Long before Hugh Hefner would launch his famous Playboy Magazine in 1953 you had the 1946-1949 Playboy Car the answer to 06/29/2011′s What Auto is This?? quiz. The idea of Lou Horwitz a former Packard dealer, Charles D Thompson a former Pontiac engineer and Norman Richards a gifted mechanic the Playboy Car was marketed as a second car due to its tiny size. 
Featuring the first retractable hardtop ever produced in an American car it would never reach full production with only 97 prototypes being built. Unlike the magazine of the same name it would never reach any true glory and die in 1949 as a blip in automotive history. According to an episode of the “Biography” TV series and of ”The E! True Hollywood Story,” as well as in a 2010 documentary entitled “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel,” a woman who worked for Playboy Motor Cars at the time they shut down suggested to her son’s friend that he use the Playboy name for his new magazine. That friend’s name was Hugh Hefner. 
The story was confirmed by Hefner in a letter that reads “The Playboy name was suggested by a friend whose mother had worked at the then defunct Playboy Motor Car Company…” - Signed Hugh M. Hefner. Hefner also confirmed he has never owned a Playboy Car.. Take a ride in a Playboy Car in this cool video..
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