A friend of mine wrote me this morning, commenting, “you are one of those rare individuals that who can see something good in just about anything as evident by your apparent love of the Invader.”

Hahaha.

He attached some pictures to help out with the flood of Invader content I’ve had lately, the first being a photo of his first kit car way back in 1981 — “the cars were skinnier back then and so was I… I wish I had half that much hair today.”

He bought the car from a guy in Sacramento who was advertising it as a Sterling for $1,000 — which of course it wasn’t. But he wanted the car anyway, and managed to talk him down to $700, not too bad a price since the body was in perfect condition. As you can see it was the particularly sleek model with the raked back windshield and the half-doors. Looks like a missile up on that trailer.

When the car was later sold, it was bought by someone who said they’d been involved in the Invader project from the start, and were planning on modifying this one and taking molds off it to create a new version. The second picture below is a card from his business that shows the concept car he was planning on selling it. I don’t know if it ever got past prototype, but I absolutely love the fastback design — I think it’s my favorite Invader GT variant of all. It retains the spirit and look of the Invader, while correcting its awkwardness and giving it a much faster appearance.