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1945 Midget racer. A tricky "what is it?" We've got a winner!


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Posted

This is a 1945 photo of a Midget racer. It is a tricky question -- Can anyone identify the maker and place of the photo?

AAnderson 45 hit the nail. The midget was put together by GI's on Saipan during their downtimes from servicing B-29s. All materials used were from "scrap". God knows there was a ton of wrecked Japanese vehicles and wrecked Japanese and US airplanes to use as raw material.

The photo came from the unit history book of the 500th Group, 73rd Wing, 20th AF.

post-45577-143137912405_thumb.jpg

Posted

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This is a 1945 photo of a Midget racer. It is a tricky question -- Can anyone identify the maker and place of the photo? </div></div>

It appears to be pretty much a home-built car, although the bodywork appears to have been done professionally, perhaps a leftover from Midget racing in the prewar years. It's pretty hard, as well, to gauge just what engine lurks there--appears to be a flathead 4, but as to make, pretty hard to tell--however, most all flathead 4's were too large to fit the displacement limits of say, AAA and the smaller organizations running midgets at the end of WW-II.

Art Anderson

Posted

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">This is a 1945 photo of a Midget racer. It is a tricky question -- Can anyone identify the maker and place of the photo? </div></div>

The odd part about the car is the tires, they are wider and look to me to be on a smaller rim than the common 12". Flat tail, no headrest tells me it was a pre WWII built body. If you could post a brighter photo of the engine & front end maybe some details will show up. <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Posted

What is really strange about this photo is that the wheels/tires on the front appear larger than the ones on the rear. This may be an optical illusion but it would imply a front drive car, although the front axle does not appear to be live.

Posted

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What is really strange about this photo is that the wheels/tires on the front appear larger than the ones on the rear. This may be an optical illusion but it would imply a front drive car, although the front axle does not appear to be live. </div></div>

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The odd part about the car is the tires, they are wider and look to me to be on a smaller rim than the common 12". Flat tail, no headrest tells me it was a pre WWII built body. If you could post a brighter photo of the engine & front end maybe some details will show up. </div></div>

Well, given the approximate year the picture was taken (1945), which might well be correct, those tires look very much to be aircraft main landing gear tires--any number of aircraft of the day used such fat profile tires, on 10" 60 12" rims--and by the summer of 1945, a ton of planes were already being sent to surplus/disposal depots across the southern and southwestern US.

It's hard to realize that with the winding down of the Second World War, automobile racing was starting up again, certainly at lower levels, even before war's end.

Art Anderson

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