Its front grille was distinctive.
Its rear quarter panels were slightly wider than those on the later cars.
And beneath the passenger-side door sill was a small stamped identification plate that connected the chassis to the manufacturer's internal development records.
My father knew the car before it became valuable.
In 1967, he was a young Black technician working for a company that supplied specialized electrical components to automotive manufacturers in Michigan.
He wasn't an executive.
He didn't sit in the design meetings where company leaders made grand announcements.
He worked in testing bays, helped diagnose electrical faults, and assisted engineers who were trying to make experimental vehicles function reliably enough to survive demanding road tests.
He worked hard.
He was talented.
And he spent years watching other people receive public credit for technical solutions he helped develop.
He didn't complain to me about it often.
But sometimes, when we were alone in the garage, he'd tell stories about those early days.
He remembered driving through Detroit before dawn, carrying his lunch in a metal box because he couldn't afford restaurant meals.
He remembered supervisors who expected him to be grateful simply to have a job.
And he remembered the first time he saw the Phoenix prototype roll through the testing facility.
"It looked like it came from the future," he told me.
His eyes always brightened when he described it.
Metallic-blue paint.
Low roofline.
Wide rear tires.
And an engine note unlike anything he'd heard.
He loved that car before anyone imagined it would be worth more than an ordinary family's entire lifetime earnings.
When the company closed, the prototype passed through several documented ownership and storage arrangements before becoming part of a private equipment and vehicle liquidation.
My father purchased it legally in the late 1980s.
He used savings, a loan from a relative, and almost every spare dollar he could gather.
My mother thought he'd lost his mind.
I was a baby at the time, but my sister told me the story so many times that I could picture the argument.
My father stood in the kitchen explaining that the car was historically important.
My mother sat at the table, staring at the purchase papers.
Then she asked how a nonrunning automobile would help pay the mortgage.
My father apparently considered the question for a long moment.
Then answered.
"It won't."
My mother stared.
He continued.
"But someday, somebody is going to remember what this car means."
She shook her head.