The cover of thousands of King Midget brochures touted "America’s Number One Fun Car!" A true statement, and these days, there’s a club to match!

This mail-order King Midget micro car was built in Athens, Ohio for twenty years following World War II, with a total of about 5,000 produced, in three car models plus motor scooters. Though tiny and slow by today’s standards, they were street-legal vehicles you could drive anywhere, and they still are, if you can find one!

In the burgeoning hobby of collectible cars, none is more fun than a King Midget. And they’re among the least expensive antique automobiles, and easiest to restore (nearly all parts are available).

King Midgets have always been a hoot, and the fun factor increases every year. Some ways to enjoy these tiny cars:

A word of caution. There’s a downside to every hobby. King Midgets are addictive. First thing you know, you’ll be hankering to own an example of every model.

If you look around this website, you’ll see there’s lots of King Midget activity and quite a few of these cute little cars around. Yet you’ll probably also suspect that King Midgets have not proven to be the answer to America’s transportation challenges. Let’s see if we can fill you in on a bit of Club history and why several hundred fans support this club and gather every year to celebrate our little orphan cars.

If you click on the tab called King Midget Vehicles, you’ll find a history of the cars and how they came to be. Here we’ll focus on the International King Midget Car Club, how it came to be and its purpose.

When King Midget production ceased about 40 years ago, most of the cars were already off the road, parked in barns and sheds. Some were dismantled for their engines, some were scrapped and many were just covered and forgotten. The sort of thing you hate to throw away but no longer serves a useful purpose. In truth, most King Midgets saw little practical use as transportation. They were more in the category of today’s ATVs—fun to buzz around the neighborhood, and even street legal! But it was probably assumed by most that these cars would never amount to more than a modest footnote in America’s automotive history. A few far-sighted fans saw much more.

People like Bob Craven and John Weitlauf made efforts to secure and preserve NOS King Midget parts. Guys like Allen Conley and Gary Woods collected the little cars and one collector, Bill Hossfield, set out to identify others doing the same. He began a King Midget Registry within a decade of the cessation of King Midget Production. Vernon Eads and others dreamed of reviving the company and resuming production. These people each had their own motivations but a common thread was the belief that the King Midget was more than just another failed attempt at producing microcars. Midget Motors showed that American ingenuity could do the impossible—start a brand new car company on a shoestring and profitably build cars few people wanted for two decades. "The lowest priced car in the world," they advertised, and yet Midget Motors made a profit building just one per day on average.

Dave Stults pulled such threads together when he took over Bill Hossfield’s Registry and used it to create an invitation list for a meeting near his Westport, Indiana lawn and garden shop in August, 1991. Eighteen King Midgets showed up for what Dave called the first King Midget Jamboree. The following year a second Jamboree was held in Athens, Ohio where King Midgets were produced. The event was hosted by Earl and Pat Funk. Pat is the daughter of Dale Orcutt, one of Midget Motors’ founders. That much larger Jamboree caught the attention of Athens’ citizenry, most of whom had not realized their town had ever hosted an automobile manufacturer.

That year, 1992, it was decided to form a club, to be named the International King Midget Car Club. Dave Stults was elected President and took the lead doing the burdensome work of establishing the Club as a legal non-profit organization intended to preserve King Midget cars and their heritage. During the early years, there were many legal expenses and the usual problems of starting up a volunteer organization. Dues were set at $20 per year and the Club has always been financially sound. As soon as prudent management would allow, dues were reduced to $15 per year, while continuing improvements have been made.

The Club has always been staffed and managed by volunteers who have devoted countless hours, many of them thankless, to the challenges of holding the Club together and building it through the years. A Jamboree has been held every year, with hosts doing outstanding work to make these memorable events. The very active Ohio Chapter holds King Midget events throughout the year. Other King Midget meets are scheduled from time to time in various places around the country, sometimes in conjunction with other events.

Newsletters are mailed on a regular basis to all members. This website was created about a decade ago and has evolved to become a major source of the Club’s contact with the "outside world" of those who are interested enough to search the Internet. There’s an active Yahoo King Midget Chat Room. The Club has been active in supporting Midget Motors history by donating a sign for Athens Ohio (the cars’ hometown), putting a plaque on the factory building, restoring a King Midget for museum display and helping the Athens museum in various other ways.

In the past couple of decades, about a thousand people have joined the Club. Many drift away to other interests. Around 50 new members join each year and we now have about 400 active members. Most of our members trace their interest to those days so long ago when Midget Motors regularly advertised in the home mechanic magazines where occasional articles about the Company and its products appeared. We were mostly teen-aged boys then, and how we yearned to have a King Midget of our own! A boy-sized car with room for a girlfriend! And they only cost a few hundred dollars! But very few of us could scrape up those dollars and had to content ourselves with poring over the flyers and catalogs we could order for a quarter or a dollar from Midget Motors. Our dads mostly admonished us that such mail-order cars were a ripoff. We thought we knew better, and for once, we were right!

Though sold mostly sight-unseen through those little ads that overstated the cars’ virtues, Midget Motors did build a good product that offered outstanding value. Now us old-timers are realizing our dream of owning a King Midget, and sharing our love of these cars with others of our ilk plus a growing band of younger people who grew up without the benefit of those little ads in Popular Mechanics et al.

As Paul Gerhardt said recently, "We call ourselves are car club, but really, we’re a people club." People who share not only a love of these cars but of the American values of hard work, thrift and honesty that enabled Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt to realize their dream of building microcars so simple and inexpensive that a boy could afford to own and maintain one.

Our greatest Club challenge is to pass that heritage along to future generations. We do so by giving the kids a ride, driving our King Midgets in parades, entering them in car shows, passing them down to our kids and grandkids and bending the ears of anyone who shows an interest. And they are legion. These simple cars appeal to American "can-do" attributes that made this nation great. As journalist Mary Seelhorst said of today’s shade-tree-mechanics, "That looks like something I could build!" And they can.

Many people start with rust-pile Midget and restore it to like-new or better. Nearly all parts are available, reproduction or NOS. Many take the occasion to exercise their creativity by upgrading the power plant or other details while others honor the heritage by keeping or restoring their car to factory condition. Increasingly, people are building King Midgets from scratch. Fans have their own opinions on restoration. The Club takes no sides and holds no judging events. The consensus is, the best thing that can happen to King Midgets is to restore them, keep them on the road and share the heritage among an ever-increasing band of fans. Too many rusty King Midgets wind up in the scrap yard. Shiny ones that can be driven become more valuable every year.

You don't have to own a King Midget to join the Club, just be a King Midget enthusiast. You will receive three newsletters per year, Winter, Spring and Fall. Each will number more than 30 pages filled with King Midget stories, technical hints and lots of photos! There are experts who can solve just about any King Midget problem, and most of us are happy to pitch in, help out and welcome newcomers.

We hope you will join us in our adventures with America’s Number One Fun Car!