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The Dale was too good to be true. A three-wheeled two-seater, the jaunty, rounded little auto sallied forth at the height of the 1970s oil crisis, with a supposed 70 mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency that rebuked all other automakers. In the new documentary “The Lady and the Dale,” airing in four parts on HBO, we meet the car before its maker, seeing the excitement around the vehicle firsthand as it’s offered as a “Price Is Right” prize on a 1975 episode. The car’s rollout was so rapid that contestants, too, were seeing this odd contraption for the first time.

The clip says it all: The Dale was a triumph not of manufacturing but of the salesmanship and media savvy of Elizabeth Carmichael. The Twentieth Century Motor Car Corp. founder wanted to make waves in the world of business — “I will run the auto industry like a queen,” we hear her say at one point.