I believe that is the Nic-L-Silver Pioneer electric roadster -- a car I almost once posted myself.
As for why it's special, I'm not sure what you're looking for, unless it's the fact that it was electric.
From my source:
"...nearing completion in 1959 was the Pioneer, a fiberglass-bodied three-seat electric backed by the Nic-L-Silver Battery Company in Santa Ana, California.
Engineering, mainly by Frank Kurtis of race-car fame, featured a unique torsion-bar suspension and twin 8-horsepower motors driving the rear wheels by chain. Sales were imminent by autumn 1959, when a Pioneer wagon [the subject of another AutoPuzzle, BTW] was announced along with a detachable hardtop option for the roadster, which was pegged at about $2,000 retail.
...Pioneer was doomed by likely sales volume that was just too small to offset huge production start-up costs.
The Golden State itself tried to summon the future by mandating electrics, even though technology in the 1990s still couldn't resolve some of the deficits that plagued [electric cars] in the 1950s."
