Mike Grimes sent me these pictures from the Kansas Aero Museum at McConnell AFB in Wichita. It is the Crosley power unit out of a Mooney Mite complete with propeller.
Mike gave this description "The distributor has eight leads coming out. The rotor has two fingers that point 180 degrees from each other so that when the coil fires two of the leads get the voltage. One wire goes to the right side and the other to the left side. Two spark plugs in each cylinder. It's a tin block engine with the early 3 bolt water pump. Light weight welded up exhaust manifold is used."
Tom Parks (right) Is a collector of little Crosleys. He submitted the photo below back in 2005 for Crosley of the Month, but I needed two photo and it got filed. I ran in to Tom looking over the latest models at his primary supplier's booth, Randy Best (left) of Roycass, at the 2010 Nationals so I got my second photo.
Here is Tom's collection 5 years ago, I'm sure it has grown since then. Tom has limited space and his method of collecting allows him to have many different years and models in a fraction of the space. Most are from Roycass, the leading supplier of Crosleys today.
This great looking
52 belongs to Gary Allen of Minneapolis, here is the
story of the car as told by Gary. "I bought the car in 1955
when I was sixteen from a foreign car dealer that use
to be in Bloomington MN, south of Minneapolis. They
wanted one hundred fifty dollars for the car and I
only had one hundred so I offered that and they took
it. The car came up here from the Rochester, MN area
and had eleven thousand miles on it. It was light blue
and in pretty good shape except that someone had
painted the top half olive green with a paintbrush."
"I stripped the car and
painted it 1950 Mercury metallic blue, drove the car
to Washburn High in eleventh and twelfth grades, and
off and on for three or four years after that. I Put
twenty four thousand miles on the car before I stopped
driving it. It was pretty rusty by then so I just
stored it for a number of years. About fifteen years
ago I did a frame up correct style restoration and
painted it a bright red. I have only driven it a
couple hundred miles since then so it still looks like
a new car." Here is a rear shot.
Joe McKee send me these photos
of his latest project. Here is his description: I can now claim to be
essentially finished with the restoration of a 1952
Crosley VC. I really enjoy this tiny, unique car. Few
people here in Arizona have ever seen a Crosley so it
gets a lot of attention. I had many conversations with
Crosley Club members and received great advice from
everyone. I should acknowledge some of the usual
suspects such as Dave Anspach, Neil Daglow, David
Edwards, Butch and Fonda, Tim Freshley, Dave Potts,
Fred Syrdal, Chuck Kohler, Ted Dellacamera, Pete Kirk
(master Crosley engine rebuilder in Phoenix) and
lastly but not least, Dave Keilholtz who got me
started on this project with his four Crosleys in Show
Low, Arizona. These people solved so many challenges
for me along the way.
It has a Fiat 4-speed
transmission from the early 60's. Synchronized in 2nd,
3rd and 4th. Very smooth to drive. The engine is a
Homelite will high lift cam and all of the Braje items
including oil pan, side covers, and manifolds.
Our '42 liberty sedan. It has just 4250 miles on the odometer.
He is using the "manual" VC lift method to reinstall the body.
Here is a shot of the body before the lifting started.
Don Miller of PA owns this nice
Crosley powered Jacques tractor. Never heard for sure how
many Jacques were made with Crosley engines but I have
heard guesses in the 200-300 range.
Here are a couple of more views - Front and Rear Drive
Paul Gorrell's Hotshot #1, the prototype that all future VCs were derived from, had the #1 spot in the Spotlight class for 2011. He tried for many years to buy this Hotshot, it was at the Crosley dealer in his hometown of Burlington, IA. He watched it go from a car that was being driven around town, till it was sinking into the ground with a block wall laying on top of it when the wall gave way.
The dealer would not sell it, Paul finally bought it at the estate auction after he died. Since there was nothing left he could restore, all that would be left if he tried would be the serial number plate, he strapped it to a trailer and painted signs on it to point out the differences from production.
Since I mentioned last month about the other interesting thing Paul Gorrell brought to the 2011 Nationals I decided to do back to back Paul since it was a close decision last month which to show first and the Hotshot #1 won out since VC was the spotlight class for 2011. So here is his other display, Paul got this sign in very bad shape many years ago and tucked it away.
The dealer made it from a sedan that was badly damaged that they parted out. It originally just had tires hanging out the bottom for the illusion of a car. Paul got the idea of making it drivable some years back and started looking for parts that would fit in the 8" cavity he had to fit everything into. He finally found the last few parts and now he has "Skinny". Here is a rear shot and a YouTube video.
Many Crosley collectors like to keep a low profile, not draw to much attention, well Jak Phillips of New York is not in than group.
He pulled into the Nationals this year with his H-Mod, or as he calls it PH-Mod, pulled by his custom camper van. Jak tells me he draws a bit of attention where every he goes. A mighty Phine setup, as Jak would say.
