1948 Kurtis Midget

This Midget racer was purchased in 1948 by Larry Dunham. It was raced by Dunham with various car numbers in Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, and southern California to many significant wins! Some USAC numbers were 55,47, 48 60. Larry Dunham owned the car from 1948 to the early 1990s. He also road raced at Riverside, Willow Springs and Paramount Ranch. At Willow Springs, with eighty-three car entries including Ferraris, Jags etc., he started last, worked his way up through the pack and won the race.

Roger Simonatti purchased the car in the early 1990s and performed a complete ground-up restoration. It was purchased in 1994 by Rand Francis, who displayed at car shows and did a few parade laps in Old Timers events.

The current owner purchased the car in 2002 and has raced with H.M.S.A and C.S.R.G. and the Monterey Historic race three times.

Sold for $63,800 at 2015 Gooding & Company : Amelia Island.
This car ran on the East Coast for its Long Island, NY owner named, Ed Bowman, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The car was found by the late Bobby Albert (ARDC Hall of Famer) in 1973 and restored to resemble the 'Bulldog Office' that he drove for East Coast owner Bill Dorer.

Acquired from the Bobby Albert estate in May of 2007, the current owner had noted East Coast restorer Joe Fiore return the car to its original 1948 condition with an Offenhauser motor and Packard Celestial blue paint.

The Offenhauser engine in the car is a 1938 97 cubic-inch motor fitted with Hilborn fuel injection. It was freshly restored by the late Ken Hickey and acquired from a Pennsylvania collection.

This 1948 'Snook Offy' Kurtis-Kraft Midget is one of the world's most significant midget race cars. It was born in 1948 in Frank Kurtis' shop as chassis number 272. Originally fitted with an Eddie Meyers V8-60, it was sold new to Hanley 'Cadillac' Booth of Oklahoma City.

Through subsequent owners, the V8-60 was replaced with a 100 Offenhauser engine. Dean Ewing was commissioned to fabricate the one-off nose and grill.

In 1954, it was sold to Louis Snook of Charlotte, Texas. He aggressively campaigned the car to the top of the sport until 1968. Some of the best and hottest drivers in the business were put into the cockpit by Snook. Drivers included A.J. Foyt, Johnny Rutherford, Don Edmunds, and a long list of other well-known drivers.

This 1948 midget racer originally raced with power from a Ford V8-60 (60 horsepower from Henry's factory). During the following years, it was powered by other engines including a Ford Falcon 6-cylinder engine, and is thought to have raced in Ohio as the 'Doan Falcon' during the early 1960s. When found as a roller during 1982, its early history unknown, it underwent a decade-long re-engineering to create this Kurtis-style midget with Offenhauser power.

Its dual overhead cam, hemispherical combustion chamber, fuel inject, 4-cylinder Offy 110 is an evolution of the '97' that was enlarged to 110 cubic inches and typical of period midget racers. The history of the '97' dates to Harry Miller's '91' inline-8 cylinder engine of the 1920s, whose winning legacy became Offenhauser when Miller's works collapsed financially in 1932, and his shop foreman, Fred Offenhauser bought in. Offenhauser engines continued to be designed by Leo Goosen, Miller's designer, whose lifetime with racing engines produced America's premier racing engines for decades.

The 110 in top tune was capable of as much as three horsepower per cubic inch, perhaps 330 horsepower, making the car a formidable performer, especially with an external hand brake, in-out gearbox, and weighing less than 1,000 pounds. This car is currently racing in the Antique Auto Racing Association (AACA) series, continuing its 21-year legacy in competition.

Despite its odd proportions and relative obscurity, the Kurtis-Kraft Midget is a bigger car than its name suggests… Well, actually its name is perfectly apt at describing the car's diminutive dimensions. But that innocent little label doesn't even begin to hint at how successful and formidable a racing car the Kurtis-Kraft Midget was. Now a largely unknown car from a largely unknown maker, the Midget was effective and efficient in its time as it lapped the small oval racetracks on which it competed. Neither pretty nor prestigious, the Midget possessed a trait more important than either of those characteristics: authenticity. The Kurtis-Kraft Midget was an authentic racing car, purpose-built to dominate the increasingly popular field of midget car racing. Simple and unpretentious, the Midget was a timeless (and long-lived) example of an idea that just worked—and that idea worked well enough to earn Kurtis-Kraft a reputation for building one of the finest and most accomplished midget racers of the time.

