1960 DiDia 150 – The Story Of The Tailor That Built The Most Expensive Custom Car

A ’58 Cadillac 365-cubic-inch V8 was fitted into the car using a marine induction manifold that gave the Cadillac a low engine profile. A matching ’58 Cadillac automatic transmission moved power to the rear wheels. The engine was later changed to a Ford 427, mated to the Cadillac transmission when Ford wanted to the Di Dia on the show circuit. It is still fitted with this engine.
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Di Dia was a big friend of Bobby Darin and Bobby was completely enchanted by this vehicle and obtained it right away. He paid $150,000 for the car, a price high enough to set a Guinness World Record, and this price was all that period newspapers could talk about.

Soon afterward it picked up another name by which it’s most commonly referred to today – ‘Bobby Darin’s Dream Car.’
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This was not a show car. This vehicle attests to the spirit of the man and performe. Bobby and his wife, Sandra Dee often drove it to the Academy Awards.

It also appeared in movies of the time. Bobby Darin was an unbelievable musical talent that died well before his time. He was posthumously elected to both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters Hall of Fames and in 2010 garnered the Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award.

Last time he drove it to Academy Award ceremony before donating it to the St. Louis Museum of Transportation in 1970. Three years later, he died from a childhood heart condition that finally caught up with him.
The car is still at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri, where it resides alongside planes, trains, and automobiles.

It was the car of the future. It couldn’t have come from anywhere else except a nostalgic, warm, fuzzy, America, where taste and style never knew any boundaries.