Some have complained that I spend time discussing the Yom Kippur War and the consequent oil embargo. However, I believe that that context is critical to understanding the national climate that brought us the Dale. Others imply that I have taken sides in the Arab Israeli conflict. To be clear, the reason I included the brief discussion here was the provide background on the decisions of the Nixon Administration that led to the US inclusion in the oil embargo. One purpose of History is to help inform us about the future. But, at times, I do think that viewers impress their conclusions on the story that I tell. In this case, I was making no attempt to make judgments on the motivations of parties to events. Some viewers have taken issue with my description of the gull-winged DeLorean DMC-12 as an American design. The DeLorean Motor Company was an American company, and the prototype for the DMC-12 was created by American engineer William T Collins. But the design was significantly re-engineered by British engineer Colin Chapman and the body design was the work of Italian engineer Giorgetto Giugiaro. And, of course, the cars were manufactured in Ireland. Suffice to say that my comment in the introduction was not intended to insult any of the international parties who were involved in the design and manufacture of the DMC-12. Some have complained that I refer to Carmichael as “she” after she was identified as transgender. Seriously, no matter what I did there someone was going to complain, putting me in the situation where there is no correct answer, or, rather, where different people were going to insist that their answer was the only good and correct one. I am not foisting my opinions about current debates on anyone, I am following normal journalistic practice and trying not to unnecessarily choose fights that will turn people off of history. I can not help it that some will choose to be offended. Viewers are free to have their own opinions, and refer to Carmichael in your own conversations however you please. This is not an episode prosecuting current cultural debates, this is a channel about history, so please don’t impress that on me, and have that conversation elsewhere.

I know, I'll move to Dale... they'll never think to look there

To the History Guy: Automotive history has been something close to my heart for life. My grandfather was a drag racer in the fifties and sixties, my Dad an edurocross racer in the late seventies, and later all three of us vintage raced a very rare American sports car for twenty plus years. I grew up around the weird, the wild, the priceless, but it never seemed out of place. To sit in a Ferrari 250 GTO at age six and slap the throttle, to tearing down and overhauling a 50's Chevy 283 for our Bocar XP-5 was the norm for me. Should you ever decide to do a special on the fiberglass trend or American sports of the 50's, call me. It has been my life.

One minor, possible correction: you refer to the engine as a "BMW two stroke" but in the 1970's (and for a long time previously) BMW had only been making four stroke engines. I believe what was intended is "two cylinder" as the air-cooled boxer twin was the only bike engine BMW produced at the time.

Now, that was plot twist I didn't see coming.

History Guy, I agree with you. As a life-long teacher in both civilian and military careers, the first thing you learn is to ESTABLISH RELEVANCE with the audience. And you did that very well. The car is only the effect but the oil embargo is the story.

Dear History Guy: You are the best! Keep 'em coming.

I still have original Dale car brochures from 1975. I used to "gawk" at this 3-wheeled wondercar as it whirled around at the 20th Century Motor car headquarters, in Encino, Ca. Great job explaining the whole history behind the Dale car, I remember it well!!

History guy you are doing a GREAT job. Love the historical vignettes; tight rap; no wasted breath - get to the meat of the issue; great research, many amazing crash landings, with accurate technical information; you might be a pilot. The story of the Dale is topical. Looks a lot like Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion car.

Oh No! You didn't close with the statement "it deserved to be remembered...", I love that part

That time and history changed everyone’s lives. It upset the economy of the United States for many years and is still impacting it. Yes this is a story that needs to be remembered. Thank you

I love history now after hearing how you tell it. Why couldn't my school teacher do daily 10 minute history lessons like this? I put you on auto play and fall to sleep listening.

I remember reading the Motor Trend magazine article on this incident, so I was a little worried with the first part of the presentation. You tied it all up in the end, though. Kudos, History Guy. Your channel is addictive.

As a car buff it’s always nice to hear a story you haven’t heard. Thanks for this. You channel always entertains while teaching keep it up.

