The Strangest Tiny Engine America Ever Built

For a few years after the Second World War, if an American lifted the hood of the strangest little car in the country, the engine staring back at him was not cast from iron like every other engine in America. It was stamped out of sheet steel and fused together with copper in a furnace, and it weighed less than sixty pounds. Built in factories in the American Midwest — in Cincinnati, in Richmond, in Marion. At its peak, this engine outsmarts everything Detroit has ever put in a small car and turns a radio tycoon into a genuine automaker. The military is buying them by the tens of thousands. They run generators, refrigeration units and marine gear right through the war without a single complaint. Americans are queuing up for the tiny cars they power. Racers are winning at Sebring with them. And in 1948, Crosley builds nearly thirty thousand automobiles in a single year. But fast forward to 1952, and it is all gone. The engines are rotting from the inside out in driveways across the country. The dealers are warning buyers away. The cars are unsellable. Crosley Motors is sold off, and the line stops in July. Total collapse. Now, there is a simple villain in this story. His name is Powel Crosley Jr. — the man who overrules his own engineer brother and bets an entire automobile company on a block made of tin. But the truth is stranger — and more painful. Either way, what follows will become one of the most spectacular self-inflicted collapses in American industrial history. Disclaimer: This video is a researched history documentary. The script and story are based on real events and verified sources to the best of our ability. Some visuals are AI generated and used only as illustrative context when authentic archival photos are limited, they are not presented as real photographs of the exact people or locations unless stated. Any archival images or footage shown belong to their respective owners and are used in a transformative way for commentary, education, criticism, and historical analysis under Fair Use.