October 2022

Nothing short of a global pandemic or a hurricane can stop Meldon Van Riper Stultz III (best known to everyone as “Mel”) from throwing one of the coolest hot rod parties there is, but those things can and do occasionally happen. The news broke Friday morning, as I was headed down to get reacquainted with the gow job and hot iron community: Government officials, expecting dangerous storm surge from Hurricane Ian or its remnants, said nobody could be on the beach at Wildwood, New Jersey, on October 1, 2022. Only an hour away in the Hemmings van, I kept going.

The pits were supposed to be full of race cars Friday afternoon, but they were packed up and many were already gone when Hemmings got to town. Immutable word from The Authorities had closed the beaches during the time set aside for racing.Photo by David Conwill

The party was still there, but it was indoors and there were very few cars. Plenty of great people, though, all eager to talk about what they had brought, what they wanted to bring, what they might build for a future event, and more. It was a productive time for Hemmings in a strategic sense, as we start to plumb the depths of those who use ‘40s tech to build ‘20s and ‘30s cars. The machines that run on the beach these days are an extension of the road-going versions, and rarely licensed and insured. Recent, unrelated events in Wildwood have increased policing on such matters and nixed the previous cruising. A lot of cool stuff was glimpsed under tarps, but between official disapproval and windy, rainy weather that set in early on Friday, very few cars were actually out and about.

One of the few cars to venture out into the elements was this retired TROG veteran and one-time Hemmings feature car, The Sassafras. Owner Kevin Carlson runs the Model B-powered T/A hybrid on the street these days, complete with license and registration.Photo by David Conwill

Mel’s not one to let people down, however. There’s no official word on what will happen for the folks who were going to be there. Rumors abound about replacement dates, alternate events, and the like—but repeating them’s no help. I’ve reached out to the TROG team and are still awaiting comment. When Mel and the Oilers give an official announcement on the next East Coast outlet for all that retro-speed energy, we’ll let you know.

Wildwood isn’t the first or only home of TROG, but the neon-lit evenings were always one of the highlights of the event. Festivities were decidedly muted Friday night, but every here and there cool spectator cars, like this flamed ’56 Oldsmobile 88, could be glimpsed.Photo by David Conwill

One certainty, at least, is that another TROG event is happening soon: December 9-10 at historic Flabob Airstrip in Jurupa Valley, California. That will be 1/8-mile drags on a runway, rather than a beach. Airstrips and car events can make excellent bedfellows and we wish TROG California Drag Racing the best of luck.

NAS Wildwood is a World War II-era facility now used as a general-aviation airport and museum. Since the storm was already intensifying, there wasn’t much going on (besides breakfast at the Flight Deck Diner), but the outdoor displays were worth checking out.Photo by David Conwill

Date: circa 1970s

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Source: Laitila Unto, via HelsinkiPhotos

What do you see here?

https://helsinkiphotos.fi/search/details/?image_id=hkm.125E0ADE-6950-4FEC-A5C8-5D5C8BFEF001

King Midget club members still don’t know all there is to know about the prototype fiberglass roadster that Midget Motors intended to build. How did the tiny Athens-based company plan to power the car? Was it ever meant to have a top? What exactly caused its demise? Now that club president Lee Seats has the prototype in his garage in anticipation of a full restoration and subsequent public display, perhaps some answers will soon come to light.

“All I know is that Midget Motors could’ve built it, but it would have been difficult,” Seats says.

Indeed. Chronically underfunded Midget Motors—a venture started by Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt in 1946—might’ve at one point been the sixth-largest carmaker in the United States, but ran on an infinitesimal budget compared to larger carmakers. Company headquarters was a small building next to Dry’s house, and research and development essentially consisted of the time the partners spent reading the latest issue of Popular Mechanics.

That’s not to say they didn’t meet with some measure of success. The King Midget Model 2 and Model 3 kept the company going well into the Sixties and the company was even able to make some acquisitions, mostly minibike and scooter companies. While the Midget Motors microcar lineup remained fairly static and uninspiring with cars almost no larger than the two occupants that could fit in them—a rarity in the postwar American economy that demanded ever bigger, more powerful, and flashier cars—Dry and Orcutt at one point aspired to build something a little bigger, a little sleeker, and a little faster.

According to Bob Vasholtz, a King Midget historian who has written several books on the cars, just as demand for the Model 2 started to wane toward the mid-Fifties, Orcutt in particular seemed taken with the idea of creating King Midget bodies out of fiberglass. “Fiberglass construction was not capital intensive and small-shop oriented,” Vasholtz writes in “Midget Motors: Blueprint for American Microcars,” thus “the product and process seemed tailored to Midget Motors’ volume and needs.” Besides, fiberglass promised an opportunity to both cut some weight and design a body with more complex shapes than the steel- and aluminum-bodied Model 2 and Model 3’s bodies without springing for more expensive tooling.

Photo courtesy Lee Seats

Orcutt then proceeded to shape a body model out of clay, seeking input from his workers. Once he finalized the design—incorporating a bit of contemporary Ford in the rear, Jaguar XK120 along the sides and perhaps some Crosley Super Sport in the front—he took some molds from the clay model and sent them to a still-unknown fiberglass shop somewhere in Michigan to have several prototype bodies laid up.

