Crosley Hot Shot

Nearly a year ago for WCotD #59, a Crosley showed up here: the Farm-O-Road. Based on that off-road beastie (a sort of miniature Jeep, like if a Shriner’s car was combined with a Power Wheels toy). 

Cute as a button and a hard but expendable worker for light agricultural duties, it was a perfect example of Crosley finding (and believing in) a particular automotive niche.

The Hot Shot is no different.

Blessed with a truly great name that belongs on the back of a Porsche variant, the Hot Shot was just the post-Second World War sports car America could have wanted — and the first it got.

If it'd been sold anywhere else, for a fair price, I have no doubt the Hot Shot would have been better received. With much of Europe still reeling from the war and fuel still expensive and hard to come by, the Hot Shot’s introduction in 1949 would have been a boon to enthusiasts on a budget — and may have stolen some sales from the ancient and carryover MG TC. 

In North America, land of the V8 and home of the Atlanta Braves, hot rodding had a firm grip on the enthusiast’s psyche. A tiny nothing-car? Notsomuch…

Make no mistake, the Crosley Hot Shot is not a performance car among other performance cars…it is more a performance car among golf carts. Chosen by Dan Neil as one of Time's 50 Worst Cars of All Time, the Hot Shot was plopped on the list because of its lump-like engine.

With four cylinders, 725cc, and a weight of just 26.7 kg (59 lbs, less than the last bag you checked at the airport), the micro motor made 26.5 horsepower — perfect for Navy generator duty (actually) but a little dim in the performance department.

I mentioned the engine, and its codename COBRA, in the Farm-O-Road piece, and for that vehicle, the engine was well-suited to its light duty application. Yes, the Hot Shot and Farm-O-Road share the same engine.

When Crosley went racing with the Hot Shot, as durable as the engine had been when stationary, the sustained speed and heat would cause the braised welds to fail — after all, the motor was more than a bit tin.

In 1950 at the 6-Hours of Sebring race, a lone Hot Shot survived long enough to finish AND WIN the Index of Performance at an average speed of 83 km/h (52 mph). 

Indeed, based on how the race was scored, the Hot Shot was the event’s overall winner. (Who’d order a Make America 725cc Again shirt?).

Cuteness was not a factor, but I don’t believe it. 

For the Hot Shot as a product, a problem was that even in post-war America the V8 engine still ruled the roost — why boot around in a shoe when you could dust off a '32 Ford and lay waste to a tiny sports car like the Hot Shot?

(Relevant to my export comments above, the Hot Shot also raced and finished well in Switzerland and in Japan in 1951…)

Heard this one before? By 1950, Crosley itself wasn't long for this world. 

Its small wagons had found an audience, but as the big American automakers re-tooled and re-designed their factories and cars in the Post War era, there was little hope for the diminutive carmaker's survival against industrial behemoths.

There's one photo on this page I'd like you to note, however, this one: