My sister, Vivian, and Jerry,
they did a lot of illegal things.
♪ (FLASHY MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
-(DOOR SLAMS) -(HANDCUFFS CLICK)
CANDI MICHAEL: My parents were released on bail,
that's what started the run for freedom.
We rarely lived in one place for more than two months.
CHARLES BARRETT: My sister called me
and said, "Jerry's changing."
JERRY: Dear Vivian, I'm not a man anymore.
But I'd walk through fire for you and the kids.
MICHAEL: We were all fine with it
because she was a great mom.
SPEAKER : Liz Carmichael worked at a cutting edge company.
She could sell anything.
MICHAEL: One day she came home
talking about this three-wheeled car,
the answer to America's gas problem.
LIZ CARMICHAEL: General Motors? I'll kick the shit out of them.
(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
G. ELIZABETH CARMICHAEL: Then the next thing I found very impressive
that stuck with me,
and stuck with me to the point that I memorized it at one time,
was the poem "If--" by Kipling.
"If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowances for their doubting too..."
And it goes on and on. There's about 15 stanzas of it,
and every one has beautiful thoughts
and all about self-determinationism.
Uh, I learned when I was just a tiny little girl
that prayers don't get answered.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL: Self-motivation does.
So sometimes when I feel very drained and very low,
I'll go off by myself and I'll look up at the stars
and I'll just kind of withdraw into myself
and draw from my own personal power,
but not from any belief in the Supreme Being.
(INSECTS CHIRPING)
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (EERIE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CANDI MICHAEL: I knew that this was big.
We had stability.
We were staying in one place.
Bills were getting paid on a regular basis.
We lived in a real house.
It was what I thought was normal,
what I thought everybody else thought was normal.
CHARLES RICHARD BARRETT: When the Dale came along,
she quit the little stuff, so to speak.
She really did.
The concept of the Dale car is solid.
She was going to build a car.
-She had a winner. -(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL: (OVER RECORDER)
-(TAPE CLICKS) -LESLIE KENDALL: All through automotive history,
women have played a supporting role
in the automobile development, automobile marketing.
They never really rose to the level of executive
or designer or engineer.
Liz, however, was hoping to change all that.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
One thing that Liz had going for her was her timing.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KENDALL: Not only was the gas crisis in full swing,
but the Space Race had been won by America
a half a decade earlier.
(CROWD CHEERING)
KENDALL: And there were all of these people
who were ready and willing to apply their talents
to something terrestrial like an automobile.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
GERRY MCGUINNESS: My dad, Frank McGuinness,
all of a sudden said,
"I want you to come down and meet Liz Carmichael
and see where I work.
They might need some people to help render some stuff."
And I go, "Really?"
KENDALL: Dale Clifft built a prototype.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
She seized upon that.
But then she thought,
"Well, for the public to really go for this,
it has to have a full body.
It has to have proper wheels too.
Just look more like a car."
MCGUINNESS: And here, I'm a 19-year-old kid,
and I was the assistant to the chief designer.
He would come in, I said,
"Well, what do you want me to do?"
And he goes, "Just start drawing.
Anything you want.
Just be original. Just do it."
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
NEIL ARMSTRONG: That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ ("CHANGE" BY SUNSET LOVE PLAYING) ♪
KENDALL: Having known about cars
and having loved cars and been interested in cars
ever since I knew what they were...
I would have my father take me to the LA Auto Show.
By the early '70s, cars were the longest,
the lowest, the widest they were ever gonna get.
-(ELEPHANT TRUMPETS) -They were also the heaviest,
and they were also the least fuel efficient.
(GUZZLING)
Nobody was really coming up with anything different,
except for one.
-♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪ -(CAMERAS CLICKING)
And here's this three-wheeler that's gonna use less gas,
-which is what America needs. -(MAN 1 LAUGHS)
-MAN 2: Oh! -MAN 3: Whoa, nice!
My God, look how yellow it is, for crying out loud.
ANNOUNCER: And this is the Dale.
It gets 70 miles to the gallon.
It is a three-wheel vehicle and very stable.
KENDALL: This three-wheel configuration
was something that was extremely unusual for an automobile,
and here it is at the LA Auto Show.
I just remember looking at that car and thinking,
"This is really, really something."
It flew in the face of tradition.
CANDI: I couldn't believe that it was real.
At the time, it looked like a spaceship.
The rotunda was encased
and we weren't supposed to be in there,
but we all wanted to get in it
and we were constantly trying to open the doors.
And my sister actually broke a door handle off.
Of course, we rolled it under the car...
(LAUGHS) ...and then got out of the rotunda.
♪ (GUITAR MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CANDI: We stopped calling Vivian "Mother" at that time,
and she was "Aunt Vivian."
And we didn't see much of Liz anymore
because it was always past our bedtime
-when she was getting home. -(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL: I've always worked 16 hours a day
since I was a little girl.
As a result, my family has been forced
to build their life around mine, rather than mine around theirs.
(PHONE BUZZES)
-CARMICHAEL: Yes? -RECEPTIONIST: Young lady named Wendi on the phone.
-CARMICHAEL: Okay. -(TAPE CLICKS)
We called the office, between us,
at least 20 times a day.
Just 'cause we wanted Mommy home.
CARMICHAEL: I get home at one o'clock,
but it's quality time, not just quantity time.
But she still made time for the Sunday picnics.
