O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle Jan. 9

Not a Crosley, but my new purchase. 1958 Lincoln

For some reason I've always kind of liked the '55-'56 Chryslers. Here are three that I have acquired for when the layout is in the Fifties.

From left: '55 Imperial (Motor City USA), '56 Chrysler 300 (Precision Models), '55 Chrysler 300 (Brooklin). Also in descending order of quality. The Motor City model is exquisite, but absurdly expensive even though I got it for well under half the cost of a new one. I've always liked those free-standing taillights. I had never heard of Precision Models before I saw the '56 on the Bay. I don't know why Chrysler decided to keep the '55 grille on the '56 300. The Brooklin model is one of their early ones and is distinctly inferior to the other two in quality. One of these days I'll paint the chrome trim and door handles; that will help the appearance. 

I, younger than he , remember a high school kid who had a red Hotshot.  He grew up

to be a lawyer in the Louisville, Ky. area.  Before that, in the tiny tank town I lived in

until the fourth grade, and which I rode through for many years afterwards to visit relatives, across a now abandoned bridge on what was once a state highway, bypassed now by a complete rerouting of both roads around the town, there was a small house surrounded by the carcasses of at least half a dozen Crosleys.  Apparently, they were

parts cars to keep his daily driver running.  I remember most of them as the station

wagon version.  They are gone, and have been for many years, although the house is

still there, but now on a deadend road (with the bridge closed).

I always thought the tiny propeller on the Crosley grill was a hoot. My 8th grade teacher owned one back in the '50s.

 The Hotshot roadster. It could do 90 MPH . . . 

Ninety miles per hour in a car that makes a bug-eye Sprite look big - you had to be taking your life in your hands . . . 

Lee

Years ago a buddy of mine had a bug-eyed Sprite. He had a fiberglass clam shell front end that resembled a Jag XKE. It gave that little ugly some style, I've never seen another one.

I found this on Google

Oh man Richard!  I tried to find one of those front ends waaaaaaay back when.  I had heard about them then, but in a world (decades) before the internet I could not find out where you got them.  We put a 289 V8 in a Sprite, and I wanted a front end  like that (with a scoop to clear the carb, but I could have added that).

It really is very nice looking, too.  On a first quick glance, it makes the car look like a Lotus Elite

How about a Chrysler convertible.

I also like '55 and '56 Chrysler cars. I had a '56 Imperial. I wish the Heck I still had it.

Mine was dark green.

That is a nice model.  Chryslers from that period were really great cars, then and now!

I was watching an old episode of the British detective series Lewis the other night, in which most 0f the action takes place on the estate of a fabulously wealthy ex-Rock Star.  As the detectives walk from their car to the front door of this monstrous mansion the guy lives in, they pass three cars parked in the circular drive - a '54 Chyrsler 300, a Pantera, and a Jensen Interceptor.  I thought it interesting that the producers thought the way to show someone was rich was to usethree cars with American V8s.  My wife asked me "Which would you take if you could have only one.?" "They Chrysler, of course" was my reply.  Not even close . . . 

My brother, in his one foray into auto restoration, with a buddy, had a half interest

in a bug-eyed Sprite.  When they got into it, they found rust everywhere, and my

brother, who favored and later owned, Corvettes, (slightly less rust prone) sold his partner his half and ran for the hills.  I have read that sheet metal Crosley engine had the same problems, but  I would go for a !/43-48 version of the above posted 1940 model.  Really odd that the Crosley was introduced when the American Austin/Bantam was not a success at the time, lucking out to be considered for WWII contracts.

The Crosley sheet metal engine developed pitted holes, due to electrolysis (whatever THAT is).

A 650 Triumph MC was 40 cid so a 44" Crosley was about 710 CC's

There is a old farmhouse near me that probably was one of the 1st houses in now a built up neighborhood that has a bunch of Citroins all around it, some are parts cars.

Was that Crosely sheet metal engine aluminum, which I think I have read is subject

to electolyis: "the decomposition into ions of a material by action of electic current passing through"

(the other definition of electrolysis has to do with the removal of unwanted body hair , which probably does not apply here).  Since there are, what sound to be very

competent engineers on this forum, perhaps they can elaborate.

I don't think it was all aluminum, just parts of it. This probably contributed to the electrolysis problems.   It was sometimes called a COBRA engine - no, not that Cobra, but for COper-BRAzed. It was really a good idea and well designed, but an engine that had been designed for a particular narrow application -- it was very light, etc., and after the war the compromises you had to accept for that light weight weren't important enough: people tried to apply it where it wasn't really suited, as in family cars, etc. 

http://crosleyautoclub.com/Mighty_Tin.html