Long Live The King ... Midget!
My father bought an obscure little car in the late 1950's called the King Midget. It became a focal point of practicality and humor in our local community. It was unique, nobody else had one.
Back in the late 1950’s, when you lived in remote Humboldt County, in Eureka, a town of 25,000 people (we called it a city), oddities stuck out. Like when my father, Humboldt, bought a used 1954 King Midget. With its bug eyed headlights, tiny stature, and single piston engine, it was like adopting a rescue pet that needed a home.
My dad’s friends couldn’t figure out why he bought the thing. But he’d read about it in Popular Science Magazine and found a used one somewhere. He liked unusual inventions. He read a lot of science-fiction at the time and was experimenting with solid state circuits.
You could get the King Midget in a kit and assemble it yourself. It had a 1-cylinder Wisconsin, air-cooled motor, mounted in the rear, with 7.5hp. It got more than 40 miles per gallon and could reach 45 mph. The inventors hailed its affordability.
My father enjoyed driving the car around town. Everywhere he stopped it would draw curious onlookers and generate conversation. It made people laugh when they saw it. It became a symbol of street entertainment.
Over time, locals played practical jokes on the diminutive car. Once, some pranksters from a pizza parlor snatched the car from a curbside parking spot and carried it away. When Humboldt returned, the King Midget was inside the pizza parlor among the tables and patrons.
Or, like the day he drove the King Midget down to the Humboldt Bay waterfront and parked near a construction project. There was a heavy lift crane working there. When he came back, the King Midget was gone. It was sitting on a barge, anchored just off the shoreline of the bay. The lift operators were laughing. The car only weighed about 500 pounds. They’d used a couple lifting belts and just plucked the car out of the parking lot and set it out on the barge.
Our King Midget had wooden, mahogany doors, a canvas top with plastic zip shut windows and a hand operated single wind shield wiper in the middle of the windscreen. It had a speedometer and maybe one other gauge. Your feet extended almost to the front of the car. It was like a cross between a golf cart and a go cart.
The King Midget was the first car that I learned how to drive. I think I was about 10 years old when my dad gave me the key.
“Take it for a drive in the parking lot,” he’d said.
We were at his friend’s Shell Gas Station on Broadway in Eureka. Art Christensen owned the station and had gone to school with my dad and they’d both served in the Navy running towboats. There was a big open parking lot on the east side of the gas station. They stood there watching me try to drive the thing.
The King Midget had this steel lever under the middle of the front seat. You pulled it up to go forward and pushed it down for reverse. Or maybe vice-versa. When I started it up I pushed the lever into reverse by mistake and almost hit the wall of the gas station. That got their attention. My dad slid in next to me for the rest the test drive.
The King Midget was a U.S. auto brand, with various models manufactured, mostly in Ohio, between 1948 and 1970, under the name of Midget Motors Corporation. It was once advertised to be sold at $1 a pound for a 500 pound car
The Midget Motors Corporation is almost like the McDonald’s Restaurant story, gone bust.
The two original founders - Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt - were civil aviation fliers with a passion for practical design. They built the car using airplane assembly concepts, basing production on real time demand. They sold about 5,000 cars over the years. It was profitable and sustainable.
But around 1966 they wanted to retire and sold it to some investment bankers who planned to scale the company and ramp production. The plan to ‘Go Big’ didn’t work.
The company was bankrupt within three years.
Long Live The King Midget!
Today, the King Midget journey is carried on by The International King Midget Car Club, based in Marietta, Ohio - www.https://kingmidgetcarclub.org/
Excerpt from their website: “…You don’t have to own a King Midget to join the Club, just be a King Midget enthusiast. You will receive three newsletters per year, Winter, Spring and Fall. Each will number more than 30 pages filled with King Midget stories, technical hints and lots of photos! There are experts who can solve just about any King Midget problem …”
jhg - 1960