In most states, three-wheeled vehicles are registered as motorcycles or "auto-cycles". This avoids having to meet regulations that are on cars, but not motorcycles. That is the primary reason that many start-ups that promise low-buck, high-mileage cars use a three-wheeled design.

The parallels to Elio Motors and their claims, even having 3 wheels is astonishing! History does repeat itself.

This episode reminds me of Paul Harvey and what he would call "The Rest of the Story" !!!

Thank you for yet another interesting and informative history lesson. I'm sorry that you, in so doing, have subjected yourself to endless complaints from people who seem to only be able to complain. I doubt that any of them have ever created anything at all, much less an entire series of interesting and informative videos. Keep doing what you do! Fantastic stuff!

The three wheel enclosed design did survive and several manufacturers took it on with their own designs which are still sold today. It was also a feature kit vehicle in Popular Mechanics using half a motorcycle as the power plant

Morgan, in the UK, has made 3 wheeled cars for decades. Though open topped they are a great car and well loved in Britain.

I am an avid fan of odds and ends in history, as well as little-known stories that ought to be told. I’m digging your channel - keep up the good work! Two stories that I’ll suggest are the Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE) Mizar, the first practical and *almost* commercially available roadable aircraft in 1973 (built on the Ford Pinto platform); and the first circumnavigation of the world by a commercial airliner as a result of the Pearl Harbor attack by the Pan Am flying boat California Clipper. For that one I recommend ‘The Long Way Home: Revised Edition’ by Ed Dover.

I was aware of the long con of the Dale. I'd heard or read somewhere that the front axle of the showroom prototype was a 2 x 4 stick of lumber. This video is the first I heard that it was based on a legitimate innovation. As to the secondary argument about the inclusion of the six day war information, I thought the video did a very good job of explaining how the war created demand, through rising gas prices, for much more fuel efficient cars, thus spawning the opportunity in the market for the Dale, or at least its promises. But, I suppose people will take offense with just about anything any more.

This is so southern . Californians have always loved us . Still do today , thanks .

These remind me of why i feel in love with the History Channel when I was a kid many moons ago.

I remember watching this story on Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack.

I remember the Energy Crisis well. My father worked for Brown & Root at a Shell Oil refinery in Pasadena , TX. My father said the oil tanks at the refinery were full of oil and tankers full of oil were anchored offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. In Texas, license plates ending with an even number could buy gas on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and odd number plates on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Anybody on Sunday if you could find a station open.

The Dale reminds me of the one-seater "Freeway" microcar of about the same period. A fellow in my neighborhood has one and I see his car now and again at our neighborhood grocery parking lot.

Amazing!! A very different chapter in history made famous by this world class master of history.

"Promised Dale millions of dollars." That was the first clue something wasn't kosher...

Good grief, sounds like a Coen brothers movie. Frances McDormand could play Geraldine Carmichael. Excellent segment!

This was interesting, I remember back in the day, popular mechanics featured a 3 wheel car with a motorcycle engine you could build. It looked extremely similar to the Dale. I ordered the plans, but never got around to build it. Life got in the way.

Just a bit of 1980's history for you, in 1983 while in the engineering students society, we built a three wheel single passenger rotary engine with a fly wheel drive system that ran the drive train. The car alternated between the rotary engine and fly wheel. We achieved 89 MPG. About two years later a US team developed a similar car that did about 95 MPG. An Australian team developed a single seater that did over 120 MPG. This automobile engineering contest is still going every year and university teams from around the world compete. So the Dale proposed MPG record has been overshadowed for decades. There is a similar contest for solar powered vehicles, but I was never involved in that.

Keep doing what you do. Good stuff. Thanks mate and greetings from across the pond

Thank you for all your videos. Just the right length, precise, and informative without any bias. They are perfect appetizers for the history buff!

The funny thing is that Polaris sells the Slingshot but not as an economy car. It too is licensed as a motorcycle (as is a Morgan 3 Wheeler) but actually works and can be purchased.

