The Beginning of a Mystery, Part II

When I first saw photos tagged with the line ‘Help identify this Mystery HMod,’ on the Hmod yahoo group, I immediately thought: Crosley Special. Even though the car was reputed to have last been run with a Renault engine, the scale and style of it screamed Crosley. That’s one thing about dealing with cars that are only 4 feet wide— there aren’t many other cars that match their specs.

The car looked pretty rough. The fiberglass body had surprisingly little damage for a race car, but a mammoth okie hoodscoop had ruined the hood and an odd setback in the dash around the steering looked like an ill advised later modification. Many parts, including the engine and transmission, appeared to be missing. Prominent ‘DSR’ decals (D Sports Racing, the late sixties successor to the then defunct H Modified Class) indicated that the car was being set up for the track at some point after the mid sixties.

Despite the flaws, I was fascinated. Especially intriguing was the frame: a handbuilt tube ladder assembly that would have been woefully out of date by 1960 or so, indicating an early to mid-fifties build, matching the D-Type jag style body. Another point of interest was the rear end—a Halibrand-like quick change mated to what appeared to be a Crosley rear axle. And it was hard to tell from the pics, but the axles appeared to connect to tiny finned aluminum brake drums.

An old racer named Carl Kapp had posted the car on the site to help the widow of a friend find a buyer for her late husband’s derelict race car. It had been sitting, partially disassembled, since at least 1973, and hadn’t been driven since sometime in the sixties. Kapp’s friend, a Chicago racing enthusiast named Leo Lowy, had owned the car since at least the mid sixties when Kapp met him. It wasn’t running even back then. Lowy and Kapp both ended up in California a decade later, Lowy with the car in tow. He died in 2002 and his widow told Kapp that the car had never been out of storage since they’d moved to Cupertino in 1973.

I called Lowy’s widow and made arrangements to see the car. David Brodsky, president of the West Coast Crosley Club and and onetime owner of several Hmods, agreed to meet us since he lived close to the car. I know quite a bit about stock Crosleys, but my knowledge of sportscars, especially homebuilts is pretty spotty, so I was really glad to have his expertise.

The car was pretty much as indicated in Ms. Lowy’s photos. I took measurements at the wheels, and the car turned out to have the same wheelbase/track as a Crosley Hotshot, supporting the idea that the car had Crosley origins. The front axle was late Crosley as was the steering, and the rear axle appeared to be from a Crosley roadster. Some parts- the wheels, belly pan and plumbing, actually looked better than they had in the pictures.

I asked about the many missing parts, and was told that some might be in the garage. Since it was filled floor to ceiling with storage boxes, car parts and home remodeling projects, I could barely get in the door. With my flashlight I could make out some car stuff on and under a workbench. As I squeezed in as far as I could, I spotted what i assumed was the Renault engine on the back floor and what appeared to be a way-too-big transmission under the bench. Moving what I could get to on the workbench, I found a tub containing a wiring harness-- topped with a gauge cluster. Two still-taped-for-racing foglights rested nearby. I started to get really excited, realizing that most of the missing parts were probably buried somewhere. The thing that really concerned me was the driveshaft- there didn't appear to be any spot in the garage long enough to accommodate one-- and this would have had to have been specially designed for the car.

It was getting dark and Ms. Lowy was ready for us to go. I asked her if she had decided on a price, and she said that she was going to consult with Carl Kapp once people had made offers. I told her that I’d talk to him about the parts I’d seen and send him the photos so that he could use them to figure out a fair price—and that I’d like to buy the car if I could afford it.

As we walked down the driveway I asked David Brodsky what he thought.

“Whole lotta work- that’s a big project.”

Fair enough. He's restored everything from Crosleys to Allards, so he oughtta know. I asked what he thought it might be worth.

“Well… honestly?... I wouldn’t take it if you gave it me.”

We both laughed, for different reasons, I’m sure.

More to come...
BACK

The Beginning of a Mystery

I read an online bulletin board about vintage H Modified racecars pretty much every day.   'H Modified' was the racing class designation (500 - 750 cc) that most Crosley-powered sports cars fell into back in the fifties, when racing a Crosley was something much more common than one might suspect.  The Crosley Hotshot and Super Sports models were aimed at the emerging US sports car market, and, despite flaws, did pretty well when first introduced.  A bone stock Crosley Hotshot won the very first internationally sanctioned US sports car race-- the 1950 Sebring Race-- and set in motion the dreams of thousands of American sports car fans who suddenly found a true sports car that was within reach of their finances.  

That moment when a stock Crosley Hotshot was actually competitive on the track lasted all of about ten minutes.  Before long, racers were dumping that heavy steel body in favor of a handmade fiberglass or aluminum one, adding extra carburetors and bigger wheels, and doing everything allowed in the SCCA rulebooks, and then some.  By the mid fifties, homebuilt Crosley 'specials' dominated the H Mod class, wiping up the track with the smallbore Euro machines that they were competing against.   The mid fifties was the heyday of the Crosley homebuilt, with geniuses like Harry Eyerly racking up win after win, often against cars with twice the engine displacement!  Eyerly didn't earn the nickname the Porsche Duster for nothing! 

Successful backyard specials (of all kinds, not just Crosleys) were very common in Class H racing all the way up into the early sixties when racing became much more professionalized. By that time high end small displacement racers like the Osca were making even the best homebuilts obsolete, and many one-time trophy-winning cars were stuck in barns, backyards, garages or junkyards because their value as competition cars was nil.

The H Mod bulletin board I frequent is populated by people who never lost their love for those tiny underhorsed racers of yore.  Some posters were active racers back in the fifties, and are eager to share their knowledge and their memories.  A larger group of posters restore old sportscars and race vintage H Modified cars in historic auto racing events.  I pretty much listen and stay out of the way.  The knowledge that floats by in any given week is astonishing-- absolutely valueless to 99.99% of even the auto-enthusiast world, but absolutely essential to people who are trying to learn as much as possible about these tiny bolides.

As I was lurking last March, a very interesting post showed up with the header, 'Can anyone identify this car?'  A guy was trying to help the widow of an old friend sell a vintage Renault racecar project that had been lingering since at least 1973.  There was a link to a few tantalizing photos and a line that the car had originally been built with a Crosley sheet metal engine....

more to come...