink

    Seems like it was ahead of it’s time!

  5. PhantomMidge
    Posted September 15, 2009 at 10:34 pm | Permalink

    Oh, crap…I have the pics but haven’t sent them to you yet!

  6. Gil Bloom
    Posted September 16, 2009 at 6:58 pm | Permalink

    I think I’d take a scarab over a hornet any day!


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