Tiny Sports Roadster: 1948 Crosley Almquist

You don’t see one of these every day. In fact, most of us never will have seen one at all. It’s a 1948 Crosley Almquist, a tiny sports racer that was the result of mounting a fiberglass body designed by one person (Almquist, on whom more below) on a chassis that originated with someone else (Crosley, ditto). Terry is the tipster who found this one here on Facebook Marketplace, and if you’ve got a winter to spare, like the one coming up, you might be the person to bring this little roadster back to life. You’ll have to come within shouting distance of $7G’s, though, if the seller is serious about his asking price, which is $7400. You’ll then take a trailer to St. Peters, Missouri, to collect your project.

The Crosley Almquist sits at the intersection of two small manufacturers’ efforts to produce fun automobiles. Crosley was the brainchild of Powel Crosley, Jr., who earlier made his fortune in the auto parts business and later by making a line of portable, inexpensive radios. This put him in a rather financially advantageous position during the 1930s and the war years and after to manufacture automobiles. The trouble was, many Crosley models had kind of bulbous, non-streamlined body styling. You don’t see a Crosley and think “racing.” Enter Ed Almquist. He became known for designing and selling “go-fast” parts, starting in the immediate post-war year of 1946. It didn’t take him long to produce bolt-on bodies for chassis such as the Crosley, and thus the world was given the perfect blend–compact, proven chassis and drivetrains complemented with sleek and sporty sheet metal. Er, I mean fiberglass. Call these early Corvettes if you want to find a way to categorize them. Or just see them for what they were, when completed: “home-builts,” to use a term of the time, that would see a sports car enthusiast through a weekend of club racing and maybe even be his transportation home at the end of the meet.

So if you like that history, what about buying this car? The seller says this is one of the best barn finds in Missouri. How does one evaluate such a claim? Is Missouri a big state for such treasures? Maybe you should just go on instinct. There are some unknowns. What engine is actually in the car? Some basic research shows that original Crosley engines were sometimes  displaced in favor of Ford Flathead V8s as owners endeavored to make these cars competitive for racing. This engine apparently has gone 1,111 miles, which should probably be read, “I’ve got to put a number in this miles field, and my finger is on the ‘1’ key right now.” So you’re kind of on your own there. A similar moment of delusion might have overtaken the ad writer when he said, “Me, personally, I’d keep it the way it is….” Huh? You mean in a pile of parts and non-running condition? I don’t get it. 

Look carefully at this ad. There’s not a lot of info offered, and the images are not terribly revealing. The fiberglass might or might not be all there. The interior is spartan at best and needs complete renewal. The engine–well, it would be nice to have an image of same. No dice. Do you feel like taking a risk? There are, as the seller might affirm, not many of these in the market. It looks like you could get a finished one in the mid-$20K range. That actually suggests that the present car is priced about right. Put some money into it without fearing getting in too far, and you can decide for yourself whether the red coves look is for you, or if a different livery is how you want to present this car to the world.