Kurtis-Kraft was never a household name. Predominantly a builder of focused racing cars to compete at major events (most notably the Indianapolis 500), the company's production figures were never high. But, at least amongst car enthusiasts, Kurtis-Kraft deserves recognition for its success. Its Indy cars, powered by the famed Offenhauser four-cylinder engine, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1950 and 1951, and then again in 1953, 1954, and 1955.

The Kurtis-Kraft Midgets never earned victories as prestigious as those attained by their Indy-winning big brothers, but the smaller cars were nevertheless extremely successful in their field. Midget racing simply didn't have the same cachet as full-size automobile racing. The cars were not as glamorous as the larger racers and usually didn't come from high-profile brands. But Midget racing was, as it remains, a hugely entertaining and exciting form of motorsport appreciated by droves of spectators and superb drivers. Midget racers of the Kurtis-Kraft Midget era didn't feature the same safety precautions as today's machines, but still possessed explosive power-to-weight ratios. Hot engines and low weights ensured that these midget machines, even at half a ton, provided a whole handful of thrills.

From around 1946 to 1962, Kurtis-Kraft produced approximately 550 turnkey Midgets. Another 600 or so units were sold in kit form. These cars were highly successful, remaining competitive even after the end of their production run. The Offenhauser engine used in many Kurtis-Kraft Midgets was responsible for a large part of the cars' success. This advanced engine featured dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. The block and head were incorporated into a single casting, eliminating the need for a head gasket and enabling the use of high compression ratios. Even more significant than its use in midget racing, the Offenhauser engine realized relentless success at Indianapolis, where it powered the victorious Kurtis-Krafts as well as winners from several other manufacturers.

With its legendary engine and successful racing record, the Kurtis-Kraft Midget meets two criteria for becoming a very collectible—and expensive—piece of automotive history. Yet the obscurity of the Kurtis-Kraft marque, as well as the car's tiny size and conventional midget racer shape, has prevented the Midget from appreciating into the realm of unobtanium. Kurtis-Kraft Midgets occasionally turn up at major auctions, and they do not bring the big money associated with similarly-pedigreed but larger racing cars of the same era. For this reason, the Midget provides an almost unrivaled opportunity for affordable entry into the rarefied league of historically-significant racing car ownership.

Sources:

'1947 Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser Midget.' RM Auctions. n.d. n. page. Web. 21 Jun. 2012. http://www.rmauctions.com/featurecars.cfm?SaleCode=JG08&CarID=r229&fc=0.

White, Gordon Eliot. Kurtis-Kraft: Masterworks of Speed and Style. St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing Company, 2001. Print.

By Evan Acuña

Midget racing was gaining popularity in the post-War era, and many racers were finding it difficult to compete due to rule changes and escalating expenses. The governing bodies had imposed an engine displacement limit of 100 to 140 cubic inches, and for many Midget racers, the start-of-the-art Offenhauser engine was too expensive. Alternatives were found, but most were sourced from larger motors that were 'sleeved' or machined down to the required sizes. This often meant that power output was compromised.

In 1937, Ford announced a new 136 cub-cinch V8 engine that promised 60 horsepower. This became an economical alternative to the larger-displacement 85 horsepower V8 engine. One of the drawbacks of the V8-60 was that it had an overheating problem. Overheating aside, it was one of the first alternatives to provide a challenge to the Offenhauser powerplant.

In 1941, Ford replaced their V8-60 with an inline six-cylinder engine.

Kurtis, who also invented the dominant Indianapolis roadster design of the 1950s, was notable for being the first non-driver inducted into the National Midget Hall of Fame.

By Daniel Vaughan | Jun 2012