Any Idea what kind of cars these are? A friend of mine came across this photo in a family album.
Thanks!
The first one looks like an MG TF Midget(1953-55).
I’m pretty sure I have a postcard of the second one but I’ll have to wait till I get home to ID it.
Good one Mitchell, that’s definitely a MG TF.
http://gallery.brit-cars.com/data//630/medium/BMR_0703_1235.jpg
Its a Crosley, 1946 to 1948 model - and since the one in the picture is a convertible it must be a 1948 model.
Powered by a 724cc strait four in that year, 26.4hp with a 3 speed manual gearbox. The engine was quite interesting; named CoBra it started life as a wartime torpedo boat and B-17 flying fortress power generator. It was made out of sheet metal rather than a solid block, done to avoid hotspots in the engine that could cause fuel to pre-ignition before entering the cylinders. As a result it only weighed 60kg, with all the engine assembled, and had horrible corrosion issues. Understandably, that gave it a rather bad reputation.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c … _block.JPG - that’s the engine, and you can see the rust on it.
Wow…a motor made out of sheet metal, this is the first time I hear of such a thing. It seems to have been the only one though, at least that’s how it appears after a casual search with google.
Yep, it was built during wartime to satisfy a wartime need - that’s a combination that leads to some very creative things, but most of them are utterly unsuitable for peace time use. In this case it manifested in rust, and did nothing good for Crosley’s reputation.
Bit of a shame really, its one of those rare small scale US makers that did something different.
It’s a classic example off just using whatever was left after the war… sadly that engine should never have been anything other than light weight power generator… but interesting it is.
Wow thanks guys that was fast!