Many national and international car manufactures past and present are both famous and infamous, but for every Mercedes or Aston Martin there are dozens of smaller manufacturers that have been largely forgotten to history. One such manufacturer is a historic Cincinnati car creator known for their small, inexpensive cars, and less well known for being some of the first manufacturers to have some key elements familiar to car owners today.
Powel Crosley: A Radio Man With A Dream
Unhappy with the expensive cost of radios, young Powel Crosley used a how-to manual and a can-do attitude to build his first radio from spare parts, and his radio manufacturing business soon took off. By 1924, he had the largest radio manufacturing company in the world, which not only produced radios for your home. Crosley used his engineering know-how and love of cars to produce the best-selling Roamio car radio. At this time cars did not come with radios installed, and his Roamio car radios proved invaluable for building is fortune and ultimately popularizing the standard inclusion of radios in all new cars in the coming years.
Affordable Cars for Everyone
After Crosley made his fortune in radio, he set his sights on what he had been dreaming of for decades: making his own cars. His plan was to make cars that were small and affordable, some of the first economy cars. It included a selling and marketing style that encouraged the cars to be sold in appliance and department stores just like his radios. Their narrow width made them small enough to be brought into these stores, and a large portion of the sales were made in this fashion.
With a modest 5,000 sales for for Crosley’s $325 two-seater sedan in 1946, the numbers only built from there. In the coming years Crosley came out with a four-seater which sold over 19,000 units in 1947 (at a price point of less than $900) and an incredibly popular station wagon which sold well over 26,000 cars in the year it was brought out.
Though the reliability of the original engines was slightly less than stellar, the car remained popular. In 1949 Crosley improved upon his original design by offering more reliable engine replacements to owners of the original models for a low cost.
The Crosley Innovation
In addition to his influence on car radios, Crosley was the first to use a number of other innovations that will be familiar to modern car owners and enthusiasts. Crosley’s cars were the first American production car models to include 4-wheel caliper disc brakes, now a standard in the industry. Crosley was also the first to make a mass-produced overhead cam engine, and the first to refer to any of his cars as a “sports utility” vehicle. With all of this success, it is hard not to wonder why Crosley’s cars were left to history, and aren’t still available with our modern national and imported vehicles.
War Bust and Boom
Though Crosley’s factories were the last to end production and be converted to wartime work during WWII, they did not continue their popularity after the frugal war years were over. Post-war America was no longer interested in compact cars when larger, more luxurious cars were available, many for costs similar to Crosley’s smaller models. In 1952 less than 2,000 Crosley cars were sold, and the factories were shut down and sold soon after.
Classic Cars and Their Place in Our Hearts
Though we may have a special focus on foreign and imported cars, we have a special place in our hearts for classic cars and the interesting stories that they can tell. Though Crosleys haven’t been in production for decades, there are still a fair amount of them in existence. Due to their lack of an immediately recognizable name, they are still relatively inexpensive to purchase—just as Crosley would have wanted—and if you need help keeping one running, we would love to see one in person.
