Historic Car Brands
Crosley
Crosley was a small, independent manufacturer of equally small economy cars in the USA, between 1939 and 1952, and was responsible for the introduction of the USA’s first series-production overhead-camshaft small car and the first with four-wheel disc brakes.
Powel Crosley Jr, circa 1940 – Herb Heise
The Crosley Motors story started back in 1900, when 15-year old Powel Crosley, Jr bet his dad US$10 that he could build a car able to travel an entire city block. Powel borrowed some money from his finance-savvier younger brother and built a battery-powered conveyance that Lewis drove the prescribed distance.
On that basis, high-school-graduate Powel received orders and set up a company, but then the 1907 financial panic hit – a precursor to the 1929 crash – and that was the end of the Marathon Car Company.
Powel moved to Indianapolis and worked for a large Dayton-Stoddard dealership owned by Carl Fisher, one of the backers of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He then had another crack at car-making, with the two-seat De Cross Cy-Car, but that went nowhere.
Family responsibilities dictated a more stable income stream and Powel and Lewis found that in automotive accessories, including an internal tyre sleeve to reduce punctures; a self-vulcanising tyre patch; return-to-centre steering mechanism and a fuel additive.
The Crosley boys made a lot of money and looked around for other pursuits. Powel reckoned he could make phonographs and radios much more cheaply than available products and soon proved it, when the Crosley Radio Corporation became the largest radio maker in the world. Then came fridges and HV’s Allan Whiting can remember when the Crosley Shelvador fridge arrived at the Sydney house back in the 1950s.
It wasn’t all success, however and forays into aircraft, cameras and furnaces went nowhere. Also, Powel still nursed the dream of making cars and his inspiration was his Austin Seven.
The Crosley boys were now running a public company and Powel couldn’t really justify to shareholders the necessary investment to set up small-car manufacturing, so he used his own money to fund Crosley Motors. However, engineer brother, Lewis, designed its assembly plants.
The prototype of the Crosley car was the 1937 CRAD (Crosley Radio Auto Division) and on 28th April, 1939, the first Crosley production car debuted at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to mixed reviews.
This two-door, two-seat convertible that weighed around 440kg was offered at US$325 or US$350 for a four-seater. The Crosley cars were cheaper than the American Austin Car Company’s American Bantam, which sold for US$449 to US$565.
1939 Crosley Convertible – Dave7
Crosley did not need traditional car dealers to sell his cars, because he already had a network of 25,000 appliance retailers. The little cars were rolled through the store doors and placed in the showroom, next to Shelvador refrigerators and Magna-tune radios!
The car’s ladder-frame chassis had an 80-inch (2,032 mm) wheelbase and used beam axles with semi-elliptic springs in front and quarter-elliptic springs on the drive axle.
Under the bonnet, a 15-litre gravity-fed fuel tank was mounted above an air-cooled, 12bhp Waukesha two-cylinder ‘boxer’ engine that closely resembled the Citroen 2CV’s and had a fan integrated into the flywheel.
The engine was connected via a three-speed transmission and torque tube to the rear axle, but this layout gave some in-service trouble, so an open prop shaft with universal joints were fitted from 1941.
Production for 1939 was 2017 units, but only 422 cars were built in 1940, so perhaps the novelty had worn off.
For 1941 came a station wagon; two panel vans; a pick-up truck and a ‘Covered Wagon’ model that could convert into a truck by means of a removable back seat and detachable soft-top over the rear section.
Crosley built nearly 2300 cars in 1941. When the company introduced its first metal-topped model, the ‘Liberty Sedan’, for 1942, pricing across the model range was US$299 to US$450.
War clouds had burst by early 1942 and further Crosley production was stopped, with 5757 produced since the original launch.
Crosley’s War production switched to making radio-controlled proximity fuses for US artillery shells, using its considerable radio manufacturing expertise.
Crosley also made radio transceivers, field kitchens, quarter-ton trailers and powered gun turrets for PT boats and B-24 and B-29 bombers.
Crosley also produced experimental vehicles during the War, including motorcycles, tricycles, four-wheel-drive light utility vehicles, a self-propelled gun and continuous track vehicles – all powered by the two-cylinder engines that Crosley had in stock.
One vehicle prototype was the 1942–1943 Crosley CT-3 ‘Pup’ four-wheel-drive that was air-transportable and chute-droppable from a C-47 Skytrain. Seven of 36 Pups built survived into the 21st century.
Four-cylinder upgrade
One product that Crosley made during WWII was a specialised 725cc, four-cylinder, 26.5bhp OHC engine that had been developed by Taylor Engines in California, as an auxiliary powerplant to run equipment in PT boats and B-17 bombers.
