Quick, name an American “sports car” from 1950. Anything? I said 1950, not the early-1950s so the Corvette doesn’t count. Does anything at all come to mind? An American-made sports car from 1950. Nothing? The seller has this sports car, a 1950 Crosley Hot Shot, listed here on eBay in its birthplace of Cincinnati, Ohio. The current bid price is $3,550 and there is no reserve.
Merriam-Webster defines the term sports car as: “a low small usually 2-passenger automobile designed for quick response, easy maneuverability, and high-speed driving.” Our friend Wiki defines a sports car as “a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, or thrill of driving.” I have gone overboard with the whole sports car definition thing and trying to tie it to the Crosley Hot Shot. We have seen a few of them here on Barn Finds and it’s always interesting to see one and think of what was actually available at that time for small, sporty, nimble, fun-to-drive cars.
Have I sold you on the fact that the Hot Shot may have been America’s first sports car yet? Probably not, but I may not have sold most of you on oddball motorcycles or vintage snowmobiles yet either. Powell Crosley introduced a small car in the late-1930s and during WWII, a tough, dependable engine that the company developed for war use ended up being their ace in the hole as far as being able to offer a car to the masses. The Hot Shot won the first Sebring Race, which most folks know about. Yes, there was some fuzzy math involved where smaller cars were given a bit of a mathematical advantage due to the index that was used in the endurance race and the engine size of the vehicles involved, so smaller cars actually had a bit of an advantage.
The Hot Shot came out in 1949 which is even more impressive to think about. Even though it was only a year earlier, 1949 seems like it was a totally different era than 1950 was and I guess it was really. The 1950s would be a time of incredible growth if you think about the period of time from 1950 to 1959. You can see that this car will require a fair amount of work inside and out, the seller says that it was parked in a barn in 1975 and was just pulled out a few days ago.
Thankfully, these cars are small enough that a person could restore this one in a single-car garage and do a lot of the work him or herself to save money. Hagerty is at $21,000 for a #2 excellent condition car so it’s not something that you could just drop off at a restoration shop and give them a blank check without being over its value in a short time. Have you thought about another 1950 American sports car yet? How about the Kurtis? As a precursor to the Muntz Jet, it had a Cadillac V8 with several times the power of this Crosley.
The engine is Crosley’s inline-four-cylinder 26.5-horsepower cast-iron block assembly (CIBA) engine which replaced the CoBra (copper brazed) engines. The seller put some oil into the cylinders, cleaned the points, and got it running smoothly on a gas can. The gas tank and fuel system will need to be gone through as usual but this looks like a fun project car. Any thoughts on this Hot Shot? Have you thought of another American sports car from 1950 yet?
War use for the engine? I am really old, my memory is not what it once was. I don’t recall that. What were they used for? Someone please jog my memory. Please kick some knowledge into this leaky old head.
Vague and very fuzzy memory of the Crosley CoBra engine being used in stationary applications, I think one of which was to drive compressors for mobile refrigeration units.
I remembered right. Refrigeration units and generators. See this article:
https://drivetribe.com/p/engines-in-unusual-places-crosley-YU686qWOR6amvtY5CaowRQ?iid=FJ76aGvLRi-T8tXTcRFAKw
Engine was used for boats. I purchased points, plugs and cap from auto parts store 1974 in Xenia, Ohio. They explained that the engine was used in power boats and refrigerated truck trailers.
Gary, they were used for power generation primarily by the Navy, I believe, but saw use in some other unusual applications. One could draw a parallel to the British Coventry Climax engine that started out for fire pump use and went on to greater automotive fame.
There are performance parts for the motor if you can find them,Looks like a kids pedal car.
Crosley was quite the entrepreneur, mfg’d cars, radios, refrigerators & engines. Also owned a radio station in Cincinnati, WLW, one of the 50,000 watt “Clear Channel” radio stations located across the country, like WLS in Chicago. He used the station to broadcast, among other things, Cincinnati Reds baseball games, also owned the team and the stadium they played in, Crosley Field. Saw my first big league game there in the late 50’s.
