The Brummett Maserati Special: Oklahoma’s Birdcage-Inspired Route 66 Hot Rod

There are cars you visit in museums because they are famous. There are cars you visit because they are rare. Then there are cars that stop you in your tracks because they were built by a fellow automotive enthusiast, because what they wanted didn’t exist. The Brummett Maserati Special is one of these special cars, and I stumbled across it inside the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

Surrounded by Route 66 memorabilia, Army Jeeps, and the classic full-size American cars that made the Mother Road famous, sits a special little sports car. Low, red, open-cockpit, and unmistakably Italian in spirit, it looks at first like a Maserati Birdcage. The shape is right. The stance is right. The attitude is right. But this is not a factory-built Maserati Tipo 60 or Tipo 61. It is something more personal, more peculiar, and in its own way, more American.

The Brummett Maserati Special

This is the Brummett Maserati Special, a Birdcage-inspired, Maserati-powered sports racer built by Bobby Brummett of Bixby, Oklahoma. It is not a replica in the narrow sense. It is a one-off special, built in the old tradition of men who saw the cars racing in Europe, understood the magic, and then went home to the shop to build their own version.

The first thing most people notice is the body. It has the visual language of late-1950s sports car racing: long nose, low scuttle, cut-down windscreen, exposed cockpit, and just enough menace to make you wonder what it would sound like echoing off the walls of an old road course. The inspiration is clearly the Maserati Birdcage, one of the great racing machines of the postwar era.

The original Birdcage was Maserati’s answer to a changing sports car world. Developed under engineer Giulio Alfieri, the Tipo 60 and later Tipo 61 used an intricate structure of small-diameter steel tubes arranged into a lightweight, rigid space frame. The network of tubes was so complex that it earned the nickname “Birdcage,” and the name stuck because it was too good not to.

The Tipo 60 used a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, while the Tipo 61 enlarged the formula to nearly 2.9 liters for international 3-liter competition. These were front-engined, featherweight sports racers built for privateers, the kind of cars that could put a well-heeled independent driver into the same conversation as factory teams. Stirling Moss gave the Tipo 60 a winning debut at Rouen in 1959, and Lloyd “Lucky” Casner’s Camoradi team helped put the Birdcage into endurance racing history with victories at the Nürburgring 1000 Kilometers.

Maserati built only a small number of these cars, which is why genuine Birdcages are now multimillion-dollar machines, guarded by chassis files, period race history, and the kind of owners who know exactly where the velvet ropes should go. The car in Sapulpa belongs to a different tradition.

Not Really A Kit Car

The Brummett Maserati Special appears to use an AMBRO racing body, a fascinating piece of American sports car history in its own right. The AMBRO story began in 1960, when grassroots racers Bill Ames and Dewey Brohaugh collaborated on a sports racer based around Triumph TR3 components. Their fiberglass bodywork carried the influence of both the Lister Jaguar and the Maserati Birdcage, making the shape of international racing accessible to the American club-racing world.

That detail matters because it helps explain what the Brummett car really is. It was not created to fool anyone into believing it was a lost Modena Works car. It was built in the spirit of the American special: find the shape, find the parts, make the idea work, and worry about the concours judges later. Bobby Brummett was the right kind of man for that sort of project.

Born in Tulsa in 1935, Brummett grew up around machinery, motion, and work. His life story includes surveying, drafting, business, and family, but cars and racing run through it like a centerline stripe. As a boy, he helped a neighbor build a race car from scratch. When the car was finished, the neighbor let him drive it around the block. That was the spark.

Brummett went on to race midgets and stock cars, winning his first race in Liberal, Kansas. A separate racing history connected to a 1941 Hillegass midget also places Bobby Brummett of Bixby among the drivers who raced for Tommy Thompson during the mid-to-late 1950s across the Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and Kansas circuit.

That background is important because the Brummett Maserati Special does not feel like a static showpiece. It feels like the product of someone who understood race cars from the practical side. Not as sculpture. Not as investment objects. As machinery.

Under The Hood

Sitting beneath the skin is not the four-cylinder engine that powered an original Tipo 60 or Tipo 61 Birdcage. Instead, the Brummett Maserati Special is powered by a Maserati Tipo 107 4.2-liter V8, fitted with four twin-choke Weber carburetors. The polished Maserati cam covers, 90-degree V8 layout, and bank of carburetors give the engine bay the look of a mechanical jewelry box, assuming the jeweler had a fuel line in one hand and a timing light in the other.

The Tipo 107 engine belongs to Maserati’s 1960s grand touring era. It is most closely associated with cars like the first-generation Quattroporte and the Maserati Mexico, where Maserati’s V8 lineage moved from brutal competition machinery into elegant high-speed road cars. In the Quattroporte I, the 4.2-liter V8 displaced 4,136 cc and produced around 260 horsepower. It was a sophisticated engine for its day, with a 90-degree V8 configuration and double overhead camshafts.

That choice changes the entire character of the Brummett car. A factory Birdcage was a lightweight, four-cylinder sports racer. The Brummett Maserati Special is something else: a Birdcage-inspired American special with a Maserati grand touring V8 under the bodywork. It is not trying to be a perfect copy. It is taking the idea of a Maserati sports racer and filtering it through the hands of an Oklahoma racer and builder. In that sense, it might be more interesting than a replica.