It was always the same.
She'd start cooking late on a Saturday night.
The potato salad and coleslaw
and bean salad, which was delicious,
devilled eggs, and a homemade bread.
All night long, you'd smell the yeast,
and first thing in the morning, she'd put it in the oven
so it'd be ready to take to the park.
And we'd play our idea of baseball.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -CANDI: Even Vivian played.
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
She'd smack that ball and run.
♪ (ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
My name is John Griffiths,
and, uh, I was hired by Liz
to build the first running prototype
Dale three-wheel automobile.
Because up until that time, they had nothing but show cars.
Show vehicles don't have to operate or do anything.
They get pushed up onto a dais and rotate,
and the salesman just talks up as big as they can
to promote an interest in the vehicle.
She was happy to have me onboard,
and I looked forward to making her dream come true.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
She said, "We're gonna make a prototype,
and we're gonna have it test-driven,
and we're gonna show the world that we're contenders."
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
GREG LEAS: She said, "Build yourself a machine shop.
Money is no object."
You know, it was the Mercedes of everything.
I had worked with four-wheel automobiles,
and this was a three-wheel with a motorcycle engine,
so it was all brand-new.
LEAS: Some of us were doing things
that we'd never done before, but...
we were gonna figure that out.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪
A PR guy who calls me,
he says, "I got-- I got a mother of five who has invented a car."
And I said, "Yeah, well, is she famous?"
"No. But she's going to be."
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
America in the early '70s, it was on a run.
Anybody could be anything they wanted to be.
I was the paparazzi. I was very, very good at my job.
I was fascinated with those people who were making it.
Elizabeth Carmichael was clearly
one of these people who was making it.
♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
COLIN DANGAARD: When I was interviewing her,
I became more and more enthralled
with what she was telling me.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: The two most important things about me
is that I have endless energy
and I am totally, one hundred percent, honest.
I'm smart, I'm clever,
I'm a good businesswoman.
Three years ago, I foresaw the demand
-for low-fuel-consumption cars. -(TAPE CLICKS)
Elizabeth Carmichael was an original thinker.
She was way ahead of her time.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: I'm ready to throw down the gauntlet
against the big three of Detroit.
Detroit failed to respond to the need
for a more efficient, low-cost method of transportation.
Well, I'm going to build the public
exactly what they're looking for.
And I'm going to knock the hell out of Detroit doing it.
I'll run the auto industry like a queen.
My morale, it's like a tent revival.
-The atmosphere here is like a religious fervor. -(TAPE CLICKS)
I can't say "spiritual," but...
there was an energy in that place.
We're almost like a big family.
DANGAARD: They are working,
giving me every ounce of what they have
to make this happen, to make the Dale happen.
And it was hard to doubt that she wasn't going to do it.
She was determined.
♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪
DANGAARD: The story of Elizabeth Carmichael
went out to all my newspapers.
And that was 160 publications, uh, in 30 countries.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: I've got the best PR man
that I think ever set two feet on the ground.
He's one hell of a man,
as evidenced by the fact that we've made the front page
of 60 major metropolitan dailies.
I've been on every TV network.
...what everybody's been looking for,
a small, inexpensive car that gets up to 70 miles a gallon.
...built out of plastic...
REPORTER: ...she says is stronger than steel.
The capability has been there for 15 years, but...
CARMICHAEL: All the efforts of one man.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CANDI: Everything grew so fast.
Next thing you know, they're selling posters of her.
It was just the weirdest thing.
You're selling posters of my mom?
And she's standing there like-- like Superman,
straddling the Los Angeles freeway.
MARK LISCHERON: She's now gotten so much attention
that she has her publicity people
contact The Price is Right.
BOB BARKER: I need a bid, Johnny. Have you got it?
-I'll bid 10,500 dollars. -BARKER: Ten thousand...
Nobody, none of the three contestants,
even got close to the actual price, which was...
-(BUZZER RINGS) -(AUDIENCE GROANS)
LISCHERON: ...2,000 dollars.
MCGUINNESS: We were convinced that this thing was gonna take off.
We're in the beginning of Microsoft, you know,
we're at the bottom floor.
This thing is gonna go.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: We'll build 88,000 cars the first year,
open the second facility in mid-1976,
and then the third facility in '77 on the east coast.
My full intention and expectation
is to become the biggest automobile manufacturer in the world
in five years.
And it won't stop with automobiles.
Henry Ford said,
"You catch things on the rising tide,
-you're doomed to success." -(TAPE CLICKS)
She was just brilliant.
I mean, the way she came across
and the way she can convince you of stuff
that, you know, were not verified about that car.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
The formula's secret.
The body was made from a material
developed to protect the nose cones
on American space vehicles during reentry.
It's nine times stronger than steel, ounce for ounce.
(METAL CLANKING)
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL: We've already done the preliminary testing on this.
(TAPE CLICKS)
One day, she came home telling us about this scientist
who made this unbreakable plastic.
And she brought home this tumbler, a glass...
that wasn't glass.
The next day, she goes to the hardware store
and buys this sledgehammer,
and she said, "Go ahead, break it."
Before you know it,
this is a whole neighborhood thing.
(INDISTINCT CHEERING)
CANDI: Kids from the surrounding houses were all over.
And everybody is taking their turns
with the sledgehammer, trying to break this glass.
She was really excited about this special kind of plastic.
