Rimmeir believed in the importance of crafting an American-made luxury automobile: “up to now,” says Rimmeir, “if you wanted a really distinctive car you had to turn to Europe – you know, to Ferrari, to Rolls, to the Mercedes limo. Well, no more. The craftsmen in this country are as competent to turn out a super-luxury automobile as is anyone overseas.”[2] Rimmeir was able to make such an assessment due to his familiarity with the auto industry as a result of his experience running custom car shows all over the East Coast

Rimmeir had purchased California Show Cars two years prior to creating the Bugazzi; Rimmeir soon had the dream of crafting the Bugazzi as the ultimate luxury car. California Show Cars of Long Beach had already manufactured a line of famous one-of-a-kind automobiles, including the Pink Panther, the Sex Machine, Frank Sinatra"s Eldorado station wagon (aka “the Love Machine”), John Wayne"s station wagon, the 1934 Ford sedan riddled with bullets in the Bonnie and Clyde motion picture, and Bob Hope"s famous golf cart. Also, the six-engine Snake Pit, the turbine-powered Granny"s Gasser tricycle, the Bathtub, and the Martian Spider based on a Sherman tank rounded out CSC"s impressive list of accomplishments.[4] True to their company"s motto, they certainly were “producers of the world"s most daringly different show cars.” Although the Bugazzi could certainly be counted among such “daringly different” cars, Rimmeir shifted the focus of the production company away from cars that were radical or off-the-wall and towards the certainly more elegant and refined Bugazzi.

The Bugazzi was sold for $29,500, the most expensive auto on the market; by comparison, the Lincoln Mark IV platform on which the Bugazzi was built was listed for the not-cheap price of $8,640 and the second most expensive car in 1972 was the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, priced at a modest $19,700. The Bugazzi was awarded Motor Trend"s coveted “Car of the Month” in July 1973.

The body was then resculptured, with sleeker, aerodynamic lines, resulting in an additional three to six inches added to the length of the Mark IV. As we will see in the next chapter, the interior and exterior of the car underwent radical transformations as well. The outcome of these major changes was not simply to up the price of the Mark by $20,000, but to create something vastly different from anything that had been made before. As Mike Mellveen put it, “This work is really an art form, not a mechanical thing. To begin with, every production car that comes off the line in Detroit is a little different. We have to make everything we do fit perfectly, and that means hours of tedious hand work. But that"s all right. What we do is more than a job. It"s a way of life.”