Past Crosley of the Month Winners - Page 31

Fred Syrdal's latest prize. This is his 52 Mod SS, serial number VC-40398 highest known VC serial number. Fred saw it in 1993 at the last Doc Fry meet in Florida, He says he was "smitten". Unfortunately it went through three more owners till he managed to buy it.

Fred's modified Super Spots was owned by Mace (Red) Gellinger, co-owner of Service Motors in the 80's. Fred was told that Red found it in Illinois (hearsay?).  The story was that this car was the last off the assembly line and built for a friend or employee of Powel Crosley.  Modified in the 50's to look more modern. If anyone knows more history on the car let us know.

John Van Sickle of Virgina has restored two award winning Crosleys. Above John and his daughter pose with his 51 Sedan, on the set of the movie Chances Are.

John's latest work is his 52 Super Sports, here it is in front of Johns house in VA (just joking). Both cars are AACA National winners.

Decided with Racing Cars the Spotlight class this year we needed some racing pictures. Instead of the normal H-Mods and such, how about stock car racing. Picture quality is not the best so if anyone has better quality stock car pictures, please send them to me. These were reportedly taken at Fort Wayne Speedway in Indiana around 1953.

They were posted by fellow with the alias ClayMart on the Jalopy Journal website 6 years ago. He said "A friend of a friend had a couple albums of old stock car racing photos that I was able to copy. Most, if not all of the shots, are from the old Fort Wayne Speedway in northern Indiana."

I thought I had Jim Friday's 49 Convertible as a CotM years ago but I got a note from his wife Lois nominating it and looking back I had missed it. Sorry for the long over do feature. Jim's Convertible won the Senior AACA award in 1979, then the AACA Grand National Senior Award and The Chocolate Town Trophy awarded by AACA in Hershey, PA in 1981.  Jim's car is now shown in the Winner's Circle at the CAC National meets. I believe Jim's Crosley may be the first Crosley to win a Senior and Grand National award.

I understand that Jim's parents drove their Crosley from Iowa to Washington when Jim was young and they took the seats out to sleep in it at night. Jim was president of CAC from 1988 to 2002 and is currently on the board. In the earlier days Jim had a school bus modified into a camper and the 49 went in the back. I looked for a picture, I know I have, with the 49 being winched out the back like the bus was giving birth. This is the only picture I found of the Crosley Express with Jim from 1979.

Here is the Winner of the Spotlight class at this years Nationals. I unfortunately don't have all the details, so anyone that has info about the car to add please send them to me and I will update the captions. Number 2 is owned by Jeri Polak of Ohio, that is her on the right.

As I understand it she bought number 2 at the Nationals in 2014 and restored and made it road legal, notice the headlights and taillights, not normally standard on a midget racer. She even entered it in the Keystone road rally, here.

Al Calvin of Ohio owns this 1941 Pre-War woody wagon. It was shown at 2016 Crosley Nationals with a restored Pre-War chassis sitting behind it. Looks like a survivor with a lot of original paint left and some of the wood. A very rare model and we had this original and a restored version both at the show.

The woody came in two styles over the couple of years of production, this one was based off the pickup body and has a metal lower body, the other style started with a cab and chassis so the complete back is wood.

Tim Hamblen of Indiana owns this custom fiberglass Crosley, he calls it Guppy. This was the Guppy at the 2016 Nationals. Here is the owners description of what he knows on the car history.

If the Nationals had a most improved trophy I think Tim would have won with Guppy, here is a picture from the 2015 Nationals when he first showed it. He also got it running pretty good at the 2015 show with the help of other members.

Interesting uses for CoBra engines. I swiped this photo off Tim Foster's post on the West Coast Crosley Regions blog, this Tin Block engine table was on display at their 2016 Fall show in Buellton, California. I really liked the table and wanted to make it CotM but thought what companion photo can I use.

Then I remembered Yankee Crosley raffled one off at the 2010 Nationals and donated a second one for our Silent Auction. A little less complete but nice support legs. Just to show another use of old CoBra engines here is a picture of the lamp that was presented to me when I retired as President all those many years ago, it has been sitting next to my chair ever since.

Bob Brown of California sent me these before and after pictures of his FarmOroad restoration.  Bob says the story he got was that it was disassembled 25 years ago and has passed through 3 different people till he got it in pieces.

Bob spent 18 months from when he bought it to complete the rebuild. Looks like a few body parts got lost in all the moves and Bob had to be creative to make a finished FOR. The diamond plate looks good and the front winch makes it ready for some serious offroading.

Our newest Youth Project Mechanic, Jackson Ross of Indiana and his 1950 Hotshot donated to the Club by Robert Rogers of NY for the latest project.

Above Jackson is overseeing the first starting of the Hotshot since he got it home. Jackson is 14 and has been coming to the Crosley Nationals with his Grandfather since he was 4. His Grandfather is Tim Hamben and he will be Jackson's mentor during the restoration. Both are active in the KYANA Region of CAC. Jackson and Tim made the trip East to Erie PA, right after Christmas, where they met up with CAC VP Jeff Ackerman who has stored the Hotshot since it was donated earlier in 2016. Here is Jeff handing off the car to Jackson. We look forward to progress reports in the Quarterly.

I realized after last months CotM that Lizzy Fry, the first Youth Project Mechanic, and her finished project wasn't honored on the home page. Above Lizzy in the driver seat of her 1947 sedan.You can see Lizzy giving an early status report at the 2014 National membership meeting when she was CotM. Lizzy had the support of many club members and vendors with parts. Members of the Ohio region helped with training and assistance on different skills needed to finish her project.

Lizzy with her Grandfather as mentor, both from Ohio, finished her 3 year project not to long after the above picture was taken at the 2015 Crosley Nationals. Other commitments did not allow her to attend the 2016 meet where her grandfather accepted the title for her (after turning 16) from the CAC board of directors. Lizzy Grandfather, Ron Sipe said “I was pretty proud of her because we’ve got guys in the club who’ve been working on the same car for 12 years,” (some of us even longer).