Wink, Booger & Crosley

Recently bought this 1948 snapshot of "Wink, Booger and Crosley" - with an annotation like that, how could I resist?

Scott Shultz 1943 - 2015

Scott Shultz was the very first Crosley guy I ever talked to.

2015 Orange Blossom Special - Fillmore Spring Meet

Back in the good old days (in this case the mid-eighties) shortly after the West Coast Crosley Club first got going, the powers that be decided to try having two club meets per year - the big meet in September, plus a smaller, more low key meet in the Spring.  Trouble was, there weren't that many members back then, so the Spring Meet never really caught on.  No one remembers exactly when they gave up, but sometime before 1990 we were back to one meet per year.

Twenty-five years later (more or less), we decided to try again.

Vintage Picture: Crosley Wagon and Toddlers

Sadly, no story with this one - just a great vintage photo of a Crosley wagon and two cute kids.  John McKnight found this on the HAMB and I thought it was too good not to share...

Hot Rod Pickup

Skimming through some of my back issues of Hot Rod Magazine I noticed this goo-gaw laden roundside pickup in the August 1951 issue.  The article is part of a series exploring America's speed shops - this particular Crosley was in the fleet belonging to the Hot Rod Shop of Detroit, Michigan.

Cruikshank the Crosley

"Cruikshank the Crosley" by Andrew McWhiney is probably the single best article about Crosley ownership ever written.  Originally published by Road and Track in their July 1952 issue, "Cruikshank" perfectly captured the absurdity, novelty and charm of Powell Crosley's pint-sized econobox; McWhiney's experiences still rang true when I read them nearly 50 years later.  Ironically, the article was published just about the time Crosley halted production.

Below are some high res scans of the whole original story, along with some other nuggets from the same issue...

Two Wheel Drive

Found this great shot of a Crosley pickup-driving auto daredevil on Flickr. Sadly there's no info other than the 1947 date, and I wonder about the accuracy of that date that given that this isn't a roundside. Could be a cut down wagon, I suppose.

Be warned! Flickr user coconv has thousands of other auto pictures posted on his site - you could lose a whole day in there if you're not careful...

American Pickers' Late '48 wagon

Guess what the American Pickers dudes found in Minnesota?  Believe it or not, that's the original paint!

Thanks to Doug Cottis for the Tip!

Midwest Drag Race Footage 1958-60

Spotted 2 (maybe 3) Crosley-bodied drag cars in this flick posted on my fave Hotrod site, the HAMB.  Great fun 8mm footage from the Jurassic era of straight line motorsport.  First up (about one minute in) is an early Crosley sedan body sitting inside a full size frame that's sporting some real pizza cutters. At about six and a half minutes is the monster above - sadly we don't see the run.  One of the very last cars in the film is a highly modified white coupe that looks to me like a VERY chopped Crosley sedan... like mailslot windshield chopped.  I'm not 100% sure it started out as a Crosley, but it sure looks like it. I also don't know what else it could be...  Whole show is about 10 minutes - well worth it if you're fond of mid fifties middle America - check it out!

Ebay Watch: Pick Your Pickup

Not one but TWO Crosley pickups are up for auction on Ebay right now, ending an hour apart from each other!  You've got your choice of a nice runner (albeit featuring some unorthodox resto choices) or a 'some assembly required' car...

Vintage Picture: Kid and a Crosley

Today we've got a great vintage pic of a kid checking out the air conditioning on a CC (1946, '47 or '48) Sedan.  Sharp-eyed Cros fans will note that the car has the rare in dash radio, which makes sense since it's also sporting an antenna.  Crosley nut Doug Cottis bought the pic off Ebay and posted it in his 'Crosley Automobiles...  Fun Little Cars' Group on Facebook and gave me permission to share.

Thanks Doug!

Pickin' Up a Pickup, Part I

Last month I ran across a note on the Crosley Gang yahoo group that a Crosley pickup outside of Salt Lake City had been listed for sale on a local classified website.  There was a link to the ad, which could have been used as the 'before' example in a "how not to sell your car" tutorial.  There were photos, but they were small, fuzzy and taken from angles that made it impossible to tell what kind of condition the car was in, other than that it was rust/primer color and missing the headlights.  The text said it was a 1948 Crosley truck - and not much else.  Unsurprisingly, the car had been for sale for months.

Another West Coast Crosley Meet Done and Gone!

