The Leata was an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

manufactured by Stinebaugh Manufacturing Inc, founded by Donald E. Stinebaugh (1916-1992) with his son Leonard D. "Sonny" Stinebaugh (1946-2001) in

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. The first model produced in 1975 was a boxy 2-door sedan powered by a 4-cylinder

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, producing 50

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and giving the car a top speed of , as well as fuel economy of 39-55

miles per gallon The fuel economy of an automobile relates distance traveled by a vehicle and the amount of fuel consumed. Consumption can be expressed in terms of volume of fuel to travel a distance, or the distance traveled per unit volume of fuel consumed. S ...

. The car sold for $2895, and Stinebaugh claimed to have manufactured 20 by the end of March 1975. The company employed 15 workers, and Stinebaugh claimed that he was looking to produce between 1,000 and 1,500 cars a year. In 1977, a more modern-looking vehicle was launched, called the Cabalero. Stinebaugh named the car after his wife Hilda (Erickson) Stinebaugh, giving the car her nickname, Leata — a misunderstanding of ''

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,'' Norwegian for "little." The Cabalero was powered by a 4-cylinder General Motors LY-5 engine, and featured

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power seat A power seat in an automobile is a seat in a passenger compartment that can be adjusted using a button, switch or joystick and a set of small electric motors. Most cars with this feature have controls for the driver's seat only, though almost all ...

and

cruise control Cruise control (also known as speed control, cruise command, autocruise, or tempomat) is a system that automatically controls the speed of a motor vehicle. The system is a servomechanism that takes over the throttle of the car to maintain a s ...

— as well as baroque styling with custom fibreglass body panels, round headlights in square bezels, a rectangular "classic" grille, and heavily styled mudguards; Two models were made - a pickup or hatchback. Just 97 Leatas were made before the company closed down in late 1977.{{cite web , last1=Matthews , first1=Nigel , title=The Leata was a Chevette disguised as a luxury car , url=https://driving.ca/chevrolet/auto-news/news/a-chevette-disguised-as-a-luxury-car , website=driving.ca , accessdate=23 September 2020

References

Car manufacturers of the United States Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1975 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1977