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In the summer of 1947 Fleming Brown and I were on vacation. Fleming had been taking courses at the Art Institute in Chicago, and I had been enrolled at the Chicago campus of Northwestern. We had both been in the Navy as draftees, and had been getting our "Fifty-two Twenty" money since being discharged the previous summer. We may also have had some savings from our Navy pay. So there were funds available for Fleming to buy a car - a low-priced model, or course. He surprised his friends by buying a Crosley, a car most of us knew nothing about. It was one of the "prewar" series "convertible sedans", probably a 1942 model, and it would have cost all of $465 if he bought it new.
The car was much smaller than the cars we were familiar with, and it became an object of "affectionate derision", acquiring its name "The Moppet". As it weighed less than 1000 pounds it could be lifted and moved by a small number of young hooligans, and Fleming occasionally found that his "friends" had moved it from its parking place to some "humorous" position. Nevertheless, Fleming thought the car was very practical, and he treated it with respect and maintained it with somewhat excessive concern that would later cause a problem.
My parents had a summer home in Hermosa Beach, California, and my mother, my sister Isabell, and I would usually spend most of the summer there, with my father coming out for a short time when he could get away from his office. In 1947 mother and Isabell planned to drive to Hermosa in the family Chrysler, taking five days to make the trip. I invited Fleming to come along, but he suggested that it would be interesting for the two of us to make the trip in the Crosley. We could give mother and Isabell a few days head start, and drive straight through, taking turns with the driving, and probably arrive about the same time. With the innocence of youth, I agreed to this plan.
Let's see now: The trip from Glen Ellyn, Illinois to Hermosa Beach, California is about 2000 miles, and the car can possibly average a speed of 40 miles per hour. That means we should be able to complete it in 50 hours, not counting stops for fuel, food, and "comfort". If we allow an hour each for three meals a day, and another hour or so for pit stops, that would add eight hours, for a total of 58 - less than three days. Piece of cake. . .
As shown by the white line on the map, on our trip out we took "the Northern Route", which at least started on the "Lincoln Highway". At the time my memory of previous trips was that we would gain altitude gradually, minimizing the problems with crossing the Rocky Mountains. This may have been true, but after experiencing the downgrades in this direction, we decided to return by the "Southern Route", starting on Route 66.
There wasn't much room in the Crosley for luggage -- or anything else for that matter. We probably sent most of our clothes for the visit in mother's car. A clothing change wouldn't really be necessary for just a bit more than two days, anyway. And we weren't being rated on personal hygiene during the trip. So without the luggage one of us would have room to spread out in the back seat for a snooze while the other drove. At least, such was the plan.
How does one "spread out" in the back seat of a Crosley? This car was only 47 inches wide overall, and the back seat would have been at least four or five inches narrower. And there wasn't a whole lot of rear foot room in a sedan that was just ten feet long, with an 80-inch wheelbase. (For comparison, a search of Consumer Reports data for the smallest of the 2001 cars shows that the two-seater Mazda Miata has the shortest wheelbase, at 89 inches, and it's 66 inches wide.) The Crosley was small! We did consider removing the passenger-side front seat so that the passenger could sit on the back seat and stretch his legs. But Fleming was averse to any such alterations, even those that were temporary. So, the challenge was to contort oneself into a comfortable position in the available space, which did not have plush upholstery. I managed this one night, but could never find the magic position again. I don't believe Fleming ever actually slept in the back, though both of us may have nodded-off at times when we were front-seat passengers, which was not easy to do when we were fairly jammed in shoulder-to-shoulder.
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This is not the car, but one just like it. It has a two-cylinder air-cooled engine that develops only 12 horsepower. This is about the same power that is found in John Deere's smallest lawn tractor. As the car and two passengers probably weighed about 1300 pounds, the weight-to-power ratio would have been over 100 pounds per horsepower. (For comparison, the worst such ratio I could find for a current model is about 25 lb/hp for a Honda Civic with a conventional engine.) So we didn't experience neck-snapping acceleration to our top speed of 45 MPH on the straight at sea level. |
We probably got pretty good gas mileage, though I don't think we kept track of it, gas prices being what they were in those days. But, because of Fleming's excessive concern that the engine be adequately lubricated, our oil mileage was not so good. Fleming insisted on adding oil to the crankcase nearly every time we stopped for gas, which apparently over-filled it. The result of this was that excess oil was sprayed out of the filler pipe. After a day or so of traveling the sides of the hood were covered with oil, like a shot-up plane in an old war movie. Oil also found its way onto the floor of the cabin, making our footing slippery. We were able to avoid this problem on the return trip, after learning what the correct engine oil level was. But we looked pretty bedraggled and oil-soaked when we arrived in Hermosa.
Considering the limited performance of the Crosley, we managed to tick off the miles on our way West, if not at our top speed, at what seemed at least an acceptable rate. We must somehow have avoided driving through major towns and cities on the route. I suppose we had maps, which were usually free at gas stations in those days. Some of the scenes along the highway were familiar to me from previous trips, the "Little America" truckstop in Wyoming, for example. And I don't recall any breakdowns -- nervous or otherwise. However, as we passed the summit of the Continental Divide and started encountering mountain roads there were some moments of, if not terror, at least apprehension over the Crosley's ability to cope with switchbacks and steep downgrades. With its tiny (12-inch) wheels, skinny (4.25-inch) tires, and 6-inch mechanical brakes it was not up to sports car standards of the day. Even so, its small size gave the driver -- me, if not Fleming -- the feeling that nothing could go seriously wrong.