Got back last night from the annual West Coast Crosley Club meet in Buellton, California.  I'm sunburned, sleep-deprived and - as always - STOKED.  I look forward to this meet all year.  It's a chance to catch up with friends I haven't seen since the last meet, and of course I love looking at all the Crosley junk that shows up, from restored cars to rare ephemera to parts for sale.   I forgot to book a room at Pea Soup Andersons (the official hotel) so when I arrived on Friday night I ended up at the slightly skanky Country Lane Motel right next door. 

I hustled over to Andersons for the Friday night get together as soon as I got in.  This year was a little different... for one thing, there were SO MANY new people!  It was great to meet the dozen-plus folks that had never been to a meet before.  Some of them came in response to the membership drive we'd had earlier in the year, and some just happened to come out for the first time this year.  One way or the other, it was great to see all the new faces.

I got a bit of a surprise when I opened the door to the motel at 7AM- rain!  It doesn't rain much in California this time of year, but we got some sprinkles Saturday morning.  Gary Loomer's pickup was already in the park, soaked.  I joked that it probably hadn't seen rain in a long time and Gary said, "not since I've had it, at least."  It was overcast most of the day, but the rain was done by 10AM.

There was plenty of stuff in the swap meet including about a dozen engines for sale.  Of course I loaded up on Crosley gunk- I found an extra set of doors for my Super Sport, some NOS tires (ten bucks each!), a vintage clock radio and a forged steel crank that looked (and micrometered) like new.

I was a little bummed that the number of cars was down - I think there were 11 total.  It didn't help that four cars that are always at the meet were no shows this year: Dave Brodsky blew the engine in his convertible the day before the meet, Lee Osborn hadn't quite recovered from reassembling his '55 special after blowing the clutch (and nearly losing the tranny) at Monterey, The axle failed on Mike Bainter's tow vehicle just before the meet (he had to rent a car just to get there himself), and last, Ardell Johnson just wasn't up to the drive all the way from Oregon- this is the FIRST meet he's missed in 26 years.

If there weren't as many cars this year as usual, the ones that were there were nice.  Continuing the trend I've noticed over the past few years, the quality of the restorations is going way up.  The cars at this year's meet were undoubtedly some of the nicest Crosleys in the country, and Hemmings mag star Ron Bauman continues to lead the way.  This time he brought a very nice roundside pickup, making for three pickups at the meet!

On the other end of the pickup spectrum was my contribution to the meet.  I brought a very rough, partially complete, total hillbilly-mobile.  All it needed was a Joad in the driver's seat to complete the picture.  Liv and I had picked this up outside of Salt Lake City just last weekend, meaning that it had covered about 1000 miles in the past 7 days.  I'll detail the story of that trip in another post, but the short version is that I got it home, went through my parts stash and made it as complete as I could before it went to Buellton.  I found most of the rest of the missing parts in Buellton and added them to the load in the back of the truck.  It was for sale, but nobody bit.

Another thing that was 'new' this year was the tour to Solvang.  We usually have a funkana - a silly driving-skills test - in the parking lot, but this time we went back to an old idea: a trip.   After lunch a whole herd of Crosleys roared off to Solvang, about 10 miles away for an hour or so.  I ended up missing the trip, but everyone had a great time, and the cars ran well.  Kudos to the Dunners who led the way in their nice Hotshot.  Next year I plan to be driving MY car in the pack!

When the troops got back we held the much-improved Crosley raffle.  People donated some amazing stuff, including a complete set of new Crosley hubcaps- worth about $300!  I won a vintage model kit, still in the shrink wrap, and a FarmoRoad manual.

After the raffle we milled around checking out the cars.  There were quite a few that I'd never seen before.  This CC 'vert used to belong to Dave 'Slo-Cal Special' Wheeler, but the new owner had rodded it to the extreme.  He drove it in but I don't think he drove it on the tour to Solvang.  That would have rattled some windows!

Another 'car' that didn't go on the tour was this beautiful rolling chassis.  Owner Bob King JUST got into Crosleys last year... he jumped in with both feet, buying three in one day!  This should be installed under a car soon and will be a nice complement to the CD wagon Bob DID take to Solvang.  Sounds like he's done more Crosleying in the past year than I've done in the past five.

That was the story of a lot of the new folks: work work work.  The couple who inherited the 'garage find' Crosley I wrote about last year have it nearly finished.  The Browns have done an incredible frame-off mild custom, and it's probably only a couple of months away from being done.  The pictures they brought showed the progress and it was amazing to see the transformation - I can't wait to see it at the next meet.  They had a fun time at the meet and heartily agreed that Crosley folks are super.

Another example of new Crosley work was Gary Cochrane's Super Sport.  He'd recently completed a resto-mod on his car, converting it to a Datsun-powered automatic so his wife Jan could also drive it.  The conversion was very cleanly done, and that dark paint showed off the outstanding bodywork.  Unfortunately Gary got a bug and took off early, so I never got a ride.