The Arab Oil Embargo is also the reason why nearly all gasoline stations today are combined with convenience stores. When filling stations that only sold gas ran out of gas, they had to come up with other ways to make money. By selling food, convenience items, AND fuel, they have reasons for people to come in even when their tank is full.

There is a 3 part series called "The Lady and the Dale".....that gives a very thorough history of the car, the company and the leader. Good stuff!

Great Video. Thank You. I felt you did a great job discussing Yom Kippur War and the Gas crunch of the time. Without the information. It was just about a car. Now we know what DROVE Dale.

Fascinating automobile history! Thank you and please keep History That Should Be Remembered...Going

This was a topic on Unsolved Mysteries! Super interesting stuff, glad to see a KZfaq video on the subject.

How is this not a movie?

Cool story. I just stumbled on your channel. I like what I've seen so far. I appreciate the balance you strike: detached-objectivity and a passionate interest. That's not easy to do. Kudos to you!

This story could be absolutely a "Coen Brothers" movie? What a great story.

Thank you sir for giving the backstory: the 1973 Israeli War that caused the OPEC embargo that caused the demand for fuel efficient cars, which inspired the inventor. This is SO much more than I knew from the Car and Driver article! You are one of a handful of channels that gets a "bell icon."

*The story of The Dale needs to be made into a feature length film!* I could easily see someone like Jared Leto playing the role Geraldine/Gerald. I can picture the preview of Dale working in his garage, while a montage of escalating war and gas prices are interspersed to the tune of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by The Rolling Stones.

Fantastic story that was totally novel to me. Thanks!

I remember watching that episode of Unsolved Mysteries. I was so fascinated bybthis story.

Great example how sometimes significant and seemingly insignificant events can affect history from that of the individual to the world. Mr. Dale was influenced by world events and had he not been approached by a con artist his personal life, and automotive development, may have gone differently. Reminds me of a TV program of the 1970s named Connections which shows the connections between political and technological events. The personal effects of world events and personal decisions is evident in my own family. During WWII my father when he was 18 did not wait to be drafted and enlisted in the US Army Air Corp. He applied to be a fighter pilot and passed all the written tests. Then at the end of his entrance physical exam was told he had a slight speech impediment and may not be understood in combat, so of course they made him a radio operator. He was mad about this until he saw how fast fighter pilots died. Trained to encode and operated high speed wireless telegraphic radio he was assigned a ground support duty for the 434th Fighter Squadron at Wattisham England of the 479th Fighter Group of the USAAC 8th Air Force. His unit was advanced ground support and participated in the D-Day landings. His unit landed on the beach after the assault troops had disembarked and taken the beaches so there was no direct enemy fire. They traveled across northern France and into Rhineland coming under direct fire by German troops only one time. After the war he returned home and did various jobs, married, and settled in working for a railroad equipment company and working part time selling shoes. About a decade later a friend said with his keyed radio operator experience he could get work at his employer and he ended up retiring from the National Security Agency, what kind of work he did there he took to the grave with him. So a decision to enlist rather then wait to be drafted coupled with a the allure of being a fighter pilot set the course for an entire life on an individual and his subsequent family. Such are the lessons of history. So when you face the simple decision to turn left or right your choice can affect the rest of your life or even world history.

Reminds me of the Elio in a way, a car which change the world, a lot of money raised, but ultimately the whole project turns out to be vaporware.

I remember this car and all that happens afterwards. But for some reason those times didn't seem so bad as everyone says it was. I only remember one or 2 gas lines I was in. They also went with using your license plate numbers as a way to regulate when you got gas. Even numbers on one day and odd numbers on another. It was also the main reason the speed limit was reduced to 55 mph. It saved a lot of gas. Dam it took you forever to get anywhere.

Messerschmitt , famous for its WWII fighter aircraft , made a similar car, 3 wheels, 2 in front and a two stroke engine driving the rear wheel. But theirs had the driver and passenger in tandem with aircraft style glass - They look like an aircraft cockpit on wheels .