Its design criteria had prioritised fuel efficiency, light weight and compact size.
Weight reduction was accomplished by using sheet steel for the integrated head and block, rather than cast iron, in conjunction with an aluminium crankcase. Another reason for using sheet steel was eliminating the varying thickness of head and block coolant passages, before the modern era of thin-wall casting. In high-output cast-iron engines those thickness variations contributed to combustion chamber ‘hot spots’ that caused engine pre-ignition.
Knowing that ‘knock’ wouldn’t be an issue, Taylor Engines was able to use a relatively high 7.5:1 compression ratio and precise overhead camshaft valve control to achieve what was then a very high output from a small 60kg engine. The camshaft was driven by a vertical shaft, with upper and lower bevel gears, from the crankshaft.
Powel Crosley saw this engine as a more powerful powerplant for his post-War cars, but Lewis wasn’t so sure. A compromise of its sheet steel construction was the need to copper-braze the components into a monobloc structure – hence its military designation COBRA (copper-brazed). Lewis could see potential electrolytic problems when that bimetallic engine didn’t get the strict coolant maintenance regime it received in military service.
Regardless of Lewis’ warnings, Powel implemented the COBRA engine into the plans for his post-war car models that retained the existing chassis, suspension, brakes and drive-train.
1948 Crosley Convertible – Hyman Ltd
New-look, larger bodywork was designed by the firm of Sundberg & Ferar of Royal Oak, Michigan. These guys had worked at General Motors in the 1930s, under the genius eye of Harley Earl, before deciding to set up their own design company that still operated into the 21st century.
Unfortunately, Earl’s talent for drawing automotive lines didn’t carbon-copy to Sundberg & Ferar and the new, upsized Crosley CC cars weren’t much more attractive than their pre-War predecessors, despite having clean-sheet-of-paper designs that featured the slab-sided ‘ponton’ styling that all makers adopted post-War.
1950 Crosley CD pickup – Mr Choppers
The new engine’s power output was more than doubled, thus improving performance, with a claimed cruising speed of 50mph (80km/h), but with fuel economy remaining at an excellent 35–50 miles per US gallon (6.7–4.7L/100 km, or 42–60 Imperial mpg‑).
Powel and Lewis sold their shareholdings in the Crosley business empire and Powel tipped his fortune into Crosley Motors. Lewis didn’t invest, but continued consulting to the car company.
Unfortunately, Crosly production was hamstrung by the USA’s post-War bureaucracy that determined the allocation of steel, rubber and other automotive components in line with pre-War production numbers. That suited the Big Three, but knobbled Crosley’s potential. Powel argued that his economical post-War cars should receive preferential treatment, but no-one listened and Crosley production was capped at 5000 cars for 1946.
The CC range consisted of a two-door sedan and a convertible with fixed side windows, followed by a pick-up and a 1947 station wagon. In 1948 came a panel van with a side door and a ‘doorless’ convertible, with bodywork cut-outs for entry.
In 1948, the station wagon outsold its siblings, clocking up 23,489 buyers.
Magazine road test reports were generally favourable, citing ample legroom for six-footers and adequate performance, with real-world cruising speeds around 40mp/h.
Although business was brisk, a serious problem dogged the Crosley COBRA engine, just as Lewis had predicted. Many owners suffered engine failures, caused by electrolytic action within engines that had incorrect coolant cocktails. Warranty costs were mounting and Crosley’s reputation was sinking.
In late 1948, Crosley replaced the CC with the 1949 model year CD. Front bodywork was redesigned, but much more importanly, the COBRA monobloc head/block was replaced by a slightly heavier cast iron monobloc structure that was christened ‘CIBA’ (cast iron block assembly). It was instantly more reliable, but much repetitional damage had already been done, as 1949 sales of only 7400 Crosleys confirmed.
In the late 1940s, Crosley was facing another problem, because there was now a glut of cheap, used cars in the US market, as progressively more affluent buyers traded their pre-War or early post-War larger cars for new, ‘chrome-blitzed’ ones. There were many full-sized cars in the used market that were cheaper than the tiny Crosleys and offered much more performance.
1949 Crosley Station Wagon – Automobile Driving Museum – Daderot
Model upgrades were introduced, so for 1949 there were Standard and Deluxe models, and 1950 models scored roll-down windows and electric wipers were offered. As well, mid-1949 models were fitted with four-wheel Goodyear-Hawley aircraft-type disc brakes, but proved corrosion-prone in salted-road regions and were replaced by drums in mid-1950.
For 1951 the front was again redesigned and Deluxe and Super models reflected general improvements.
