1949 Crosley Hotshot Roadster

£24,950. Joe Macari, London, UK

in his later life, Powel Crosley Jr referred to himself as ‘the man with 50 jobs in 50 years’ – an exaggeration, but only a small one. Crosley was an entrepreneur seemingly impervious to disappointment, someone who regarded abject failure as a temporary inconvenience, and thanks to his bouncy-ball resilience he eventually enjoyed success in a bewildering variety of fields.

Radios, radio stations, refrigerators, proximity fuses and a baseball team were all part of his empire at one time or another. Cars, though, were Crosley ’s first love, and the cheerful machine pictured here was probably the greatest achievement of his fascinating, if spotty, career as motor manufacturer.

The Hotshot Roadster was as pre-school in appearance as Crosley’s many other ‘subcompact’ (read: ‘tiny’) creations, but offered surprisingly grown-up performance. The 44ci overhead-cam four-cylinder engine made 26.5bhp, meaning that the 500kg roofless and doorless car was genuinely capable of 74mph. In the October 1949 issue of

Mechanix Illustrated, Tom McCahill declared the $849 Roadster ‘the poor man’s MG’, and meant it as a serious compliment.

Because said competitor was readily available on our shores, very few Hotshot Roadsters ever made the trip across the Atlantic. The restored, 27,000mile example at Joe Macari’s is thus a rare sight and, while it is accordingly pricey at an asked £24,950, it is unlikely to disappoint its buyer: McCahill, who had previously written damningly about Crosley, reckoned the Hotshot to offer owners ‘more fun than they have had with a car in years’.