In the meantime, Orcutt set about modifying a 1952 Model 2 chassis for the new car. The front and rear suspension remained unaltered, as did a section of the frame, but Orcutt modified the rest with wider perimeter rails to better fit the envelope styling of the new body and to get the passengers sitting lower in the car.

Photo courtesy Lee Seats

He also reportedly considered replacing the Model 2’s single-cylinder 6hp Wisconsin engine with something a little peppier, Vasholtz writes. Orcutt may have experimented with a Crosley overhead-camshaft four-cylinder engine, but as Vasholtz writes in “King Midget: the Story of America’s Smallest Dream Car,” Orcutt also intended to design and build his own engine, an opposed four-cylinder with overhead camshafts and a fabricated block similar to Crosley’s CoBra engine. Apparently, he intended to use tooling obtained in one of the scooter company purchases—likely Wyse-Cycle—but if Orcutt ever did succeed in assembling such a motor, neither Vasholtz or Seats believe it ever ran. Orcutt may have also intended to develop a new three-speed transmission for the car, though that, too, never made its way into the prototype.

“It was a tall order,” Vasholtz says. “Their eyes were definitely bigger than their tummies.”

Sometime in 1955, the batch of half a dozen or so fiberglass bodies arrived, and Orcutt soon discovered they required extensive reinforcing, including subframes for the doors and windshield to attach to. According to Vasholtz, the body quickly became too heavy for the chassis and Wisconsin single-cylinder and proved more labor intensive and thus more costly than the stamped-steel bodies Midget Motors was used to producing.

Photo courtesy Lee Seats

However, Seats, who’s spent some time already with the body in his basement restoration workshop in Bristol, Tennessee, believes that’s not exactly why Midget Motors stopped development on the project. “The Model 3’s body is made up of three sheets of steel, and I can’t pick it up by myself,” he says. “But this body, I can pick it up myself no problem.”

While the cost of preparing the body may have indeed been a significant factor, Seats points instead to the fact that the fiberglass shop burned down shortly after delivering the bodies, taking the King Midget prototype’s mold—and the costs associated with the mold’s development—with it.

Whatever the case, Orcutt and Dry put the fiberglass car project on hold and decided to update the Model 2 as a stopgap measure until they could return to the prototype. The stopgap car became the Model 3, which Midget Motors introduced in 1957 and which became perhaps the most recognizable of the King Midgets. Meanwhile, the prototype—fitted with a 1956 Wisconsin engine—went on to serve as a demonstrator for Dry’s secretary to drive and then as a daily driver for one of the employees at the Midget Motors plant. When it became evident the fiberglass car would never happen, Midget Motors sold the other bodies through its mail-order catalog, with at least one still in existence.

Photo courtesy Lee Seats

That employee who dove the prototype later sold it to a local farmer, who stashed it in a barn somewhere near Athens for the next 20 years or so, Vasholtz says. King Midget enthusiast Gordon Harvey eventually bought the prototype from the farmer and kept it in Florida for some time before selling it to fellow enthusiast Gary Guy, who similarly stored it in Arizona without a restoration commencing.

Seats, in turn, obtained the prototype this summer and has already started to document it for restoration. Unfortunately, the years and the cross-country trips haven’t been kind to it—the frame collapsed during its most recent move, and the gelcoat on the body started to bake off during its time in Arizona—so he’s had to focus on stabilization and repair before he can proceed to the actual restoration of the prototype.

Once completed, the prototype will be showcased in the closest thing the International King Midget Car Club has to a museum, a permanent display in the Market on State, a mall on the east side of Athens. The display, formerly housed in the Athens County Historical Society and Museum, currently features one example of every King Midget model, including the Junior and the Super Cycle, along with the last built Model 3 and the only Model 4 prototype. Vasholtz says that after the fiberglass car is added, the only thing that’ll really be missing from the King Midget timeline would be the lone remaining Model 2 prototype.

As for when the prototype will be finished, “don’t hold your breath,” Vasholtz says, “but Lee will get it done.”

Oldsmobile punched out more than 300,000 Cutlasses in 1975 en route to making its intermediate the best-selling automobile in America. At the more exclusive and sporty end of this mass-production milestone sat the 1975 Hurst/Olds.

The ’75 edition had a few interesting accomplishments on its resume: it was the most prolifically produced Hurst/Olds to date with 2,535 copies built; it was the last run of the Colonnade Hurst/Olds; it was the last Hurst/Olds offered with the Oldsmobile 455; and it was a T-top pioneer with its Hurst/ Hatch roof.

If you can find one of these relatively scarce cars today, you can expect to pay more than $20,000 for one in good condition. Values range between $8,000 and $12,000 on the low end to between $30,000 and $40,000 on the high end. Over the past three years, Hemmings.com has recorded an average asking price of $27,000. The lowest asking price to date, in that same period, was $16,000, while the highest was $40,000.