I also missed a ride in Mike and Robin Stoner's FOR which had a freshly rebuilt engine.  They drive this thing everywhere, so I'm not surprised that they wore a motor out.  This time they had the motor built by Bonneville daredevils the Liebherrs, so I suspect it'll go a long time.

After we closed up the meet we got together for the banquet/business meeting at the Firestone taproom.  We ate til we couldn't move and Mike Bainter announced the results of the People's Choice Awards.  It was no surprise that a freshly-finished Skorpion from San Jose took the Best of.  Incredibly, the owner had started this project FIFTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, and completed it this year!

He was genuinely stunned when he won, but there was no question he deserved it.   The car - and the story - were absolutely incredible.  There was a bit of discussion about the Bob Carson Award; Dave and Aileen Brodsky were nominated for blowing the motor in their car the day before the meet, and I nominated the couple who had come all the way from Seattle (not in a Crosley, mind you) to see the meet.  I was also nominated for hauling the tetanus pickup out from Salt Lake City, but as I said at the meet, 'No problems!'  In the end, the Brodskys took home the gold.

The next morning we all met up for breakfast and then we were homeward bound.  As always, I started thinking about the next year's meet before I'm out of the hotel parking lot on the way home... Can't wait!

2010 West Coast Crosley Club Meet

 

The 2010 West Coast Crosley Club Meet has come and gone.  The meet was last weekend (September 11-12) in Buellton, just north of Santa Barbara.  We had about a dozen cars show up this year.  That's a bit low for turnout, but the members more than made up for it with quality- the Crosleys on hand included some of the nicest cars in the country. 

Heading that list was the latest issue from club treasurer Ronnie Bauman's garage: an immaculate 1947 coupe.  Bauman has taken the Crosley resto-biz up at least a couple notches with a series of incredible builds. He always starts with solid cars (cars that most would consider 'finished'!) and then makes everything better than new.  He'll spend more on paint and body than most people would have into the entire restoration, and the engines are always fully dressed with period speed equipment.   

 

The end results are stunning.  He's decided that this one had to go up for sale - this is the kind of car I could see going for ridiculous $ at Barrett Jackson.

 

Another car that was new to the meet was Charles Latty's two-tone CC.  Latty lives in tiny Pacific Grove, California- also home to founding club member Mike Bainter.. meaning that Pacific Grove probably has more Crosleys per capita than any city in the state! 

 

Not new to the meet, but still a fresh sight, Fred and Robin Dunner finished a beautiful resto of the Hot Shot they picked up at last year's meet.  The car was nice, if a little tired, when they bought it- now it looks brand new.  The long straight sides on the roadsters can be very wavy... but not on this one.  They kept the clean, custom filled-seam look that the car has had for most of its life.

I contributed another rarely-seen, if not so minty, car to the gathering.  I ended up buying a 'parts' Super Sport at the Sacramento meet a few years ago when Ed Scanlan made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  I already had a '51 SS in boxes and I thought that having one to reference wouldn't be a bad idea since it'd been nearly a decade since I took the other one apart.  truth is that I haven't done anything but move this thing around since I bought it, so I knew it needed to go.  I also realized that I had spares of a lot of the parts that were missing when I bought it, so I added an engine, transmission, radiator, etc to make it an almost complete car.  Apparently I priced it just right because it sold before I even got it off the trailer!

There were plenty of other great cars- Mike and Nancy Bainter brought their 4000 original mile '51 coupe - it looks, runs and drives pretty much like new!  I remember when this car went up for sale about 6 years ago - I thought momentarily about buying it, but immediately realized that it had to go to someone with a better garage than me.  Mike keeps this baby in a fully-climate controlled environment! 

Mike and Robin Stoner brought their funkana-dominating Farm O Road, but had some low-power issues this time out.  The collected Crosley brain trust tinkered with the timing, but no immediate solution appeared.  Even engine guru Lee Osborn (in the passenger seat) was at a loss.  Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like the F-o-R smoked even more than usual, so it may be time for new motor. I asked Mike about it and he doesn't remember where he got the motor that's been in it all these years- just that he dropped it in, fired it up, and off they went!

The West Coast Club has an active racing contingent, including Osborn.  As usual, he brought his 1955 Shannon Special, the same car with which he's been eating Porsches and, lately, even a Jaguar C Type!  I've been trying to catch one of Lee's races for 5 years and I've still never seen him on the track!  I've already got my calendar checked for the Hmod reunion race on October 2, so i'll finally get to see this car in action!

