Powderkeg (1971)

This was the pilot to a shortlived TV series called Bearcats!, a western set before World War One, about two handsome young mercenaries who drive around the southwest in a Stutz Bearcat. 

I only heard of the show recently. All I was able to see of it was the opening credits on YouTube and it looked like it could be interesting, made about the same time as the James Garner series, Nichols. Garner rides around on an early motorcycle. Bearcats! had machine guns and the opening credits show them being attacked by a biplane.

I never liked westerns but I like Soviet movies modeled on American westerns. They were set in the 1920's in Kazakhstan or Siberia, so I thought maybe I'd like this. A western without the ugly clothes, the ugly towns and illiterate people. They could discuss Freudian psychology and nietzschean philosophy. 

I saw an interview with a writer of the Soviet movie, White Sun of the Desert. He said that he and the other writer worked out the look and feel they wanted for the movie, but that didn't help them come up with a plot.

Powderkeg apparently had the same problem. Mexican revolutionaries have hijacked a passenger train and are holding the passengers hostage, so the railroad calls The Bearcats. The car plays no role in the story except they drive there, park it in a barn and drive away in the end. Just wasn't very good. They had a gimmick but didn't work it into the lousy plot.

They reportedly spent $25,000 to have two replica Stutz Bearcats made at a time when you could buy a new Corvette for about $5,000. 

For $7,000 plus shipping, you can now import a golf cart from China that looks like a Model T.

Free on a streaming channel called Western Mania.