A replica is usually judged by how closely it imitates the original. A special is judged by how well it expresses the vision of the person who built it. The Brummett car has the shape of a Birdcage, the soul of a Maserati V8, and the practical confidence of American hot-rodding. It is part Italian fantasy, part Oklahoma shop project, and part sports-racing fever dream.

A 2012 Hemmings Motor News listing described the car as a “special built, one-off sport racing car” built by Bobby Brummett Sr. with an AMBRO racing body, a 4.2-liter Maserati Tipo 107 V8, 38 mm Weber carburetors, and a late-1990s GM aluminum Borg-Warner T5 transmission. That last detail is pure special-building logic. The engine may be Maserati, the inspiration may be Modena, but the builder was not afraid to use what worked. That is the charm of the thing.

European purists sometimes forget that much of racing history was built this way. Cars were modified, re-bodied, re-engined, repaired, updated, and kept alive by people with imagination and tools. The past was not as tidy as we like to pretend. Chassis plates matter, but so do welds, decisions, late nights, and the urge to make something that should exist, even if no factory ever built it. The Brummett Maserati Special belongs comfortably in that world.

Route 66

Its home today, the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum, could hardly be more fitting. Located in a former armory in Sapulpa, just off Route 66, the museum combines automotive history, roadside culture, military heritage, and local enthusiasm. Outside stands a towering 66-foot gas pump, the sort of landmark that reminds you Route 66 has always been equal parts transportation corridor and American theater.

Inside, among the classics and curiosities, the Brummett Maserati Special does what the best museum cars do. It starts a conversation. At first glance, the conversation is about whether it is a real Birdcage. The answer is no, at least not in the factory Tipo 60 or Tipo 61 sense. But that is not the end of the story. That is where the story begins.

The better question is why someone in Oklahoma would build a Maserati-inspired sports racer with a real Maserati V8 and an AMBRO body. The answer seems to be simple: because Bobby Brummett could, and because he loved the idea enough to make it real.

Brummett passed away in 2020, but his obituary included a note that anyone wishing to honor his memory could go see his car at the Route 66 Auto Museum in Sapulpa. That line says more than a spec sheet ever could. This was not just a car he owned. It was part of his life’s work, a rolling expression of the boy who once helped build a race car and never quite got over the feeling of driving it around the block.

The Brummett Maserati Special should not be confused with a multimillion-dollar original Birdcage. It should not be presented as a lost Maserati works car or a factory competition chassis. Its value is not in pretending to be something it is not. Its value is in being exactly what it is.

A hand-built Oklahoma special. A tribute to one of Maserati’s greatest shapes. A homegrown sports racer powered by a real Maserati Tipo 107 V8. A reminder that car culture has always been shaped not only by factories and famous drivers, but by the builders in small towns and private shops who looked at the great machines of the world and thought, “I can build something like that.”

Quick Facts: Brummett Maserati Special

• Vehicle: Brummett Maserati Special
• Inspiration: Maserati Tipo 60/61 “Birdcage” sports racers
• Builder: Bobby Brummett Sr. of Bixby, Oklahoma
• Current Location: Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum in Sapulpa, Oklahoma
• Body: AMBRO-style racing body inspired by late-1950s and early-1960s European sports racers
• Engine: Maserati Tipo 107 / AM107 4.2-liter V8
• Induction: Four twin-choke Weber carburetors
• Transmission: Reportedly a late-1990s GM aluminum Borg-Warner T5 manual transmission
• Original Birdcage Connection: Inspired by the Maserati Birdcage, but not a factory Tipo 60 or Tipo 61
• Why It Matters: The car blends Italian racing influence, real Maserati V8 power, and American special-building tradition

FAQ: Brummett Maserati Special

Is the Brummett Maserati Special a real Maserati Birdcage?

No. The Brummett Maserati Special is not a factory-built Maserati Tipo 60 or Tipo 61 Birdcage. It is a one-off American special inspired by the Birdcage design and powered by a Maserati V8.

Who built the Brummett Maserati Special?

The car was built by Bobby Brummett Sr. of Bixby, Oklahoma, a lifelong racer and car enthusiast with a background in midget and stock car racing.

What engine is in the Brummett Maserati Special?

The car is powered by a Maserati Tipo 107 / AM107 4.2-liter V8, the same basic engine family associated with 1960s Maserati grand touring cars like the first-generation Quattroporte and Maserati Mexico.

Is the engine the same as an original Maserati Birdcage engine?

No. Original Maserati Tipo 60 and Tipo 61 Birdcage racers used four-cylinder engines. The Brummett Maserati Special uses a later Maserati V8, which makes it more of a custom special than a replica.

What body is used on the Brummett Maserati Special?

The car appears to use an AMBRO-style racing body, a fiberglass sports-racer body design influenced by cars like the Lister Jaguar and Maserati Birdcage.

Where can you see the Brummett Maserati Special?

The car is displayed at the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, though museum displays can change over time.

Why is it called the Brummett Maserati Special?

That name better reflects what the car is: a hand-built special created by Bobby Brummett, powered by a Maserati engine, and inspired by the Maserati Birdcage rather than being a factory-built Birdcage itself.

Why is the car important?

The Brummett Maserati Special represents a great American tradition: builders taking inspiration from world-class racing machines and creating something unique with their own hands. It connects Oklahoma racing culture, Route 66, and Maserati history in one unusual car.