This Stripped 1940s Crosley Body Holds Both History And Project Potential - David Conwill

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Talk about tempting. This 1946, ’47 or ’48 (I didn’t check the body serial number) Crosley Series CC sedan or Sport Utility body, with an asking price of just $650, looked like it would be so easy to put back together. That’s especially true if you know about Crosleys and just how inexpensive they are to own and enjoy. They’ve got a dedicated group of enthusiasts around them, so parts and knowledge abound.

TO RESTORE OR TO MODIFY?

Which is not to say that reassembling any car from a bare shell is easy, per se. It’s a lot of parts finding, diagram studying, and typically far more expense than simply buying a running, driving car to enjoy. You’d have to be after the sheer sense of accomplishment that comes with building a car from the ground up. It seems likely that when this body sees the road again, it will be in some modified form. Even a purist would probably include some upgrades from the Crosley parts bin if resurrecting this clean body in something close to factory trim.

CROSLEY RACE CARS

Because Crosleys were among the smallest and lightest cars of their era, they enjoyed being in vogue as race-car bodies in the ’60s and are thus in some demand among those seeking to relive those days with tribute builds. At the 2023 Charlotte AutoFair, where I spotted this one, it was surrounded by 1950s and ’60s V-8 parts and four-speed transmissions. Also, nobody is allowed to write about Crosley cars without noting that even Crosley-powered Crosleys had technical, if not sales, success as an American version of a British sports car, with a 1949 Hotshot winning the first race at Sebring.

CROSLEY ECONOMY CARS

As-built, Crosley cars were intended to be extremely thrifty and inexpensive: 30 to 50 mpg was reported in the mid-’40s. Their size made them perfect as a kind of in-town runabout to utilize as a second car or in addition to the train, bus, and trolley. Before World War II, the earliest Crosley cars used air-cooled, two-cylinder engines. Postwar cars used a series of liquid-cooled four-cylinder engines, first of copper-brazed sheetmetal construction and later (1949-’52) in cast-iron form. The best-selling era for Crosley was immediately after the war, when bigger cars had long waiting lists, and many of these ’46-’48 cars had the iron engines retrofit when nearly new. The spartan nature of the Crosley passenger cars meant steadily diminishing sales as the economy heated up in the ’50s.

CROSLEYS TODAY

Though forgotten by most non-enthusiasts, a stock Crosley comes off as very cute and even kitschy today, meaning they’re occasionally taken as alternatives to things like an original Fiat 500. The Jeep-esque Crosley Farm-O-Road could easily be mistaken for a 1960s Mini Moke. Wagons are the most desired of the conventional cars, with the Hotshot and Super Sports roadster models being the top of the heap. Even a sedan like this, though, would have enormous presence anywhere it went.