Since I posted that photo of Ray Russell’s Gadabout, I’ve been thinking about a similarly shaped and similarly sized homebuilt roadster that, like the Little Jewel, ran in the Lost and Found column in Hemmings Classic Car a few years back but never garnered a response.
Back in January 2007, Bob Werner sent me these photos of a car his uncle, Charles Matthews, built in either the late 1940s or early 1950s in Dayton, Ohio. “The car was built using some Crosley parts and was silver in color, perhaps the body was made from sheet aluminum but I do not remember for sure,” Bob wrote. “Today, I doubt is my uncle’s car still exists, but if anyone knows about it, please let me know.”
When we ran the pictures in the June 2007 issue of HCC, we noted that parts from a couple other makes of car went into the construction of the roadster – most notably the bumpers and taillamps. We also noted the two different license plates on the car in the photos (953 PW and what appears to be 7815 PA; the lighter one appears to be a 1948 design, while the darker one could be a 1947 design) and from that fact surmised that Charles had his car on the road for at least a couple years.
There is, of course, a greater chance the body was scrapped if it was aluminum, but we’re holding out hope that it’s still around, hiding out in a garage in Dayton.