She was making claims that the plastic
was strong enough to take a bullet.
So, uh, one of the guys, he goes and gets, um...
I think a .357 Magnum,
and we went down to the very bottom
of the Wells Fargo,
and he brought that plastic cup and put it in the corner,
and with Liz, aimed at it, maybe 20 yards away. Boom.
(GUNSHOT)
(SHATTERS)
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
She acted like she was convinced
that that bullet would bounce off that plastic.
She had probably said it so many times,
she actually believed it.
And when you spoke with her,
she was very, very, very convincing.
CARMICHAEL: My automobile will be the safest in the world.
I've driven one of the prototypes
into a solid concrete wall
at 30, 40, and 50 miles an hour,
and there was only superficial damage to the front.
All that happened to me
was that my face got scratched a little
and I got a little bloody nose.
Liz would just say anything at any given time,
and then worry about backing it up later.
CARMICHAEL: I drove into the ocean.
I got caught up in testing
and ran the son of a bitch into the ocean.
KENDALL: What Liz didn't realize she was doing
was risking the reputation
of everybody that was working for her.
All these people were in her corner
really pulling for this thing,
believing in it as much as she said she did.
MCGUINNESS: You're promoting something
that should've been built first to the T,
so you could actually go up and say, "This is it."
♪ (MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY) ♪
JOHN GRIFFITHS: The sales and the promotion
and the making of money in the main office
is totally separate from anything going on in that shop.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
GRIFFITHS: As the weeks went on, I realized that we didn't have
the right equipment or anything to make a car.
There was no master plan.
There was no schedule to complete anything.
That's what encouraged me to make my proposal.
I wanna become Prototype Project Director.
So I wrote a formal letter
and told her specifically what I wanted to do,
what I saw needed to be done.
And she said to me,
"We've already got a manager in the shop.
-It's Frank McGuiness." -(TELEPHONE RINGING)
We were those dirty little buggers
that were building this thing in the back room
while she was making the big money
on a dream.
ANCHOR: Meanwhile, mechanics continue to work
on the miracle machine,
correcting what they call "minor bugs."
The miracle is in the mileage,
a promise of 70 per precious gallon.
But if you think the manufacturers
designed this car to meet the energy crisis,
think again.
(CHUCKLES) If in the process I save the world, that's okay,
but my main concern is for myself.
-REPORTER: And you wanna be a billionaire? -CARMICHAEL: That's right.
I know how to build a car. I know how to build a company.
I know how to put together the financial empire.
But the one thing that might stop me is the government.
They've got it rigged so that if you don't already have millions,
you may as well forget it
on attempting to compete with millionaires,
unless you're willing to do it illegally.
Liz said to me, "You know, I wanna make a lot of money.
I'll be legal, but just."
Well, what does that mean?
She would take money from anybody
if they bought into her dream.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: I get letters from people who say,
"I'll come and work for you and do anything you want
because I think you're our last hope."
They're walking in off the street.
Heard about the Dale, came out here,
and they wanna see this thing happen.
What do you do?
It was really, really hard for her to say no
to people like that,
people that believed in her.
Just giving her the power and the feeling she wanted,
she couldn't turn them down.
Send them out to the shop.
You only need three or four or five people
to build a car.
You don't need a shop filled with people walking around,
having no direction,
not being told what to do.
It's embarrassing, actually.
"Why are you here?"
They're there because they've invested their life savings.
She told me she brought in around 30 grand a day.
So just a ton of money coming in.
CARMICHAEL: I don't give one hoot in hell about ecology
or the public welfare or the public good.
I'm in business for only one reason,
to make Liz Carmichael the most important person
in the automotive industry.
And there are thousands of people
riding to cheer me on, and they're not wealthy people,
they're poor people who see in me the embodiment
of the very thing that they went to school 20 years ago
or 30 years ago or 50 years ago,
and learned that that's what America's all about,
-free enterprise. -(TAPE CLICKS)
For Liz...
entrepreneurship isn't just a fresh start.
♪ (HOUSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
It is the only way forward.
Imagine what it would be like
if there was no other avenue to success.
Being a woman attempting to revolutionize,
uh, a business industry in the '70s,
that at that time,
if you didn't take that strong position,
no one was gonna give you credit.
"You don't think I'm qualified? Well, you're wrong.
Turns out, I'm the only person
in the entire world that's qualified."
It's ridiculous. It's over-the-top.
But is there really any other way
that a woman at the time could have been successful?
It is her one chance
to set all the past aside
and do something truly meaningful.
And no one, no one else in the world,
is gonna give her this chance.
She just has to create it for herself.
-♪ (NEWS THEME PLAYING) ♪ -ANCHOR: And more violence among striking teamsters
in Northern California...
ROGER SCOTT: KABC was pretty normal.
I mean, "normal," it's not like the Bank of America.
It's a newsroom.
There's a lot of tension, there's a lot of deadlines,
people raising their voices at each other.
But that's just the way newsrooms are.
DENNIS SMITH: It was a very exciting time
to be a news documentary cameraman
in the '70s in Los Angeles.
REPORTER: There's a waterline mark over there...
SMITH: Fires, floods, riots...
we did everything that you can imagine.
SCOTT: Dick Carlson was just a regular field reporter.
He delivered stories.
I've worked with him at KGO in San Francisco,
where he was working as the overnight reporter.