Actually that WLW radio station has the great honor to be the only Extremely powerful radio station in the USA… from 1934 the station was authorized to operate at 500 thousand watts…and it lasted for about 5 years, ending sometime in 1939. There was a lot of weird stuff that happened during those years, like lights not being able to be turned off even when there was no power connected to them. Farmers saying that they could hear the station by just walking by their barbed wire fences.
Nash-Healey (1951) is the only one I can think of from a US automaker. While many of these mini cars called themselves sports cars, they weren’t. Compared to the Europeans, who built more sports cars than anyone, THIS was the best America offered? We were not impressed, most returning GI’s found out what a sports car really was, and this was a poor rendition of one. Stuff like this became more of a novelty than anything and still is. Not to say, some poor schmuck didn’t drive to work in a Crosley or King Midget to work,,,in the rain, but generally, Americans wanted cars that made lots of noise and set you back in the seat. These never had a chance. Now 30 years later, might have been a different story. Interesting fact about Crosley’s. As mentioned, Crosley was the worlds leading radio producer, but I read, the Crosley cars never had them. They used Motorolas. My parents had a Crosley refrigerator for years. The color? Green,natch,,,
Thats because Powell Crosley sold his radio/electronics businesses before he got into car production in 1939. Early post war Crosleys used CoBra ( Copper brazed) In 1949 they went to a cast iron engine due to the number of engine failures of the earlier engines. The cars themselves were made in Richmond, Indiana not in Cinci.
How do you shift the transmission? I dont see any handles except for the T parking brake and only see 2 pedals, so its an automatic?
Look through the top “hole” in the steering wheel and you can see the shift lever with the knob gone. It’s a long lever that goes almost all the way to the firewall.
Yeah, “…some poor schmuck..” chose to work instead of depend on government handouts – which weren’t available anyway to the extent they are today – so they drove what they could afford. Not a big car like Howard A was blessed to have. Compliments to those “schmucks” who did the best they could for themselves and their families.
Cunningham, Allard for just 2
Hate to break this to you, but Allards are British!
As Paris Hilton said all the time, that’s hot.
Had a friend in college whose father loved Crosleys so much he named his son Crosley.
I just sold my 1951 crosley super sports. Crosley had a famous saying “I wasnt the first one to make a car and I wasnt the first one to make a radio but I was the first one to put a radio in a car.
This car is a 1950 Super Hotshot, with a folding top and a (very) few other improvements. But remember that a Crosley Hotshot won the first Sebring endurance race.
The dues-free Crosley Car Owners Club (CCOC) supports Crosley owners and admirers and can answer any questions. http://www.facebook.com/CrosleyCarClub
Yeah, “Fred” is right… the car shown is not just a Crosley “Hot Shot”. It is one of the first Hot Shots that were considered the for-runner of the Super Sport, that came out in 1951. The version above had the “folding” top, the regular Hot Shot only had a top that was removable and stow-able, it would NOT fold. Most of these “Early Super Sport” versions also had removable doors, that slid over the larger rubber edging that went around the door openings. The rubber edging was also much larger than the Hot Shot had.
I owned one of the 1950 Hot Shot “Super Sports” for many years, mine had the doors and folding top, and also had a “Crosley” radio ,the Crosley name was all over that radio, no mater who actually built it, I’m not sure if ANY other car company ever built their own radios either for that matter.
Also having owned/driven one I can say that they handled very much like a Go-Cart, to my mind much better than my MG-B did. No they did not go from 0-60 in 8 or 10 sec.s… but most sports cars like the MG didn’t either. Most sports cars from Europe were not fast off the line but they were great in curves and handled well. In a straight line race, like a drag strip, any average Ford or Chevy would out run most any sports car of that age (’45 to ’55). But when they got to the corner they seldom slowed down much while the Ford or Chevy had to do so to make the turn. It was a much different time, than the fire breathing dragons that are Sports Cars now days.
gimmie their truck or waggy –