Kip Fjeld and Don Baldocchi will also be running at the Hmod reunion, Kip with the Miller special pictured here, Don with the '53 Nardi he's been tearing up tracks with for a couple of decades.  Kip inherited this car from Hmod great Joe Puckett who got Kip into racing when he was still a teenager!  Kip also scored the buy of the day, picking up an NOS steel stroker crank for probably less than a standard steel crank would go for!
 I didn't get any good pics of the swap meet area- but there was more stuff for sale this year than at any meet I've been to.  You can see incoming club pres Rick Alexander picking up some Crosley magazines from retiring president David Brodsky.  David also sold off a big batch of hop up stuff including the Braje pan, cam cover and exhaust manifold you can see on the table.  Rick brought a Uhaul trailer full of stuff including an intact tin block motor assembly along with a mountain of other stuff.  I picked up an extra speedo, some magazines and a neat license place topper from a Minnesota Crosley dealership!

And beyond the actual swap meet vendors, we had several folks show up with motors! Don Rausch showed up with a truckbed full of V Drive and generator motors (pictured above with Ronnie Bauman), and a young microcar collector from LA yanked ANOTHER V Drive motor out of his trunk a few minutes later!  I'd never seen a V drive motor until Saturday and suddenly I'm looking at three of them!

Longtime club member Gary Loomer brought a matched Crofton and Cushman. he's trying to break up the set- the Datsun-powered Crofton is currently for sale.  if you think a Datsun powered Crofton is unusual, that's nothing... Gary used to have the world's only racing Skorpion!

When the time came for the Funkana, Pat Askren let me be the co pilot in his very-correct CC sedan.  We were fighting a wounded clutch but still managed to take second place!

over half the cars at the meet ran in the Funkana, and the post-competition photo underscores what a nice batch of cars were there.  

Since the meet is so close to Santa Barbara, my sister and her family drove the 45 minutes up for a visit.  I don't get to visit them all that often, so it was a real treat!  best of all was the chance to meet my new grand nephew Cash!  Here he is risking tetanus in my Super Sport.

After the meet I loaded the SS back up (the new owner wanted to pick it up from my house later) and I got a good round of heckling over my trailer.  Yes, its a tiny, rickety POS, but I still managed to haul Frank Bell's wagon all over creation on it last year, and the SS parts car was very secure this year.  Hey, what do you want from a $50 trailer?  
They're just jealous. 
It just so happens that the light is about perfect when we get together for the club Banquet.  I'm usually the last one seated because I'm out shooting pics of all the cars at 'magic hour.'  Above is the 4000 mile coupe.

This is Ardell Johnson's incredible CD wagon.  That interior is original from the factory.. he just touched up the seats with vinyl paint about 20 years ago.  We had a great conversation at dinner about legendary Crosley racer Harry Eyerly who was from Ardell's home town, Salem, Oregon.

 
Here's longtime club member Gary Cochrane's sweet convert.  That custom wood job has been on the car since at least 1956!Just as I was finishing up my shots I noticed other people taking pictures too... and then I realized that one of them had hopped into David Brosky's 'vert to pose for her boyfriend!  This really underscores how differently people perceive Crosleys... can you imagine a stranger hopping into any other restored vintage car and not thinking they were going to get a punch in the snoot?!

The banquet was fun as always, even though we ended on a bit of melancholy note... David Brodsky founded the West Coast club over 25 years ago, and has been elected and reelected President ever since.  He announced that he wanted to step down a couple of years ago and he made it official on Saturday.  He and his wife Aileen have done an amazing job of keeping the club going - and fun - for more than a quarter of a century.  I'm sure Rick Alexander and Ronnie Bauman will do a great job, but it will be strange to think of David not being at the head of the table.  The Crosley Club is one of the only organizations I've ever belonged to, and is by far the one I'm most attached to. Much of that is thanks to David and Aileen, and I can't thank them enough for everything.

At dinner Shirley Bell reminded me that she had brought some of her late husband Frank's Crosley t shirts for me- we're about the same size and she thought I might like them.  That was really sweet, and I'm honored to fly the flag - I honestly can't remember seeing Frank wearing a t shirt that didn't have a Crosley logo on it!  After the dinner I had a beer with Rick Alexander and former TBT designer Mike Blackburn who offered me the spare bed in his hotel room.  I had spent Friday night cuddling with the Crosley motor in the back of the pickup, so a bed and a shower sounded pretty darn good.  And the next day he absolutely refused to let me chip in for the room.

As always: Crosley people; they're the best.