In-line Four Trivia Question of the Week: 1. What did Powel Crosley call his refrigerator which was the first to offer storage shelves in the door? 2. One of the big pop hits for 1948 was the song ‘Buttons ‘n’ Bows’. Who sang this chart topper? 3. The Texaco Star Theater debuted on television on June 8, 1948. Who was the comedian who hosted this show? The show would later bear the name of this well known comedy man. 4. Who was the singer-song writer who wrote and performed the title song for the movie Footloose? He was born on January 7, 1948.

Answers to this week’s ‘In-line Four Trivia QuestionsTM may be found by visiting the FIN MAN’sTM web site at http://www.thefinman.com. You can e-mail The FIN MAN by clicking here: mailto://the_fin_man@msn.com.

Big three fans please bear with me. It’s the little guy’s turn. And I do mean “little”. The Crosley rode on an 80” wheelbase, measured roughly ten feet long and “wide track” it was not! To put it in perspective, if you looked down from the top at the footprint occupied by a 1958 Lincoln Continental (see last week’s story), you could place FOUR Crosleys in the same space! (Hey, we had a four car garage back in the fifties and didn’t even know it!) Now if you grew up around the time I did, most of your memories of Crosleys were when you’d see one sitting on the corner of a gas station with a “for sale” sign in the window. That’s because they usually didn’t work and couldn’t be fixed.

The Crosley was an odd looking car– stubby, narrow and with tiny little wheels and ‘kiddie car’ styling. The overall length was only 145 inches. Wheelbase just 80 inches and the 12 inch wheels wore 4.50x12 rubber. If you were to see one of these things in the parking lot at Holiday Hill, your first thought might be that the engine of the tiny tot train just derailed and landed next to your father’s Oldsmobile! Its black steering wheel resembled that of an Oliver tractor; a speedometer was centered in the middle of the three foot or so wide dash which had but two gauges, fuel and temp. That was it... no carpet, no leather, no window cranks (the side windows were sliders).

The Crosley saga began when 21 year old Powel Crosley from Cincinnati, Ohio, scraped together ten grand and ventured into car manufacturing. His first car was the 1907 Marathon Six, so named because it was powered by a six cylinder engine. Crosley struggled with a handful of projects over the next couple of decades but most of his success was in radio and appliance manufacturing, not automobiles which was his lifelong dream. His second generation autos, the Crosleys us baby boomers may be familiar with began in 1939. By 1949 sales were dropping faster than the “Comet” roller coaster on a warm summer night at the Forest Park Highlands. The year saw production of only 8,939 units a whopping 70% drop from the previous year. Crosley managed to hang on for only three more years and despite desperate attempts at salvation, including introduction of the nifty little “Hotshot” sports car, finally threw in the shop towel, ending the line in 1952.

Over the next three decades Crosley would make numerous attempts and subsequent failures at starting up a viable car manufacturing business. During this period, he held positions with a number of start up car manufacturers while dabbling with inventions and contraptions on the side. Despite his setbacks, Crosley became a huge success in business and a wealthy man indeed. His rise to success may have started with a simple request from his son of a radio for his birthday. Though he could well afford to buy one, Crosley looked at the market and found that all the offerings of the day were expensive. So, Powel Crosley came up with a simple crystal radio set that he could market for a mere twenty bucks. And that was only the beginning. In order for people to have something to listen to on their new radios, Crosley started WLW, “the nation’s station” in Cincinnati, broadcasting FDR’s Fireside Chats from it’s whopping 500,000 watt tower. Interested in broadening his programming choices, he bought the Cincinnati Reds baseball team! He eventually became the largest manufacturer of radios in the country, prompting many to refer to him as “the Henry Ford of radio”. Encouraged by his success in radio, Crosley ventured into the related field of home appliances and the name Crosley became a “household word” in refrigerators and other home appliances.

Model year 1948 was the most successful for Crosley with a production total of 26,334 units. WWII had come to an end just a little over a year ago and consumers were hungry for new cars. All manufacturers were scrambling to produce automobiles since being converted over to military production in 1942 and people were ready to plunk down the cash for just about anything with four wheels and an engine. Crosley body styles for 1948 included a six-passenger (!) (must have been little people), 2-door sedan; a 2-passenger, 2-door ‘sports utility’ (could this have been the first ‘SUV’??); 4-passenger, 2-door convertible and a 4-passenger, 2-door station wagon. A restyled grill and surrounding sheet metal was the styling highlight for the year. Prices ranged from $800.00 for the sports utility to $929.00 for the station wagon. This represents a range of $7,850 to $9,100.00 in 2008 dollars, which is darn near on the mark of what it would take to pick up a well restored Crosley today.

The buying process was greatly simplified by a scant options list which included a radio; antenna (wouldn’t you have to have that if you bought a radio???); seat covers and bumper guards. That was it. And, you’d better know how to handle a stick shift because automatics were not offered. Crosleys were powered by the ‘CoBra’ engine, a four cylinder mill with just forty-four inches of displacement and producing a whopping 26.5 horsepower at 5,400 rpms. (I couldn’t leave out that half horsepower. At this size, you need every half pony you can round up!) That displacement figure, by the way, equals .72 liters for the generation Xers in the crowd.

Crosley never lost his passion for cars however, and in 1939 he finally brought to market the car which would bear his name for the next thirteen years. Mechanical deficiencies plagued the little car year after year, despite Crosley’s attempts to improve the product. Production reached it’s zenith (oops, sorry Powel) in 1948 with 27,707 units being sold. His radios and appliances, however, continued to profit and to this day Crosley, although reorganized and under new ownership, is still marketing a full line of home appliances and radios, the latter of which is now mostly a nostalgic product, but successful nonetheless, appearing in many department stores and specialty retailers.

For more information on Crosley visit these informative web sites: The Crosley Auto Club at www.ggw.org/~cac/; motorera.com; autoswalk.com; thetinbox.com; crosleyradio.com. and crosley.com (appliances).

Join The FIN MAN as he makes a special guest appearance this Saturday night at Chuck-A-Burger at 3150 Elm Point Industrial Drive in St. Charles, Missouri. About 200 classic and custom cars are expected to attend the ‘Classics for a Cause’ car show which benefits research into juvenile diabetes. The car show will run from 3 PM until 8 PM. The evening includes live music by the oldies band SH-BOOM from 6:30 PM until 10:00 PM. For more information call 314-378-7469 or go to http://www.chuckaburger.com.

Bruce Kunz is available for your group’s special event and is currently booking dates for 2007 and 2008. During his appearances, he presents an overview of the collector car hobby plus a detailed look at American cars from the fifties and sixties. His program includes a Power Point presentation with images of collectible automobiles and various associated nostalgia and Americana. Guests also play “FINS for FUN,” the video car trivia game he produced in 1987, which inspired his nickname, The FIN MANTM. The players compete for auto related prizes donated by supporting Fin Man sponsors. For more information, click on this link: http://groups.msn.com/the-fin-man/seminaragenda.msnw.

Bruce Kunz is a member of the Society of Automotive Historians, the St. Louis Chapter of the Buick Club of America and the Monte Carlo Owners Association of America. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. To e-mail him, click here > mailto:the_fin_man@msn.com.