And they'd run around shooting police busts,
and they'd come in at six in the morning with film.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
You'd set up the camera,
put the person to be interviewed
four or five feet in front of the camera,
and then run around with the microphone
and do an interview in less than three minutes
because the film was gonna run out.
What charge is being placed upon--
They're, uh, being, uh, arrested for 370 of the Penal Code.
-Is that public nuisance? -That is a public nuisance.
-Are you a pimp? -I am no pimp.
I'm a rock-and-roll-style guitar player.
I'm not here to criticize who is right or who is wrong
in calling names, beating people over the head,
or any other reason of harassment.
Have you ever thought it seems sort of ludicrous
to give all the money you make,
work 50, 60 hours a week, to turn it over to a man?
PROSTITUTE 1: No.
PROSTITUTE 2: But when I get starving for two and three days,
and somebody comes along,
I'm gonna take a meal off him
if it's the only means available.
(INDISTINCT CLAMOR)
SCOTT: And about the same time that I came to KABC,
Dick Carlson also came to KABC.
The news director put him together with Pete Noyes
to do investigative work.
Some people at ABC were skeptical about Carlson,
and they said, "Keep an eye on him.
Don't let him go overboard."
♪ (MUSIC STOPS ABRUPTLY) ♪
♪ (QUIET MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
DICK CARLSON: Pete and I were sitting in the house trailer
next to the newsroom building.
The television was on,
and a reporter who worked for us was talking about a new vehicle
called the Dale car.
They were touting this car and Mrs. Carmichael.
This is in the beginning of interest in the media in feminism
with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan
and the whole sisterhood at work.
Well, the media loved all that.
They put her on the front of magazines
and got her television coverage.
So Noyes and I looked at it and said...
(CHUCKLING) "That's, uh-- That sounds like BS to me."
And it did. It was too perfect. It was a media hype.
So we thought,
"Well, let's take a look at this more seriously."
PETE NOYES: I called up the Dale headquarters.
"We'd like to do a story about the Dale car,
and we'd like to interview G. Elizabeth Carmichael
about her life and times."
So we went over there
and we were waiting for the interview,
and I noticed an intelligence officer
from the DA's office sitting in the room.
His name was Frank Ronick.
So I said, "What the hell are you doing here, Frank?"
And he said, "Well, there's some people working here
that may be able to give me some information
if I squeeze them a little bit, you know?"
I said, "Oh, yeah, well, you wanna tell me more?"
He says, "No, I can't tell you any more about it,
but you gotta keep your eye on this place."
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
She's got some strange people there
working in the company.
Normally, if there was an engineering department,
it'd be just engineers.
Well, some guy in a suit appears one day.
LEAS: Johnny Flack is a good example.
He was dressed to the nines all the time.
Looked like a hit man.
You know, he looked like somebody who could do that,
or maybe had done it.
MCGUINNESS: I remember when I was in my office.
All of a sudden, these three guys walk in
in these three-piece suits.
And there's no way in the world...
You're not telling me this wasn't the Mafia.
These were shady-looking dudes.
They were always sizing people up.
They didn't scare me, but...
they would intimidate me a little bit.
At Twentieth Century, it was like, "Don't say nothing.
What we do here, we leave here."
And it was always emphasized that security is huge.
Every once in a while, you'd see a car going by real slow,
and then they'd shut the bay door
because they were afraid of spies from the big three.
CANDI: I do know she was getting nervous
and there was a bunch of money involved,
and that's why she hired bodyguards.
Bill Miller and Jack Oliver.
To everyone else not involved in the car company,
it was thought that they were her drivers,
but to us, she always called them her bodyguards.
Even though it was dangerous, it was very exciting.
Plus, it was a lot of money.
You know, it wasn't just your regular wages.
It was, like, double.
GRIFFITHS: Every Friday,
everyone would drive over to the headquarters in Encino.
LEAS: Liz would set up a table,
and she had stacks of cash lined up,
and they were all pre-counted.
They go, "Greg," and then come up there
and they'd hand you the stack of cash.
(CHUCKLING) It was just crazy.
Usually, you get a check
and you go to your own bank and do whatever.
In this instance, on Friday,
I looked down, and there was a briefcase full of cash
and next to it, a .357 Magnum Revolver.
It would be like going to a bank
and the teller's got a machine gun or something
sitting right there. (LAUGHS)
It just makes you think about things.
"What's going on here? What could go on here?"
♪ (PLAYFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
So, it was a big showroom.
Here was the Dale car.
Very attractive-looking, yellow, shiny vehicle.
So we asked Mrs. Carmichael
if they could remove the glass dome
so we could take a look at the car.
"Oh," she said, "Absolutely not, not possible."
The receptionist's name was Vivian,
and Vivian told us
that she was Mrs. Carmichael's sister-in-law.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: My dearest friend laying over there on the couch,
who's also my private secretary and my sister-in-law,
is a Pisces, and she perfectly embodies
-what a Pisces is supposed to be. -(TAPE CLICKS)
CARLSON: So she ushered us in,
and Mrs. Carmichael was behind the desk.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I did a preliminary interview, talked about her past.
(TAPE CLICKS)
CARMICHAEL:
(TAPE CLICKS)
CARLSON: We did the interview. It was very impressive.
She's a widow, she's a graduate automotive engineer,
she lives with her five children and her sister-in-law,
and the first cars are gonna roll off the assembly line
sometime soon.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARLSON: Mrs. Carmichael then arranged for us
to go out to the research, uh, facility,
the "R&D laboratory," she called it.
