A Pre-War Midget restoration

[the shadow]

Thought I’d make up a build thread for a pre-war midget project I purchased in late 2009 from a guy in Springfield Ma. He was a collector & restorer of vintage race cars but was getting rid of projects he was not going to finish. The car itself had no notable history and all he knew is that it was originally a flat tail pre-war midget (the head blister was added later) and it ran out of the upper new York & new Hampshire area’s? when I bought the car he had straightened out the middle body cowl & rear body section & put them in epoxy primer and he cut and welded a larger aluminum sprint car nose to fit the midget chassis to replace the damaged & hideous (his words) old front nose. He had also cut out the original rear lead spring cross member & tacked it in the chassis further back in an effort to lower the chassis like later midgets.
Let me start by saying I had no experience with midgets or sprint cars before 2007, other than seeing pics of my uncle in his & knowing he lost his life in one. Since starting these projects I have attended several local dirt races to watch the USAC midgets, very fun! I wanted to try to stay 99% accurate if at all possible on the restoration but without pics it would be hard. Many older Midget “Guru’s” over on the Hamb told me not to commit to being so accurate because these cars were all different. Each car & owner put what ever worked for him at that time when they were racing? My interest in this early style midget was because it looked like a traditional “High Tail” midget like the one my Uncle raced and unfortunately lost his life in a race in 1957 in an incident with Jonny Mann. A few years earlier I had built a sprint car or “big car” as they were called and painted it up in my uncles car colors as a tribute to him & my family. I made that car big so I could fit in it, I won’t be getting gin the midget (not even with a shoe horn). I built the big car from scratch & after the experience I decided to tackle the real thing and soon after I found this midget on the Hamb site.
here are some pics of the midget as I got it as well as a pic of my uncle car from 1957.