I like it! Two of my favorite cars combined. Should probably be mounted higher...like so the bumper ends are just below the grille surround molding. This would raise the dagmars to look like a perky teenager instead of a 45-year-old (If anybody's sensitive about this comparison, I apologize. I didn't invent the term "dagmar" - Jenny Lewis did on NBC many years ago. Any resemblance is not coincidental.). Just my $.02
Eric, the extent of your hot rod knowledge seems to have no bounds- I was wondering where that term came from. After seeing the picture, I can see why.
I tried to find more about this lady online and couldn't- could you give a little backstory Eric? Thanks.
Got your attention, did I? Well, here ya' go, Scott! Dagmar, 79, Foxy Blonde With First-Name Status in 50's By DOUGLAS MARTIN Published: October 11, 2001 The statuesque performer who won fame as Dagmar, a dumb-as-a-fox blonde on one of television's first late-night shows, died on Tuesday at her home in Ceredo, W.Va. She was 79. She was born Virginia Ruth Egnor in nearby Huntington and was renamed Jenny Lewis when she came to New York to model and act. She was given the name Dagmar when she became a character in ''Broadway Open House,'' a vaudeville-style mix of music and jokes, which ran on NBC in 1950 and 1951 and was a forerunner of ''The Tonight Show.'' Standing 5 feet 11 inches in her heels, Dagmar combined ''the voluptuous curves of a Venus, the provocative grace of a young Mae West and the virtue of a Girl Scout,'' Murray Schumach wrote in The New York Times in 1950. Not to say that ***ual innuendo was ignored. Once when she played the president in a comedy sketch, she said: ''I've had a very busy day. I p***ed 19 vetoes and vetoed 19 p***es.'' She was billed as a singer on the program, but seldom sang. Instead, she recited poems and treatises -- she called them treasises -- in a delightfully ingenuous, deadpan manner. Dagmar's significance transcended beating Cher and Madonna to first-name-only status. Her necklines were debated on the floor of the House of Representatives, and when her salary soared from $75 a week to $3,000, the government's Wage Stabilization Board took public notice. In a 1951 profile illustrated with photographs by Alfred Eisenstadt, Life magazine called her a ''national ins***ution.'' Her casual at***ude about names came early, when she asked to be called Ruthie instead of Virginia. ''It's easier to spell,'' she explained. She graduated from Huntington High School and Huntington Business College, according to Huntington Quarterly, a local journal. She then went to work for a finance company, but quit because. she said, she felt sorry for all those people''who had to pay and didn't have enough to eat.'' She also worked as a waitress, sandwich maker, soda jerk and cashier. Two of her three husbands, Angelo Lewis and **** Hinds, a bandleader, were from Huntington. The third was Danny Dayton, an actor. All died before her. She is survived by her sisters Jean Nichols of Miami, Mary Ann Wolfe of Huntington and Theresa Jacobs of Vancouver, Wash.; and her brothers Jack Egnor of Tuback, Ariz., Robert Joseph Egnor and Dan of Huntington. As an aspiring actress in New York, her first job was modeling sweaters. She was hired on a show-by-show basis for the new NBC show ''Broadway Open House.'' She was told to wear a low-cut gown, sit on a stool and act dumb. When the host, Jerry Lester, asked where she was from, she smiled brightly and answered, ''West Virginia.'' ''Where's that?'' Mr. Lester demanded. She drawled, ''In West Virginia,'' convulsing the host and the audience. Soon she was receiving 8,000 fan letters a month, more than half of them from women. She lived in a Central Park South penthouse, and was often seen in the Stork Club. She went on to perform in the theater, summer stock and Las Vegas. She was a regular on ''Holiday Squares.'' Mitch Miller persuaded her to record a duet with Frank Sinatra. During her run as one of television's early stars, she told an interviewer she thought she was becoming Dagmar. That meant being a ''gentlewoman a**** roisterers'' in Mr. Schumach's phrase. When the heckling got out of hand as she recited yet another inane poem, Dagmar would say in a plaintive southern accent, ''Please, you're tinkering with my art.'' Photo: Dagmar in 1952. (Photofest)
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