So, Noyes and I felt
that we were not really equipped in any technical way
to judge the development of an automobile.
We hired a guy for a hundred dollars
who was a retired automotive engineer,
and he joined us
as a sort of shadow member of the crew.
We pulled him off as a lighting man, ultimately.
Mrs. Carmichael took us through
along with the PR guy, Sam Schlisman.
Mrs. Carmichael gave her normal lucid and colorful explanation
of the things that they were doing.
And then we went to another parking lot of a supermarket
to talk to the automotive engineer.
The people who are manufacturing the car
told us that they're making all the parts for that automobile,
the engine and so forth,
right there in that research and development building.
How do you feel about that? You took a look at it.
It would appear that, um, the components we saw there,
uh, might not have been made in that particular building.
CARLSON: A source close to the company
said the engine was, in fact, made by FMC
and the transmission was from a Toyota,
both of which charges were denied by Mrs. Carmichael,
who did refuse to say who'd made them
on the grounds that the secret might be stolen
by Detroit automobile manufacturers.
Salesmen like Jay Garner
have been selling options on the car.
That is, you put money down, up to 1900 dollars,
and you'll get one of the first ones off the assembly line
if and when it's built.
Do you get a lot of people who are willing to write out a check
for 1900, 1500, 1000, whatever it is?
Yes.
They're very enthused about the automobile.
They wanna put money down to be sure to have an automobile
uh, when they come out
because we're limited to the number of automobiles
we're gonna be in production with.
CARLSON: Now, these people, the money is refundable on demand
-at any time, is that correct? -JAY GARNER: That is correct.
CARLSON: Is that written into the contract or something?
Yes. We will put it in there.
-CARLSON: Is it standardly in there? -No.
-CARLSON: Oh, it's not in the contract? -No.
♪ (JAUNTY MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
NARRATOR: Securities law.
MARK MACCARLEY: People are flocking to the Twentieth Century Motor Car Company
to make deposits.
If you decide you wanna buy a brand-new car
and it's still a concept car,
the manufacturer is required
to put that money away in a safe account.
These deposits were not put in any sort of escrow account,
held until the vehicles were actually produced.
What happened was
the deposits were used to finance
the activities of the business...
salaries and distributions.
That runs immediately afoul of our securities laws,
both federal and state.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL:
-♪ (MUSIC STOPS) ♪ -(TAPE CLICKS)
CARLSON: What guarantee is there to him
that he's either gonna get the car
or get his money back if he does not get the car?
Well, there's no guarantee, any more than there's a guarantee
that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.
As I've said before, caveat emptor.
Let the buyer beware. Chuck.
SMITH: The fact that we were doing this story
helped their sales.
In fact, I think their sales went up 200 percent
immediately after the news coverage we did.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
SMITH: There were more people down there
buying options on those cars, and she was making money.
We went over and we talked to the people
at the State Corporations Commission.
But they didn't do anything to enforce it.
If I wanted to commit a fraud,
I certainly would want their help,
because they don't know how to investigate anything.
The evidence was clearly there before them,
and they ignored it.
-(SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY) -SMITH: I think the best service we did as a news team
was we brought it to the attention of the public,
so the government had to do something
'cause we were shoving it right in their faces.
On Monday, the state of California issued an order
demanding that the company stop selling options
on the automobile.
They said it was in violation of state securities law.
-(TAPE CLICKS) -CARMICHAEL: Try anything new, try something different,
try to challenge the leaders,
and hey, you gotta be swatted like a fly.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL: Acid in the plastic vats, plans stolen,
locks busted, fires started,
false reports turned in to various regulatory bodies.
Never a day goes by where we aren't harassed by somebody.
-Been going on for months. -(TAPE CLICKS)
CARLSON: And Liz Carmichael says she is convinced
the state has been harassing the company.
I don't really know in what fashion
she has indicated harassment.
I, um, I do know that we have issued subpoenas.
We have issued, uh, orders, desist and refrain orders,
and if she has considered these to be the form of harassment,
then I guess that would be true.
SMITH: After the Department of Corporations
had ordered Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation
to cease and desist selling options on the car,
I was assigned with Dick to go over to their offices
and see what was going on.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
SMITH: Now, Dick was obviously
really well known in the offices,
and he couldn't walk in.
Dick asked me if I'd go poke my nose inside.
So I walked in and just acted like I was interested.
I looked over,
and there was somebody filling out paperwork at a desk
and writing out a check.
And realized that he was buying an option on the car.
I went back out to the car, jumped in,
and told Dick that they're still selling cars.
And he looked at me and thought for a second,
and he said, "Do you have your checkbook with you?"
I said, "Well, I'm not sure there's that much money in the account."
And he goes, "Don't worry.
The check will never leave this building."
So I walked in, walked around the car again,
looked interested. Somebody came over to me.
I told them I wanted to buy an option,
and they said, "Absolutely."
I fill out the paperwork, I wrote them a check,
walked back out to the car, and held up my option to Dick,
and he goes, "Grab your camera."
-Get outta here. -What I wanna ask you is, uh,
you sold an option to my cameraman here.
I understand there's a state cease and desist order
telling you you can't do that.
Hey, Jay, come on down.
Having trouble finding somebody to talk to.
No sé nada.
