Antique & Classic Cars Blog

Last weekend, we trekked to Michigan for a family reunion with the in-laws. On the way back, we drove through a little Illinois town called Galien. (The main point of driving through Galien was to see a tiny jail from the 1800s, which we had seen on a prior trip. And the main point of that–seeing the jail–was that I thought we saw it on an Iowa trip and my wife saw the opportunity to prove me wrong–something few spouses can resist.)

Since she was right, a bigger highlight for the town was these tiny treats. At a distance, I thought they were some version of the Crosley I hadn’t seen before. A closer look proved them to be the less sporting King Midget, out of Athens, Ohio.

There were two of the cars outside a church. These little tots run one-cylinder, four-cycle engines less powerful than a typical sitmower from today. If this article is correct, they were good for 40-50 miles per hour and 65 miles per gallon.

They’re from the 1950s and cost only $500-$600, some assembly required. How two found their way to this small town, I don’t know–we went to an antique shop across the way and I was hoping the owners would emerge from the church while we were there but no luck.

It’s been a long time since I ran across anything on these cars and in refreshing my memory, I ran across this piece from Time magazine. How curious that the piece is so  derogatory of the inexpensive, fuel efficient little road-tot. The article doesn’t say they functioned poorly or weren’t as fun as they look. Maybe the author’s quietly jealous of that 65 miles per gallon.

Can’t say the car pushes all my styling buttons but it was certainly fun to see and snap these little guys. (The owners had put more modern Chrysler badges on them. Not sure why.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.