Martin BUCKLEY

'In the midst of the oil crisis, with US motorists feeling the pain, Liz saw her chance and bought the rights to the Dale'

I first read about the Dale three-wheeler in my much-loved but sadly now long-departed copy of The Standard Catalogue of American Cars, listed at the back under 'specialist' vehicles.It was certainly that, as was its champion, one Geraldine Elizabeth 'Liz' Carmichael, who was born Jerry Dean Michael in 1927. Carmichael doesn't seem to have had any great interest in automobiles but, latterly, had an imperative need to use them as she hustled her family from one scam to the next across the USA, after escaping the clutches of the FBI on counterfeiting charges in 1961. Carmichael and her brood landed in LA in the early 1970s. Still undetected, she was pursuing a reasonably upright and successful career in property, with her fourth wife posing as her sister-in-law.