Vehicle Description
Vehicle to be offered for Auction sale WITHOUT RESERVE and SOLD to the highest bidder January 19th - 22nd, 2017 at Russo and Steele's 17th Annual Scottsdale Arizona Auction at the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Please contact us for more information.
Descended from the wild and wooly dirt-track Sprint cars and Midgets that continue to thrill legions of hard-core racing fans in America, Quarter Midgets have been around in one form or another since the days before World War II. Today, there are over 4,000 Quarter Midget drivers in the United States and many of the most recognized American racing champions began their careers as kids driving quarter midgets. Among them are A.J. Foyt, Jeff Gordon, Sarah Fisher, Jimmy Vasser, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Terry Labonte, and Bobby Labonte, to name only a few of today's top drivers that started their racing careers behind the wheel of Quarter Midgets.
While many venues exist for Quarter Midget racing today, the oldest continually run dirt Quarter Midget dirt east of the Mississippi is the Hulman Mini Speedway, operated since 1958 by the Terre Haute Quarter Midget Association (THQMA) and located in Terre Haute, Indiana. The west coast is home to another Quarter Midget hotbed where the Capitol Quarter Midget Association has operated a Quarter Midget dirt track since 1954. Notably, NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon raced during his early years with the Capitol Quarter Midget Association.
A number of manufacturers produced Quarter Midgets over the decades, and despite their diminutive proportions, the cars were quite sophisticated, attractively finished, and surprisingly costly. Finished cars were priced in advertisements from $500 or more, a considerable sum during the 1950s. In ready-to-run form, they often included two-tone paint finishes, racing stripes, naugahyde upholstery, chrome bumpers/nerf bars and roll bars. One-piece bodies, racing-style torsion bar suspensions, and metal belly pans were also common Quarter Midget accoutrements.
This wonderful period Quarter Midget is the 1957 J&O Engineering Track-T Roadster, which was pictured on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine's February 1958 issue and on Page 29 of the same issue. In its article, Hot Rod called it the "Most unusual of the bunch," quoting a $545 price for the complete car, $495 for an assembled kit, and $445 unassembled. This Quarter Midget is also the rarest car of its kind with the only all-aluminum body known to exist. A concours restoration on an original body, it is powered by a 2-horsepower Continental engine that runs great. It is extremely desirable, collectible, and most of all fun!
