Stand aside, there’s a television star coming through! This week on Bring A Trailer, you can find the one and only Maxton Rollerskate straight from MotorWeek and Goss’ Garage! It’s the most famous example of a Maxton Rollerskate in the world. Okay, it’s probably the only one that has ever been featured anywhere notable, but it’s still an incredibly cool example of a ridiculously awesome car.
If you weren’t aware, these little rotary-powered kit cars came out around the same time as the NA-generation Mazda Miata, and undercut them by a few hundred pounds. Only about 55 kits were produced from the Colorado-based Maxton.
Following the program’s end, the car was given to a viewer in Florida, but after all these years it has ended up back in the hands of a senior producer of the TV series, who has offered it up for auction in Maryland. The last few Rollerskates that have gone to the BaT crowd have hammered just above $20,000, and even by today’s standards they offer quite a lot of performance for the money.
This green meanie is powered by a complete FC-generation Mazda RX-7 drivetrain, which means a 146-horsepower naturally-aspirated 13B rotary engine that revs to 9,000 rpm, a 5-speed manual gearbox, and a 4-link live rear axle. The Rollerskate, like many fiberglass kit cars of the day, featured front suspension built around Ford Mustang II components because they’re equal parts good and cheap.
It’s likely that you’ve never heard of the Maxton Rollerskate, indeed many of my co-workers hadn’t, but I’ve had a real passion for these cars since I first heard about them a decade or so ago. They’re seriously competent autocrossers or track day cars, like an American-built, rotary-powered, closed-fendered Lotus 7.
Unfortunately, because I’m taller than six feet, I’ll never be able to drive the object of my infatuation. You’ll have to bid on this one in my stead. I hope you short people like this car. I guess I’ll just have to stick to driving my Porsches and being able to grab things from the top shelf.
