Antique & Classic Cars Blog

There’s an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage where he discusses his 1954 Dodge Coronet wagon. While this ‘55 sedan is not that two-door rarity, it’s still an elegant classic to behold and something enjoyable to see in a city environment.

On last week’s trip through Chicago, this was parked at a service station. It may belong to the station’s owner or perhaps they’re just good with classics and it was brought into the city to have a little work done. They were just moving it around, allowing a chance for a better photo.

It’s more fun to imagine that some now elderly person bought the car new mid-century last and still uses it in the city for errands and to visit out-of-town family. Seems every town has such a car and person–someone who sees no reason to sell what works fine for its job. In a town as big as Chicago, there must a lot of neat old cars hidden in forgotten garages.

Love the dealer’s badge crafted to set off the trunk lock….

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.)

Ok, this relates to cars only in a predictive way, but it’s amazingly cool.

Check out this video in which scientists use the best modern technology to investigate the best ancient technology (imaging science used to decipher writing on the ancient “computer” known as the Antikythera device):

http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/antikythera/