I remember The Dale. Great story telling and research. Thanks!

Great video thank you so much for teaching us. It great to learn something new.

What an amazing story, never heard of it before, here in the UK we had a con artist who fraudulently persuaded a local council to invest in "The Africar", a wooden chassis low tech utility vehicle, for use in, you guessed , Africa. I suppose DeLorean also persuaded the UK government to invest in the ill fated gull winged stainless steel car. Nice presentation, thanks.

Just as an aside, the Yom Kippur war is one of the very few wars won by losing the battle. When the ceasefire was finally imposed by the US and USSR, Israel had trapped most of the Egyptian army in the desert without a supply line - and that meant no water - and there was no significant force between the IDF and Cairo. But in the years of diplomatic negotiations following the war, Egypt won back the Sinai peninsula and laid out a workable peace treaty that has held to this day. That whole story is worth a History Guy video.

I thought I knew a thing or two about the Dale. But I either pushed it out of my mind, or never knew of the fraudulent aspects. Keep teachin' History Guy.

Facts and honest are more important than how I feel. Thank you for doing a great and in my opinion , a very factual and un biased video production.

I get far more out of your KZfaq segments than I ever have out of any school classroom, especially college-level history course

Crazy story, so well chronicled that it almost seems like we were there. Truth is always stranger than fiction.

A thief has the heart of a thief. If they chose to build the car instead of scamming everyone, they might be some of the richest in America, and we may be driving Dales to this day. A great idea hijacked by thieves. Great job on this piece HG. Thank you.

Wow, a better, more elaborate con job than in the 1973 movie "The Sting"

This makes me wonder if the person who wrote "Tucker and Dale vs Evil" is a bit of a car aficionado.

I remember seeing the episode of Unsolved Mysteries about this car. There are motorcycles similar to the design except that they don’t have roofs.

Charmiachel was a guest on KGO radio San Francisco. I heard more than one broadcast with her. KGO is a Clear Station meaning it’s has no competing stations on its frequency so the station can be heard over most of the state. I was driving from the bay area to Los Angeles to visit family. & heard hours of the evening broadcast. It was a Holiday weekend, probably a Friday night around 10. Charmiachel had answers for every question & they took calls from listeners. A very convincing person. I wonder if KGO taped the interview?

early british three wheelers (like the morgan) were being made as early as around 1909

if history was made this interesting when i was in school, I would have become a history major

Found living in Dale, TX. You can't make this up. History ROCKS.

Thanks History Guy, I am always intrigued by forgotten tidbits of History you bring to the forefront. Best Wishes...

"Five Minutes of History" "...about 10 minutes long." Double value!

5:27 English Morris factory, the model is the Minor, discontinued in 1971

wow what a wild story! a movie about this would be very entertaining i think.

THG: Messerschmidt Produced a three-wheeled vehicle that actually revived the company. It was made in several versions and was in fact a motorcycle. It was still being produced in 1961 and may have been Dale's inspiration. Any GI stationed in post-war Germany would have seen them. That certainly does not detract from Dale and Geraldine saga. The back story of why we would consider abandoning the gas guzzlers was a bonus. Thank you, Sir.

I remember talking about the Dale with my high school physics teacher. He was convinced that the three wheeled configuration was inherently unstable. The Dale tale was also my first exposure to transgender. We didn't quite know how to process that kind of thing back in the '70s. Thanks for filling in some gaps about that story I didn't know.

this should be a movie!

One of your best stories yet.

In 1975 as a graduate trainee engineer in the UK oil industry I was sent up the massive petrol 'gas' storage tanks to check the positions of the floating roofs. I had to see how much more petrol 'gas' we could put into the storage before the roofs floated off the top of the tanks. From that high vantage point I could see cars lined up waiting for their ration of fuel at a nearby petrol station. This was in one of the oil crisis. The oil industry had learned that reducing supply then increasing it allowed them to manipulate the fuel prices, and enable consolidation of the companies when prices were low due to over supply, and raise prices when supplies were reduced. They would go so far as to slow down and speed up the oil tankers. After Standard Oil was broken up, the companies appear to be like the fluid metal terminator trying to reform into one company again. That's how you have Exxon Mobil, BP Amaco etc.

