King Midgets, Moving Prudently Over Road and Page

By RONALD AHRENS

Residents of Hermitage, Pa., may have wondered whether a plague of automotive locusts had descended on them over the weekend. The buzzing of tiny engines certainly would have been persuasive.

Rather, the cacophony was produced by the International King Midget Car Club Jamboree. More than 60 cars and twice as many people shook and rattled over the byways of western Pennsylvania on one of the longest Jamboree drives undertaken in the event's 22-year history. Rain showers on Saturday did not deter the participants, even though there was certainly no outrunning the clouds in cars that topped out at 55 miles per hour.

According to the Standard Catalog of American Cars, the King Midgets, manufactured in Athens, Ohio, from 1946 to 1969, were marketed as the postwar period's economical and efficient people's car. Fuel economy approached 60 miles per gallon, a chief selling point for the cars, which were frequently shipped to b uyers in kit form.

The supermini's saga is related in “King Midget: The Lost Archives” (PDF), a new book documenting the vehicle's history. The tome, weighing roughly 1 percent of a late-production car's 800-pound curb weight, is accompanied by the reissue of “King Midget: A Historical Scrapbook,” first released in 1991.

Together, the histories relate the slow but deliberate growth of the King Midget and its fan base. Beginning life as a single-seat, open-wheel model after World War II, the King Midget entered what its devotees have described as a golden era in 1951, when the rear-engine car received styling evocative of the Willys-Overland Jeepster, a cloth top and enough interior volume to accommodate a second passenger. Refinements to the single-cylinder, 7.5-horsepower Wisconsin engine, which was also used for irrigation pumps, grain elevators and small tractors, were incorporated.

What the second series lacked in motive force, it made up in its low weight of 450 pounds and attainable price of $550. Minimal, yes, but that was the point. No factory-built King Midget exceeded 10 feet in length. But the 5,000 examples produced appealed to a group of people who never aspired to own Ford V-8s or Hot Rod Lincolns.

“All of us saw the ads in Popular Science,” Bob Vahsholtz, 76, a club officer who edited the histories, said Sunday in a telephone interview. “We wanted the car so bad, we could taste it.”

Mr. Vahsholtz, of Arroyo Grande, Calif., has three King Midgets in his collection. The Jamboree has never been held farther west than Oklahoma City; Mr. Vahsholtz drove cross-country to the 2012 Jamboree without any of his King Midgets in tow.

Though not a “clubby” guy, he said, he enjoyed the camaraderie of the International King Midget Car Club, which he described as a “people club.”

King Midgets had virtually no safety features, but Mr. Vahsholtz said no one has been injured particip ating in the Jamboree. “There cars go slow,” he said. “It's awful hard to get hurt.”

“We treasure original King Midgets, modifieds, clunkers and reproductions,” he added. “All King Midget people are welcome, and we don't compete for anything. We do have driving competitions, hill climbs, drag races and so forth, but it's all in fun and nobody gets trophies.”

Mr. Vahsholtz said two King Midgets in the Jamboree were retrofitted with 3-cylinder engines from Geo Metros from the early '90s. This retrofit would be one of the most daring advances since 1958, when a fake front grille and modest tail fins were introduced in Series Three production. A 12-horsepower Kohler engine was installed after 1967, when Detroit's muscle cars were attaining gorilla power.

Mr. Vahsholtz cautioned against underestimating the visceral thrill afforded by such relatively underpowered cars. “These King Midgets sit and vibrate and spit and sputter, and people love the m,” he said.