The ’75 Hurst/Olds wasn’t an inexpensive car in its day. It was based on the Cutlass Supreme two-door coupe, which had a starting price of $4,047. Hurst/Olds buyers could choose between the 170-hp L-34 “W-25” 350 V-8 or the L-74 190-hp “W-30” 455 V-8. Both came topped with a Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel carburetor and both were paired with automatic transmissions. A set of deep rear gears would’ve added some punch, but 2.56:1 cogs were standard issue and the only options were 2.73:1 or 3.08:1. An Anti-Spin limited-slip differential was optional. The color palette was limited to either white or black and, inside, swiveling bucket seats with reversible cushions and a console were standard.

The Hurst/Olds transformation happened at Hurst’s Specialty Vehicle Division facility in Brighton, Michigan, and added $1,095 to the sticker. (To put that in context, the 442 package cost $128 in 1975.) For the extra outlay, the customer got the Hurst/Hatch roof with smoked glass panels, a padded vinyl top in either black or white, gold striping, Hurst/Olds emblems, and a Hurst Dual-Gate shifter. A Hurst digital tachometer was also offered as an option and was installed on the center console.

Values of Colonnade-edition GM performance cars have always trailed their 1960s and early ’70s namesakes. They’re an acquired taste, but excellent cars to own and drive: they’re easy to work on, easy to maintain, and plenty comfortable. Restoration costs can exceed the value of a car if you’re not careful and all parts aren’t as readily available as they are for other GM intermediates. The Hurst/Olds is among the most desirable of these coupes however, and there’s plenty to like about the ’75. While values will likely remain stable for the foreseeable future, these cars are uncommon enough to enjoy a devoted following for years to come.

Whenever I need to cheer myself up, in the absence of beer or salty snacks, I remind myself that I’m just a babbling, snoring, lump of carbon, clinging to a ball of dirt, spinning through an endless, airless void while being bombarded by cosmic radiation, asteroids, bits of junk falling off satellites, or old rockets that we shot into orbit. Whoa, wait, you say. That’s some dark-sounding s*#%, McNessor. This is what cheers you up? No, but it reminds me of how fortunate I am to be here. So I should stop feeling sorry for myself, hop in my old truck and head to the corner store for that beer and those salty snacks at the earliest opportunity. And that cheers me up. Ahhh, you reply. Now it makes sense. Yes, and you’re welcome.

I feel a weird sense of accomplishment when I make it home and back from even the briefest ride in a 50-plus-year-old truck whose pieces were once randomly scattered among two or three garages, a basement, and the closet in a spare bedroom (which is where I stashed the glass, wrapped in blankets). I’m betting you feel exactly the same way about the last project vehicle that made you wonder: Will I ever get this thing back together, or will I eventually have to cart its pieces off to the transfer station, and then take up golf or pickleball in disgrace? And just what exactly is pickleball, anyway?

When I was growing up, there was no doubt that someday soon we “humanoids” would be warping around the entire universe, getting into lightsaber duels with life forms who looked mostly human—you know, other than maybe blue skin or an extra eyeball—yet spoke the Queen’s English without the hint of an accent. But now, when I hear people talking about going to Mars I think, What’s so bad about this planet? All my favorite stuff is right here: air, water, my recliner with the decorative box next to it that The Chief bought to hide my car magazines. Plus, the UPS guy just dropped off some new lightweight body filler and this cool primer that I can’t wait to try out.

I’ve heard Jay Leno say this about himself, but it’s true about all of us and our spouses: “My wife always knows where I am: It’s the garage.” That’s the center of our collective universe and it definitely alters the way we live, but in a positive, productive way.

How many times have you been asked to weld something or help a friend repair, assemble, or disassemble something? Or been asked for advice about how something works, or what car, truck, motorcycle, etc. to buy? It’s because, in the grand scheme of things, we’re all that person. The ones who’ve been taking things apart our whole lives to figure out how stuff works. (Sometimes there were parts left over after the reassembly). The ones who can’t bear to get rid of something that still works or will work fine again with some time and effort. The ones who, when we do decide to sell or give away something, take some pride in the fact that it’s a lot better off than when we found it. Maybe not perfect, but still better for the next caretaker. Or, if we are actually junking something, it’s completely, irrevocably used up. It’s actually junk, not just junk-ish or junk adjacent.

Funny thing is, people outside our universe who aren’t elbows deep in some old project vehicle probably view restoration and repair as a relaxing pastime. Sort of like what I imagine pickleballing to be, I guess. (Seriously, does it involve pickles or pickling?) But the truth is, our projects often drive us nuts. Yet without them, we’d be even more nuts. No interesting problems to solve. No hard-to-find pieces to hunt for. No hallelujah moment when it starts, runs, and moves under its own power. No cool old artifact in the garage to just stand back and admire for a few quiet minutes.

Photo by Mike McNessor

At the end of it all, we’re just lumps of carbon, clinging to a ball of dirt, spinning through an endless, airless void while being bombarded with cosmic radiation, asteroids and bits of junk. I’m okay with that. In fact, it’ll make it easier to knock off work early, fire up my truck, and head to the corner store.