Roadster Royal

“Some dang fool gave me a Model T roadster when I was 14 years old and ruined my whole cotton-pickin’ life.” – Dick Kraft

Dick and Art Ingles built the above roadster as it appeared on the cover of the October, 1952 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. They had both been toying around with the lighter side of the power-to-weight ratio and decided that a scaled down Indy roadster would be an absolute blast on the street.

A “space age” chrome moly frame supports buggy sprung suspension systems and a hot (140 hp) v8-60. The body, of course, was hand formed out of aluminum at Ingles’ shop in L.A. It all works together to do something rare – form a race car that looks almost decent adoring street trim

I bet I’ve gone through my HRM collection more than a handful of times just to study the details of this car. I have no idea where the little sportster ended up, but just this morning I stumbled upon the below classified placed in a ’57 issue:

I was amazed to read that Dick and Art actually built two of the pint sized cars. And the name, Doug Caruthers, sounds terribly familiar. What ever happened to the two Royal Roadsters?

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Editor’s Note: If you are here for Paso Santa Maria coverage, click here.

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