Enter the Hot Shot
Bonhams
To broaden its narrowing market appeal, Crosley introduced the doorless Hot Shot sports car in 1949, with bodywork that obviously inspired the much later Austin Healy Sprite, ‘bug-eyed’ sports car.
The Hot Shot used a modified, dropped frame and 130mm-longer wheelbase. The rear suspension used a combination of coil springs and single-leaf, quarter-elliptic leaf-springs that doubled as torque-rods, and the car had disc brakes on all four wheels.
Bonhams
The CIBA engine was moved behind the front axle, for improved weight distribution. The Hot Shot weighed just 497kg, but in stripped-out racing trim, only 450kg and capable of 80mph.
A Super version of the Hot Shot was added in 1950, featuring solid hinged doors and a fold-down top that didn’t have to be stowed. For 1951 and 1952 it was renamed the Super Sports.
Powel Crosley loved racing, so hot-rodded Hot Shots soon flowed from the factory and from after-market suppliers. Kits included higher-compression pistons, hot cams, Amal twin-carbs and a Roots blower that took power to around 60bhp.
The engine could easily be bored out to 750cc, to take advantage of US and European racing regulations.
Bonhams
A Hotshot won the Sam Collier Memorial Endurance Grand Prix and the ‘index of performance’ award that took speed and engine size into account, at the 1950 Six Hours of Sebring. Incidentally, the Sebring car was a last-minute entry that had no race preparation.
Throughout the 1950s, Crosley engines dominated 750cc sports car racing, winning 10 out of 12 SCCA west-coast races.
A Super Sport won the Grand Pix de la Suisse in 1951. A few weeks later, another placed second in the Tokyo Grand Prix, where its appearance and performance obviously wasn’t lost on Soichiro Honda, whose first car was the 1963 feather-weight Honda S500 roadster.
1951 Crosley le Mans special – BaT
A Crosley nicknamed Le Biplace Torpedo was doing well in the 1951 Le Mans, until its generator packed up.
The Europeans were quick to capitalise on the CIBA engine’s strengths and single and double overhead camshaft (DOHC) designs powered Bandini 750 sport Internazionale race cars, as well as the Nardi 750LM and Siata Amica.
Off road effort
Another effort to widen the appeal of the lightweight Crosley chassis and powertrain appeared in 1950 when Crosley brought out the Farm-O-Road, 1.60-metre wheelbase, 500kg-tare utility vehicle. This compact mini-tractor preceded the whole ATV brigade by decades.
Crosley had already gained experience in this type of machine, having produced different products for the War effort, including the ‘Pup’ 4×4 prototypes.
The Farm-O-Road was intended for rural customers who wanted a vehicle for doing chores around the farm, but which could also take them into town at a top speed of around 40mph.
Crosley Farm-O-Road – John Lloyd
The Farm-O-Road was powered by the CIBA engine as the other Crosley models at the time, mated to a three-speed Warner T-92 transmission with a two-ratio, PTO-capable range box mounted behind it. In addition to normal gearing was optional 4:1 deep reduction.The base price was US$795, or US$939 with a hydraulic system to operate farm equipment and implements.
Options included dual rear wheels, a detachable pickup bed, hydraulic dumper body, power take-offs front and rear, a rear seat, a soft-top and side window curtains, and an extensive range of farm-implement attachments was available.
Crosley offered steel front snow skis that could be strapped to the front tires, to convert the Farm-O-Road into a snowmobile!
Exact production numbers aren’t known, but historians with the Crosley Automobile Club estimate fewer than 600 Farm-O-Roads were built.
Later, Crofton Marine Engineering bought the rights and tooling for the rig and put it back into production from 1959-63 as the Crofton Bug, but sold fewer than 300 of them.
The end
Bonhams
Despite their economy and innovation, the Crosley models were simply born in the wrong country. They succeeded at first because they fitted well with a post-Great Depression economy and then a deprived post-WWII economy, but North America’s love of larger cars soon ostracised these tiny machines.
Had this concept been introduced in Europe, Crosley may well have experienced a different scenario.
The raw sales figures show why Crosley shut its doors in 1952. Post-war production began with 5000 capped vehicles in 1946; climbed to more than 22,500 cars in 1947 and peaked around 27,000 in 1948. Sales crashed to 8939 units in 1949; 7612 in 1950; 4839 units in 1951 and only 1522 in 1952, before production ended on 3rd July, 1952. Crosley had sold around 84,000 cars in total.
Crosley continued building engines for a short while to fulfil a government contract, under the brand name of AeroJet, until production ended in 1955, after which the engine rights were sold to Fageol and later to a series of different companies, ending in 1972 with the Fisher-Pierce Bearcat 55 outboard motor that saw the CIBA vertically mounted.
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