Well, golly, that was an interesting tale of a car and never was!

I really loved how you framed this episode. Starting with the history of opec being pissed at us for helping the Israelis. And that leading to the need for this quirky car. Side note: how in the hell did you guys make it through that gas shortage? We are so spoiled today

This story needs to be a movie

I was not familiar with this car or this story, but it does remind me in many ways of the Edmond Ramirez and his Amectran Exar-1.

I've spent much of my afternoon watching your videos while preparing for overnight guests! Thanks for all of your excellent stories. I have a story suggestion: Could you do a story on the history of the American Chestnut tree? It was once a mighty giant of the forest in the east. It was virtually wiped out by an imported fungus to which it was susceptible. Efforts to restore the tree are ongoing by several organizations including the American Chestnut Foundation. Please check it out.

Well, that took a turn.

Wow ! Yet again ....wow ! I love your channel and love this kind of history. I was an adult when all this was going on but I had never heard of the "Dale".....thanks so much for sharing !!

That was an exciting time in history and the lessons from it are still guiding policies today! We are forever re-discovering the interdependencies of geopolitical partnerships and the studying the vulnerabilities from every technology possible to model with respect to our consumer behavior. Today, it's cybernetworking, with only one destablilizing step remaining to be taken to relive the 1973 oil embargo with the internet and telecom industry. Keep the good history lessons coming!

Kind of reminds me of a BRP Can-Am Spyder, three-wheeled motorcycle. Better than some of those horrible European designs like the Bond Minicar, with the single wheel at the front. Loved watching Jeremy Clarkson roll it over, and over, and over on an ep of Top Gear, lol. Great history videos, btw!

I remember my Dad fearing that if gas got to one dollar he would possibly be put out of business

This one was great! It kept getting better and better

One of the best history stories ever!

A friend of mine told me that he was a USAF air traffic Controller and and he was sent to Tel Aviv International Airport where American he and his buddies replace the Israli crews who had all been called up. They were there for about a month, could not leave the Airport, and were told they had the eternal thanks from the State of Israel.

But what about the guy who designed a 100mpg carburetor in his garage that was seized by the government/ oil companies/ Japanese... 😂😅 Heard that urban legend all my life, but never heard of this story.

Nice piece of local history that I havent heard of before...

What a bizarre story. How has no-one made a film about this yet?

I sure can see why he disabled comments on the Chinese Massacre....wow, the extent to which some will go to kill (or rather blame for every angle) the messenger is astounding.

I have a question; I take it that when one get a degree in history, it can't be about knowing all history of all time? Id assume ones head would explode trying to stuff all that in. Is it more about how to handle, research and present it properly?

Best person on the internet ever ! Always a great story

It's amazing how politics and world affairs directly affects the automotive world. Dodge was the first one to put diesel engines in their light duty trucks. I read an article on how it was offered from 1939-1942. What the article failed to mention, was that lenova diesels was manufactured in Germany. So when the US got involved with WWII......

How was it featured on the Price is Right if a functioning car was not available?

This popped up on my recommended list and so I watched and enjoyed your vid. Count me as another subscriber now. :)

thanks history guy ! I live just 7 miles from Dale Tx. and have never heard of this happening .

I am a DeLorean fan...even made a vid with a well known UK gadeteer who recreated the film prop. A full video on DeLorean from you would be awesome. I knew they were made in Ireland but never knew they were an American company by registration. For a brief moment, I actually considered that you had something wrong. Then, Occam's razor kicked in and of course, you were correct. Gripping delivery as ever. You are incandescent in your enthusiasm and it's infectious. Thanks for a great channel.