-CARLSON: Pardon? -No sé nada.
-CARLSON: No sé nada? -No, no comprendo.
Españoles?
-CARLSON: You're fibbing to me. -Españoles?
CARLSON: No, I don't, and I don't think you speak it very well either.
-Can you tell me who's in charge? -I have-- I have nothing to say.
Well, what I'd like to find out is my-- my cameraman just bought a Dale option for 500 dollars.
LEAS: You'd come home at night after working,
and you see this stuff on the Dale on the news.
CARLSON: Hey, Jay, come on out. We'd like to talk to you.
My cameraman wants a refund.
LEAS: Why are you doing this?
Why are you destroying something
that could actually help this country?
There was nothing, in our minds, more important and more exciting
and more needed by the country at that time.
There was an energy crisis.
CARLSON: Well, finally, after about 20 minutes, a salesman did come out.
Since our interview last time, how are you?
-I'm okay. -CARLSON: Can you explain to me
why you're selling options on the Dale?
What do you mean, "selling options"?
We are. We're taking deposits on cars.
CARLSON: Ah, so you didn't-- you don't know anything about
a, uh, an order from the state of California
-forbidding you to do that? -No, I do not.
CARLSON: You don't? They never said anything to you about it?
-No, they have not. -CARLSON: Have you continued to take,
uh, orders on the car and sell options
-since the last time I talked to you? -Most-- Yes, I do.
CARLSON: I see. You don't think you're breaking the law?
-No, or I wouldn't be doing it. -CARLSON: Would you be surprised if I told you
that there's an order saying that this Twentieth Century Motor Car Company
cannot sell options on Dales?
There's a lot of things you could tell me,
but I don't believe anything that you say.
CARLSON: Well, after a short discussion in that vein,
Jay handed back Smith's check for 500 dollars.
I left, and I was locked outside.
"We're closing for the day," they said.
Somebody called the police, who were first asked to arrest us
and then to confiscate the film that we'd shot this afternoon.
They declined, fortunately for us, to do either one,
and, uh, that all took place about two hours ago.
I just couldn't get over that. I just--
It was beyond me,
in the name of journalism or anything else,
why anybody would do that.
To set out to deliberately destroy
something that noble.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
SMITH: We were out to get to the truth
so the people who were investing a couple thousand dollars
to put deposits down on these cars
wouldn't be taken advantage of.
CARLSON: The Twentieth Century Motor Car Company
really got to dislike me.
One day, I was on the set at ABC
and a grip, whom I knew, came up to me
and asked me to-- if he could talk to me alone.
"Sure." So I went behind some curtains with him,
and he basically offered me a bribe
that came through Mrs. Carmichael.
He didn't say it came through Mrs. Carmichael, but it did.
Uh, he said he knew some people who knew some people. (LAUGHS)
And if I would take, I've forgotten, 2,000 dollars
and stop doing this, that would be the end of that.
And he was offering the money. Somebody had gotten to him.
Mrs. Elizabeth Carmichael is the prime mover
behind the automobile.
She says that she is a mechanical engineer.
She says she has a master's degree in business as well.
I called the university that she said she attended,
and I checked to see if there were any graduates
with her name from the engineering school,
and they had never heard of anybody
named Elizabeth Carmichael.
And I called her, and I asked her on the telephone,
"What was the year you graduated?"
She said, "Well, women don't tell our ages."
"Look, I just checked with the university.
They say they have no record of you attending."
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARLSON: "Why am I answering all these questions? I--
I'm telling you who I am,
and it's clear that I'm telling the truth,
and I know a lot about engineering,
-and so stop bugging me." -(PHONE SLAMS)
CARLSON: Now, a woman heading an automobile-making company is news,
and by her account,
Carmichael is a graduate in mechanical engineering from Ohio State
and has a master's in business from the University of Miami,
yet neither school has a record of those degrees,
and when I asked Carmichael for details about that,
she refused to discuss it any further.
Let the stations, the owners, the oil companies
choke on their gas.
-(CAR HORN HONKS) -I'm worried.
It's not a happy situation, to say the least.
-I'm tired. -My tank is, uh, almost empty.
So they waited three hours, and there was no gas.
I can't take it anymore.
(BANGING ECHOES)
REPORTER: How much have you got left in there?
None. It's empty.
I just couldn't imagine
something like this would happen in America.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CARMICHAEL: People have begun to believe
that the land of opportunity does not really exist.
And when they see somebody like me,
who spouts off that I am a nobody who's going to become--
become the biggest in the world by my own effort,
they clamor to me
because I am the one thing that's lacking in this country today,
and that's a hero. People need a hero.
And we haven't had a hero since Teddy Roosevelt.
(TAPE RECORDER CLICKS)
BARRETT: She called me and...
said, "Now, I've got a deal going out here."
She said, "I really need your help.
We're gonna produce this car.
Trust me, you are going to make some money
and everybody's gonna get rich.
We just need a break to get it going,
and once we're up and running, it's gonna be a hit."
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
But she needed help. She needed support from family,
some people that she could trust,
because when you're in a pool of sharks,
you're gonna get bit.
She said, "Every time I turn around,
they're coming through the door with another complaint.
We gotta cut some corners
because we gotta get the money coming in.
If you don't have the money, the car is gone."
She kept stressing how they had to get it in production
before the government shut them down.
She kept saying that.
