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Jan 20, 2024

The Handbuilt CNG

This is the “Magnolia Special” Roadster, it was built by well-known motorcycle

This is the "Magnolia Special" Roadster, it was built by well-known motorcycle designer J.T. Nesbitt of Curtiss Motorcycles based out of Birmingham, Alabama. Unusually, this car is powered not by gasoline, diesel, or electricity, but by compressed natural gas (CNG).

Nesbitt built the car between 2009 – 2011, once it was completed he drove it from New York to Los Angeles over a span of 89 hours in October of 2011. The car didn't skip a beat. It was featured on Jay Leno's Garage in 2012 after arriving in LA, and Jay was clearly impressed with it.

The spark of an idea that led to the development and construction of the Magnolia Special was a comment made during an episode of Jay Leno's Garage. Jay had commented that he didn't understand why compressed natural gas, or CNG, wasn't a more popular fuel source for vehicles.

This is the Magnolia Special, a car that was built a little over 10 years ago from scratch in New Orleans by J.T. Nesbitt. It has a completely bespoke body, a 4.2 liter Jaguar XK inline-six, a Tremec T5 five-speed manual transmission, and it uses compressed natural gas as its fuel source.

Motorcycle designer J.T. Nesbitt was watching from home in New Orleans and he thought the idea was fascinating.

He began researching the fuel and its potential uses, and before he knew it he was designing a car powered by CNG to take him on a remarkable cross-continental adventure to meet Jay Leno in person and appear on the show (you can see the episode in full below).

The design began with a 1928 Ford roadster frame with TIG-welded boxed-steel rails which incorporated two CNG tanks underneath in the center that both held the fuel and acted as stressed chassis members to increase rigidity.

Onto this chassis a Superleggera-style frame was constructed, a series of small steel tubes that act as a structure for the lightweight alloy body work that was all painstakingly formed by hand. Under the body the car has a steel bulkhead, a steel stringer nose framework, and tubular steel cabin reinforcement around the two occupants.

Above Video: This is the episode of Jay Leno's Garage dedicated to the Magnolia Special, in it designer J.T. Nesbitt goes into detail telling the story of the unusual car's inspiration, design, and construction.

Suspension consists of double A-arms and pushrod-operated inboard coilover shock absorbers up front and a live axle in the rear with a four-link arrangement including a Panhard rod, and adjustable coilovers to match the front end.

The car has modern Wilwood disc brakes with aluminum calipers and ventilated rotors front and back, with twin master cylinders. The car rides on Custom Dayton 72 spoke wheels with black rims and polished spokes shod with 6.00/6.50-20 Excelsior Competition tires.

Under the hood you’ll find a 4.2 liter Jaguar XK inline-six that was rebuilt before it was installed. During the rebuild the engine was given a refurbished by Simplex Automotive Machine in New Orleans. A set of 12.5:1 compression ratio forged pistons were fitted as well as stainless-steel valves, ARP fasteners, and high-lift, short-duration camshafts.

A custom six-into-one exhaust header was fabricated and wrapped to keep engine bay temperatures down, and on the other side of the engine an intake plenum was made with a cast badge bearing original Louisiana State motto "Non sibi, sed suis," Not for one's self but for one's own in English.

The Magnolia Special has seating for two and some trunk space in the rear. The car is completely road legal and it attracts crowds wherever it stops.

Power is sent back through a Tremec T5 five-speed manual transmission and from there back to the live axle and its 3.50:1 limited-slip differential to the rear wheels. Steering is rack and pinion, and it has an unusual tubular-rimmed metal steering wheel with cast adornments on its spokes.

The fine detailing over the entire car is impressive, everywhere you look you notice new elements and small touches. The styling of the car has a distinctly pre-WWII feel to it, helped along by the exposed alloy cycle fenders front and rear, and that raked V-shaped windshield.

The end result is a car that's both beautiful, completely functional, and road legal. As noted above Nesbitt drove it from New York to Los Angeles in late 2011, it took him 89 hours and he was able to stop and refuel the vehicle along the way at standard CNG filling stations, often attracting plenty of curious onlookers in the process.

Their car is now being offered for sale on Bring a Trailer by J.T. Nesbitt himself out of New Orleans, Louisiana. It's showing just 6,700 miles on the odometer and it comes with a clean Louisiana title in his name describing the car as a 1928 Ford Roadster – you can visit the listing here.

If you’re interested in seeing some of Nesbitt's more recent work you can visit Curtiss Motorcycles here, he's the head of design for the company, a new American electric motorcycle manufacturer that's certainly been making waves.

Here you see the three carbon-wrapped CNG cylinders. They’re tucked out of the way to protect them from impacts and they act as chassis stiffeners to increase rigidity.

Images courtesy of Bring as Trailer

Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.

Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.