TEN YEARS AFTER

Murray Pfaff’s Genre-Defying Imperial Speedster Continues to Drop Jaws and Defy Convention

- Barry Kluczyk

It has been about a decade since we first glimpsed Murray Pfaff's radical vision named Imperial Speedster. It first appeared in the May 2010 issue of HOT ROD as part of a project cars issue theme, and the subsequent 10 years have done nothing to diminish the dazzling impression of its bold design statement.

In fact, the car’s category-bending execution—it is part street rod, part custom, part resto-mod, and part ’50s show car—contributes to a timelessness that’s undefined by the era or prevailing build trends in which it was constructed. It has helped that Pfaff has continued to refine the car over the years, including a complete color change and new wheels in the past year or so, which has contemporized a car not otherwise bound by the expectations of a specific genre of the hot rodding world.

“You see many custom-built cars that arrive on the scene, make a splash and then disappear entirely,” says Pfaff. “I never wanted that for the Imperial Speedster. I had always intended this car to make a bold statement but also to live on beyond the initial round of car-show debuts. It was always a car intended to be driven and enjoyed.”