She said, "Once you're in production
and the car is out there, they can't stop you."
I said, um...
"Man, I'll tell you what, I normally--
I would do anything you want me."
But I said, "I've got a really good job here."
I said, "I've-- I'm respected." (CHUCKLES)
"I've got three children to feed now."
I said, "I'm sorry...
I can't. I can't."
♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC FADES) ♪
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MCGUINNESS: I remember the first time I'm saying,
"Something is wrong."
People weren't getting their damn paychecks,
and I was, like, shocked.
There was some kind of money issues going on,
and without money, you're a done deal.
You cut off the blood,
that animal dies.
And I remember my dad said,
"No one works without getting paid.
That's all there is to it."
Even though they believed in that car,
you still need money to pay your bills.
We all went down to Liz's office.
-Everyone shows up. -(INDISTINCT CLAMORING)
And some of them were angry, you know, shouting at Liz.
I mean, it was like a mob ready to blow up on her.
(INDISTINCT CLAMORING)
MCGUINNESS: What do you do?
Probably took her by surprise.
All of a sudden, you have 30, 40 people in your office
kind of screaming at you and waving checks that are no good.
(CLAMORING)
MCGUINNESS: She looked very, like, "What am I gonna do?
I can't let this fall apart right now."
I actually felt a little bit sad
'cause we still felt so much involvement in the company,
and I actually, out of all the people there, I just said,
"Well, I feel if we could get over this hump,
we'd be okay.
I know businesses go through things like that,
but we've gotta get the investments."
You know, I'm a kid saying all of this,
and everyone's shutting up.
And she looked back and she goes,
"Well, that's what I just wanted to tell you all,
that I just got the phone call.
The investors are coming in from Japan.
We're getting the money we need. Everything will be fine.
I need you all to go back to work.
You'll get your back pay. We're all gonna make it.
We're all in this team together. We're family.
Don't let me down when I need you.
This is not the time to leave me."
♪ (INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MCGUINNESS: And there were people in there that were like,
"Don't worry, Liz, we're there for you."
She could bring that emotion up faster than you could imagine.
GRIFFITHS: Enter the Japanese investor,
which was going to give Liz credibility
about the Dale project.
So Liz said, "It's gonna maybe give us a lot of money.
We're gonna have to put on a test drive."
December 31.
We knew we had a big old fish on the hook.
They were gonna invest 30 million dollars,
so if that test drive is successful,
that's the beginning of the major competition
for the big three.
MCGUINNESS: So it was like, "Throw it together!
Get the engine going! Put the parts together!
We need it now."
GRIFFITHS: Orders came from headquarters.
"Get that car running.
I don't care if it's unfinished."
Just had to put two seats in it one way or another
that would, quote, "start, physically start and run."
Eyewitness News wanted to know
just what those men who actually worked on the idea,
the design, the mechanics of the Dale
really thought about it.
Late last week, I located a high-level technician.
He asked only that he not be identified,
hence the shadows on the sidewalk.
TECHNICIAN: I feel the car's got a lot of potential,
and with proper management, I think we can really produce
a good, sensible, economical automobile.
CARLSON: Mrs. Carmichael said she expects this car
to be in mass production by June.
Do you think that's realistic?
TECHNICIAN: I don't feel it's realistic. No.
They've generated a momentum, and they--
they don't know how to control it now.
I'd say the lunchtime talk was,
"Well, yeah, she's probably gonna--
she's probably gonna hit the hills
when the money comes in.
That sounds like what she's waiting for,
it's the Japanese investment.
Once she gets a few million, she's gonna disappear."
And then, at the same time, you're thinking,
"No, we have to move forward on this.
I don't know if it's real or not,
but we have to move forward."
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
GRIFFITHS: Everything culminated with that one test drive.
It took place very near the facility.
I mean, I-- I did seize the moment
because people are, "Well, who's gonna drive it? Who's gonna..."
"Well, I'm gonna drive the car."
The excitement was getting into the car
before anyone else got into it.
And I grabbed Hans specifically for the test purposes,
and we talked briefly, and I said, "You know...
you know why I want you to help me here,
because we're gonna--
we're gonna see whether this thing is even roadworthy
in any way or form."
Liz followed fairly closely behind us.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MCGUINNESS: We got there, and all of a sudden,
these Bentleys, big black limo kind of cars
all one after another,
I mean, it must've been a half a dozen or more,
all pulling up.
It was like, "Oh, my God,
big money just is rolling up here
to see this thing."
Well, I'm thinking it's gonna be perfect.
And I mean, you go straight, you have no problem.
(ENGINE STARTS)
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪
LEAS: I was amazed that we had that doggone thing operational.
And it reached 45, 50 miles an hour, you know.
That's cool.
And it sounded good, sounded like a BMW.
And it looked good. It was a three-wheeled car.
How many times do you see one of those
going 40 miles an hour?
I loved it.
(ENGINE REVS)
GRIFFITHS: The whole idea of getting someone who's heavy,
I'm gonna be able to test the turn,
whether I go right or left,
that the turnover aspect of a three-wheeler
comes into play.
And if the weight is on one side,
then you're gonna have an issue
if you wanna turn in the opposite direction.
The car will wanna roll.
I told him what I was gonna do.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
GRIFFITHS: So he's grabbing onto the roof,
and I said, "Be ready here, I'm gonna do it right now."
