Last night I went to see a 1951 Crosley that had been pulled out of a barn after years of rest. The exterior body wasnt in bad shape. The floors are rusted pretty bad. The engine spins over by hand. The nose on this car is so ugly. I just dont know if I could ever make anything cool out of it or not. It does have a good title. Any suggestions? This thing is from way before my time, so I know very little about them.
At first glance from the rear it resembled a Henry J to me, but as I rounded the front, wow. Almost like an Amphi car. I like the gasser look in the pic rrbrucea.
So ugly it's cool. You can even Hot Rod the original motor! There's a build thread on here somewhere.
They are neat little cars, like Tbone said they are so ugly they are cool. My uncle is currently building one up with a 289, new frame and a 9 inch rear. Here is a bad ass example of one. I think this is one from the late 40's though.
I love those things. None of my buddies get it. There is one for sale here local. Cool cars but I like things that are different.
Hey, I'm up in Columbus. My dad has been kicking himself for months for not buying a Crosley chassis and motor a while back. He wants to build a little speedster out of one. If you're not going to do anything with it, please let me know. Thanks,
If I opt to not buy it tonight, I will pass it on to someone that would do something with it. I thought it was priced right ecspeially with a title. I will TRY to get some pics of it tonight.
The Crosley 'Hot Shot' was rod fodder for some of the serious racers 'way back to '49. Some drag cars (yes, diggers too) were made up from Crosley engines (2 stroke, you oughta hear one wind up.) There were constant ads in HRM, Honk, and HopUp for Crosley speed parts. Low H.P., but when modified, RPM was extreme, and in a light car, it would perform. There was an old Crosley dragster that ran in the last days of the Old Time drags at Baylands, in Fremont. Most of the older pros had knowledge of the popularity of Crosleys. They were America's first 'compact' car. I saw Crosley stuff at Blair's, Quincy Automotive, and Reath's, to name a few. If I found a Crosley, it would definitely come home with me! I'd hop it up a little, and use it for a driver. Verrrry cool.....
you say it is a 1951 but what body style is it? station wagon? sedan? pick up? convertible? as was mentioned before, the floors are commonly rusted in Crosleys, but depending on what you are going to do with it, they are easy to fix and there are a few vendors who are remaking replacement floor panels if you want to go that route
Crosleys were not 2 strokes. My friend Nick Brajavich a had a twin engine blown Crosley dragster. He made and marketed Braje racing equipment for Crosleys. He has since passed away. He probably did almost everything possible with CRosleys. He used to race H production in Hotshots and Millers. Gary
In about 1963, I had a friend whose uncle had a dusting service outside of Davis Calif. He rode around in their Helicopter, and spotted some Crosleys. We went up to the guys place on the north part of the Sacramento river, and the guy had Crosley engines running everything. Boats, Generators, Cable across the river, pumps, etc. he had 8 bodys stacked up. Coupes, p/u, station wagons, sedans. He ended up giving me all of the bodies. We flooded the market in Norcal with Crosleys. After that there were Quite a few drag cars with Crosley bodies. But I never built one myself.
im working on a 48 crosley wagon body for my front engine dragster. hope to have it together in the near future.
This panel wagon showed up at an area car show this summer, a really nicely turned out restoration. I'm a little surprised that aren't a few more of them around this part of the country. Think they were built down around Cincinatti as well as Marion, Indiana. But I'd guess that the winters around here were pretty hard on them. At a tractor and engine show a couple years ago they had a huge stationary engine on display. The thing ran a big generator or pumping station at one time. A V-12 I think, called a Hercules or a Goliath or an Atlas or a Mammoth or some similar name. They started this monster with a single car battery, attached to the starter on a Crosley engine. After the Crosley started there was a hand operated clucth which engaged it to turn over the big V-12. It probably took all 22 hp from the Crosley to spin it over too!
Thats Elwoods car it still looks the same not sure when the last time they ran it was but Iv seen it make a few pretty hairy trips down the strip.
I've always liked these on rails with zoomies protruding from the front wheelwells! Downright NASTY! I really like isettajohn's b/w pic!