1955 Ziegler Special – Hopelessly Smitten
This is the story of two men, born 45 years apart, each completely obsessed with the automobile, and both hopelessly smitten by the very same car. W.J. Ziegler was born in 1911 and quickly realized that his life would be immersed in cars. He was the first student of his high school to own an automobile, and he rapidly became an accomplished mechanic. He was also a savvy businessman and on December 6, 1933, the day after Prohibition was repealed, Ziegler opened a tavern with the idea that its cash flow would fund a racing team. The plan was spot on, and he became owner and chief mechanic of a highly competitive midget racing team. Ziegler’s cars were so well prepared that he was able to attract top-tier professional drivers like Frankie Beeder and Duke Nalon. His formula worked perfectly and led to more than one National Midget Championship in the 1930s.
The racing scene changed following World War II, and midget racing was no longer packing stadiums. After years of barnstorming the country with his midgets, Ziegler decided to settle down with his family in Speedway, Indiana. The year 1947 marked the retirement of Ziegler’s final midget racer, but it would hardly be the end of his automotive activities. Ziegler turned his attention and skills to a popular Midwestern trend of racing modified stock cars on quarter- and eighth-mile circle tracks. As Crosleys were a common choice for such events, Ziegler built a highly modified Crosley pickup truck racer. The truck became known as “Old No. 8” and was a regular and capable competitor.
When privateer race team ownership gave way to big corporate professional racing, Ziegler set his career in another direction. After a brief and fated stint as the exclusive State of Indiana Dealer/Distributor for the Tucker Car Corporation, Ziegler went to work and became a longtime employee at Detroit Diesel’s Allison Transmission plant.
The stability of a full-time job and a steady paycheck allowed Ziegler to fulfill another lifelong dream…to design and build his own sports car. The project began with a 24-inch clay model that Ziegler hand crafted at the family kitchen table. The car was planned to be light and nimble and Ziegler spent weeks focusing on the aerodynamic aspects of the mockup. Once the form was fully developed, Ziegler turned his focus to the engineering and construction aspects of the project.
Ziegler wanted his sports car to have a race-inspired lineage, so he sourced the chassis and engine from his “Old No. 8” Crosley racer. The chassis was Z’ed to lower the car’s center of gravity. The engine was left as raced; a bored and stroked, cast iron Crosley block with two Zenith marine racing carburetors upon a Fageol high-performance intake manifold. And then there was the coachwork. Ziegler reasoned that the all-new material of fiberglass would provide a durable lightweight structure. He also understood that by creating a mold he could produce duplicate units for others. The clay model informed the full-scale construction as Ziegler produced a body plug from wood, chicken wire, and Plaster of Paris. The end result was a larger body-form of identical shape to his original clay model.
Ziegler’s son John recalls the process of body construction, “With the plaster body-form complete, the days and weeks of sanding began. It seemed like forever; sanding, smoothing, sculpting, sanding, patching and more sanding. My father was a disciplined second-generation German, and taught me the form must be perfect as the actual body would mimic its quality. When perfection was achieved, dad and I started building the fiberglass mold on top of the plaster plug. Liquid, then cloth, then mat and let dry. We repeated the process several times; I have no idea how many application coats we used. When this procedure was complete the newly created mold was removed from the plaster car and the plaster body and wooden skeleton were removed from the chassis and trashed. Now we had a complete fiberglass mold to build the actual body. Then there was more sanding. I remember sitting inside the mold sanding, sanding, sanding. When the mold was ready, the same process was used to build the body inside the mold. Liquid, then cloth, then mat and let dry, then repeat, over and over again. I remember dad had several men help us separate the body from the mold. Building the body was by far the largest task of the project. With dad’s past knowledge of building racecar chassis, engines and transmissions, the final assembly of the Ziegler seemed to go a lot smoother. Dad made nearly every part on the car except for the Crosley parts taken from his last racer. I remember him cutting the windshield, sticking it into the kitchen oven and bending it to fit. The front grill was designed by dad; this and the Ziegler name plates were manufactured at a speed shop close to the Indianapolis track.”