MCGUINNESS: And he's driving around fine,
and then he hits the brake and turns the wheel.
(TIRES SCREECHING)
(METAL SCRAPING)
And I almost went out the door, if I remember correctly,
hanging onto the steering wheel.
Hans had his shoulder
scraping along the side there.
Came back down, boom, boom, boom.
(CLANKING)
GRIFFITHS: We both laughed pretty hard
out of the nervousness of this experience.
So it made the car look very dangerous, you know.
And, of course, this was quite disturbing to Liz
'cause she was counting on this
as the clincher to get some money,
give a reality to the whole project.
I thought the test driver was there to disprove it.
In the shop, they blamed me for sabotaging the company,
usual stuff.
MCGUINNESS: The guy that drove that car,
he tried purposely to try and flip it.
This is just a prototype, you know?
Should've just let it run around like a normal car
instead of going as fast as you could,
hitting the brake and turning the wheels.
He said something along the lines...
(SIGHS)
"I had to do that to prove what kind of car this really was,"
and I was like, "You just shot us all in the heart, you know that."
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
PRODUCER:
No, I vin-- I vindicated the poor design.
Liz Carmichael focused on the excitement
of making a lot of money and raising money
and hoop-dee-doing about technology
and getting people, you know,
"Oh, who is this person? What is this?
Oh, it's three wheels and not four? Oh, wow.
Made in such and such a fashion."
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna put GM out of business."
Blah, blah, blah, you know?
(IMITATES GUN FIRING)
That was-- that was the style.
See, it's just ridiculous.
I wanted this thing to be road tested
and be engineered and everything,
and it never was.
We are so used to just being
a dog in the chain of events, you know.
(TIRES SCREECHING)
LEAS: It wasn't that hard to get it up on two wheels,
because of our rear suspension.
There's two in the front, one in the back,
and it's on a right-angle drive train,
there's a wheel and an axle.
And that's suspended this way, on a lever, so to speak.
Well, that lever has side play,
so that when you turn the car right,
that-- that whole thing kind of tilts.
So one of the wheels is trying to turn the car over.
We're going, "Oh, there you go."
All we needed to do was tighten that up.
But we didn't think of it.
Took a while to get over that.
MCGUINNESS: That was it. That was it. That was it.
There's no way in the world that these guys--
They saw that, and they were not about to invest.
(ENGINE STARTING)
CARLSON: I put a surveillance on the R&D lab.
They had a bunch of Japanese investors out there,
as I remember.
(ENGINES RUMBLING)
CARLSON: I watched this white-coated lab tech leave,
get in the car, and he drove to some other spot
in the San Fernando Valley.
-He went into a bar. -(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
So I followed him into the bar and I sat down next to him,
and I attempted to turn him into an informant for us,
and actually with some success, I have to say.
Introduced myself. I said, "Can you tell me
exactly what it is you're hired to do?"
He said, "Yes, we're all hired on a-- on a daily basis
to wear these lab coats and talk automotive language
and sound like we know what we're talking about.
But they do it-- They did it for your benefit,
they did it for some other TV people's benefit."
He told me all that.
So ultimately, he was good enough
to grab an item that Mrs. Carmichael had used.
It was a glass, actually. And he gave it to me,
and I gave it to a sergeant at the LAPD.
He had the prints taken off it.
NOYES: (ECHOING) Who the hell was she?
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
MCGUINNESS: After the test drive,
Liz was irate.
She said, "I just witnessed an abortion on three wheels."
But she acted like new investors were coming on,
or something else, which, you know...
she knew nobody was coming in with money.
She had to say something, you know, make up something
to keep the waters clean and level,
or else bad things were gonna happen.
And, uh... pretty soon, bad things did happen.
She had to, uh, you know, run for the hills.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CANDI: We were in the car driving from Los Angeles to Dallas
because the headquarters was being moved to Dallas
by invitation of the governor of Texas.
California was coming up
with all these new regulations and stuff,
so Texas said, "Hey, come build it here.
We'll waive these regulations, and, you know,
do your car company here."
The only stumbling blocks that would prevent us
from manufacturing, uh,
short of, uh, let's say, a ship being sunk at sea
that had some of our components on it,
might delay us a few weeks,
or the possibility in California
that we might not be licensed to manufacture an automobile.
In the event that that should happen,
we'll simply manufacture it someplace else.
We're prepared to go anyplace,
but we are going to build the car,
and we're gonna build it in '75.
CANDI: This was the time for the big move.
We were taking two cars.
Vivian and I and Michael were in one car.
Aunt Patti and the other kids were in the other car.
Liz was still at the headquarters office
in Los Angeles.
And we were driving down the Pearblossom Highway
when it came on the radio.
(RADIO STATIC)
ANCHOR: Late this afternoon...
-(STATIC) -...was shot to death
in the showroom of the Twentieth Century Motor Car Company.
They were shot on the showroom floor...
(TIRES SCREECHING)
CANDI: There had been a murder at the Twentieth Century office.
♪ (SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I remember pulling over
and her and Patti frantically talking.
Vivian was scared to death.
Vivian thought that Liz had been killed.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ (FUNKY MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
-REPORTER: Where's the money? -What money?
MAN: We asked them to run the name Jerry Dean Michael.
It was a house of cards.
MAN 2: Liz being transgender was the single most motivating issue
in why they went after her.
How do you combat the media's narrative
that you are not a woman?
♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