In the evening of what must have been the third day of the trip, we reached Cedar City, Utah. So we had averaged only a bit more than 30 mph during actual driving time. Oh, well. Our dinner at "Bill's No. 7 Diner" there was the most memorable event of the trip out. This was the first real meal we had taken time to eat. We relished the atmosphere of the diner -- an actual dining car -- and found the enormous T-bone steaks delicious beyond description. And I don't think it was just because we were hungry and tired. Later on that night -- much later, probably -- we drove right down the brilliant main drag of Las Vegas, after what seemed hours of seeing its lights glittering in the distance in the clear desert air. And then we entered darkness as the road continued to Los Angeles.
Somehow we managed to navigate through the L. A. area, and find our way to my parent's house in Hermosa Beach by the following afternoon. The 2100-mile trip had taken a total of about 80 hours. The Crosley needed some serious cleaning-up (as did its passengers), but it hadn't broken down, and our lives were never in serious jeopardy
While we were in California we toured some of the auto parts shops for accessories and information. Fleming decided to add loud horns -- the long trumpet kind -- on the outside of the hood. And somewhere along the line we found out about the correct engine oil level. The car was spruced up and made ready for the return trip, which we had decided to make via the "Southern Route" in order to avoid climbing the steep hills we had come down on the way out. I knew we would encounter some mountains, but I thought that they would be less difficult.
We set off in typical California weather, with the convertible top down, and picked up Route 66 in the Los Angeles area. But we left 66 to take a more southerly route on what is now Interstate 10 -- possibly because it seemed to be a more direct route to Flagstaff, Arizona, or possibly because I had previously experienced the Piute Mountains near Needles, and wouldn't have relished tackling those roads in the Crosley.
As we steamed along at our typical cruising pace we fantasized about cars we would have preferred to be driving. We thought that a Duesenberg or maybe a Cord (those being the performance cars of the day) would be a good choice, and we wished for some form of air conditioning. By the time we reached the desert town of Blythe we were hot, sunburned, and thirsty. We stopped at an air-conditioned drug store with a soda fountain, and had a couple of malts. We commented to our waitress that it seemed awfully hot outside. She replied that it might be as much as 130°! When we left we put the top up.
After leaving Blythe we headed northeast toward Flagstaff to pick up Route 66 again, and later that night we went through Jerome, Arizona. I do not recall that on other family trips returning from California we had been through this copper-mining town -- and driving through it is not something one would forget. I was driving, and it was quite late on our first night. Fleming was trying to sleep in the back seat.
Jerome is built, or plastered, on the side of a steep hill. According to one account there are 20 switchbacks in the road from the top of the town to a relatively level stretch at the bottom. We entered the town at the top, and found the streets dark, deserted, and sinister. With the experience of lots of hours at the wheel I was feeling confident that I could corner the Crosley at near its top speed on most mountain roads. So I plunged down the hill "at speed" (or at least what passed for speed in the Crosley), cutting the insides of the corners, and with brakes squealing, and the engine shuddering in its mounts as I downshifted. I didn't seem to see any problems with this, but I became aware that Fleming was sitting up in the back seat, gripping the back of the front seat, white knuckled and mute. After a descent of about 2000 feet, we arrived at a level section of road at the bottom of the hill, whereupon Fleming announced that he should then take over the wheel. He suggested, rather crossly, that I had not been showing proper respect for the limitations of the car, not to mention consideration for our safety.
The rest of the trip back was uneventful, and we arrived in Glen Ellyn 78 hours from the time we had left Hermosa Beach. The southern route was also about 2100 miles, so we had averaged just about 27 miles per hour -- not what we had planned on, but it seemed pretty heroic to us, all things considered. And Fleming and I were still friends.
A year or so later Fleming traded The Moppet for a new 4-cylinder Crosley sedan. . .
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Following is a summary of specifications for the "Prewar" Crosley compiled from various sources.
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1942 Crosley Convertible Sedan |
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1942 Waukesha Air-cooled Engine |
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Overall Length |
120 in. |
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Cylinders |
2 |
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Width |
47 in. |
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Valves |
4 in block |
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Height |
56 in. |
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Bore x Stroke |
3.0 x 2.5 in. |
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Wheelbase |
80 in. |
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Displacement |
35.3 cubic inches |
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Track |
40 in. |
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Compression Ratio |
5.6 |
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Weight |
925 lb. |
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Horsepower |
12 max. @ 4000 rpm |
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Tires |
4.25 x 12 in. |
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Carburetor |
Tillotson |
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Brakes |
6 in. mechanical |
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Ignition System |
6-volt, positive ground |
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Drive |
Rear axle with torque tube |
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Distributor |
Auto-Lite IGW-142A |
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Front Suspension |
I-beam |
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Starter Motor |
Auto-Lite MZ-4077 |
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List Price |
$468 |
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Generator |
Auto-Lite (?) |
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