After two years of intensive work, the “Ziegler Special” was a reality. The event was immortalized by a photo shoot in October of 1955. This was followed by articles in Motor Life and Rodding & Re-Styling. The car also won more than one award for styling and engineering, including the Mechanix Illustrated “Golden Hammer Award.” W.J. took the Ziegler Special to more than 100 car shows where it earned numerous awards. Then, after 10 years of non-stop promotion, Ziegler quietly tucked the car away in a shed until he reached 73 years of age. Despite running advertisements to sell bodies and the original molds, Ziegler only produced one example. Ultimately, Ziegler sold his special to his close friend Don Richey in November of 1984. At that time the car was completely original including its first set of tires. Sadly, Richey died just eight months later, never having taken the Ziegler out for a test run. From there the car passed to Max Merritt, a Richey family friend. Period documentation shows that the odometer reading at the time of this 1985 sale was 177 miles.
After 25 years as caretaker, and logging less than 50 additional miles on the odometer, Merritt decided to sell the car. Here is the odd twist in the Ziegler tale.
Jim and Evelyn Fasnacht are as passionate about the automobile as anyone I’ve ever met. They love what they love and their collecting pattern has nothing to do with what’s in vogue or what the cool kids are buying. The couple has won fistfuls of awards at Pebble Beach with a focus on pre-war, front-wheel-drive cars, and in particular, Ruxton automobiles. However, the Fasnachts also covet muscle cars, hot rods, Jeep FCs, micro cars, and special Crosleys…yes, Crosleys. The Fasnachts have amassed an amazing collection of Crosley-powered “wundercars” including two 1949 Hot Shots, a competition-built 1950 Super Hot Shot, two 1951 Super Sports and a 1952 Skorpion. So it should not be surprising that Jim became extremely excited when he received a phone call from an individual in November of 2010 offering to sell him the Ziegler.
Fasnacht said, “At the time I received the call I knew nothing about the Ziegler Special, but when I received a few photographs and a synopsis of its history by email I was totally taken. The guy I was dealing with said he and a business partner had purchased the car two years earlier. They hadn’t done much with the car, but had decided to let it go. The asking price was a bit high, but I was in love with the Ziegler and was ready to make a deal. I asked some questions about the fuel and electrical systems and the condition of the undercarriage, and the sellers seemed to know very little. So I asked them to take some photos of the engine compartment and under surface of the car and was told that it was stuffed in a garage and they couldn’t get close to it. This seemed odd and after another phone conversation, during which I was told I could not come inspect the car, I was suspicious that the two sellers were up to something unseemly. I mentioned the car to one of the guys who helps me with my collection, and 15 minutes later he showed me the car advertised for sale on the Internet. The problem was that this seller was in another state with a totally different phone number from the business partners who claimed to have the car. And the asking price was significantly lower. When I called the number advertised on the Internet I quickly learned that the man who answered, Max Merritt, was the real owner. He knew all about the car and had owned it for a quarter century. Apparently, the other guys had been trying to buy the car for months, but were short on funds. So they hatched a scheme whereby I would send them significantly more money than Merritt’s asking price. With my money in hand I presume they planned to then buy the Ziegler from Merritt. Thank god for the Internet.”
Having purchased the Ziegler Special from Mr. Merritt, Fasnacht performed a detailed analysis of the car and began to craft a plan. He said, “We received the Ziegler Special as an incredible time capsule, a barn find among barn finds. It still possessed 100 percent of its original paint, upholstery, and chrome. The engine had never been out of the car and it remained in excellent running condition. It ran, drove, handled and performed remarkably well. My wife and I decided to preserve the car methodically in its time capsule condition—unaltered since Ziegler built it 55 years and 225 miles earlier. Paint-finish guru Reid Moffat of Houston, Texas, was recruited to painstakingly remove the mildewed stains that had been impregnated deep into the paint. He worked on the paint finish for close to 100 hours. Other detailed measures were employed to preserve the original upholstery, carpeting and mechanical systems. The end result of this approach was an outstanding preservation of a truly unique piece of automotive history.”
The Ziegler Special is a historically significant 1950s show car with genuine “Old No. 8” racecar DNA. It is a shame that Ziegler and Fasnacht never got the chance to meet. Fasnacht has garnered great insight into the builder of his car based on the quality of construction and attention to detail. And there can be no doubt that W.J. Ziegler would be delighted to know Jim and Evelyn Fasnacht and witness the loving care that is being shown to his most cherished creation—the Ziegler Special.
