you've probably never seen a racing Crosley...

The Crosley Hot Shot was a legit successful racer, and won the new years eve 1950 Sebring endurance race, over Ferraris etc etc.

in the Sebring race the officials had come up with a handicap ruling, to make all the different cars equal, regardless of their engine size. (The handicap system was widely used throughout Europe.) They would take the size of the engine and convert the cubic inches into cubic centimeters (cc) and multiply it by a certain number, and that was the number of laps the car had to finish to win the race. Then if the the car had a supercharger to boost horse power that number was again multiplied by .04, which roughly equaled to about another 20 laps that car would have to finish.

The Crosley had to complete 288.3 miles, while the Ferrari had to complete 363.6 miles.

After the first hour of racing, the handicap formula showed, to everyone's amazement, that the little Crosley was in first place. In a close second was the #55 2-litre Ferrari, and holding down third place was a 1100-cc Fiat, 4th was a Cadillac-engined Allard, No. 34, driven by Tommy Cole, who had himself hours earlier driven the Crosley around the track.

At the end of the second hour, #27, a Mercury-powered Allard had to drop out, leaving 26 cars in the racing pack. The Crosley Hotshot remained in the lead, but the #20 Fiat edged ahead of Kimberly's Ferrari.

As the third hour ended, Luigi Chinetti's Ferrari began to lose oil but continued on by making frequent pit stops. And at this time a mechanic caused Tommy Cole's stalled Allard to be disqualified by running over to help, amidst loud protest from the car's owner. Now there were 25 cars left in the race.

Frits kept the Crosley in high gear and going into the corners would just sit up and let the air resistance blowing against his body slow it down for the turn, once through the turn would slide back down in the seat.

http://crosleyautoclub.com/Sebring/Sebring.html
http://www.billsgarage.com/19crosleyhotshot.html

Crosley introduced several "firsts" in the American automobile industry, including the first use of the term 'Sport Utility' in 1948
first mass-market single overhead camshaft (SOHC) engine in 1946;
first slab-sided postwar car, also in 1946;
first all steel-bodied wagon in 1947;
first American car to be fitted with 4-wheel caliper type disc brakes in the 1949 model year
and the first American sports car, the Hotshot, in the 1949 model year.

Notable Crosley owners
General Omar Bradley
Humphrey Bogart (Two-cylinder Crosley)
David Carradine (VC Super Sports)
Tommy Dorsey
President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1951 CD Surrey)
Geraldine Farrar (Two-cylinder Crosley)
Paulette Goddard (Two-cylinder Crosley)
George M. Humphrey, Secretary of the Treasury
Art Linkletter (1952 CD Sport Convertible)
Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York (1950 HotShot)
Gloria Swanson (Two-cylinder Crosley)
Frank Lloyd Wright (1952 VC Super Sports)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosley