Bandini bellissimo!

Reader DougD told me recently he’s just about ready for more Crosley content on the blog. He’s lucky, then, that I’m still going through my photos from Hershey, where I grabbed some shots of this delightful little Bandini in the D&D Classic booth in the Chocolate Field.

Roger James at D&D filled me in on the details: Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond originally ordered the Bandini Barchetta in 1956, but died before he could take delivery, so it sold through Raymond’s estate and was raced extensively in the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana tri-state area until some point in the 1960s, when it was parked behind a house in Indiana and left to rot. Not until about four years ago – and after a tree had grown up through it – did its owner decide to restore it. “It’s a very well-made car,” Roger said, noting that Bandini used aircraft tubing throughout the handmade chassis, aluminum body panels and a cast-iron Crosley four-cylinder engine, adapted to a Fiat Topolino drivetrain. Roger noted that D&D, which restored the Barchetta to the condition we saw it at Hershey, plans to show the car at Amelia Island next year.