1956 Kurtis 500S

This car, Lot 206, sold for $143,000, including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale in Monterey, CA, on August 14, 2015.

Frank Kurtis started humbly enough. He was the son of a Croatian blacksmith. As a young kid in Los Angeles, Kurtis became enamored with the Southern California sports car scene. He honed his metalworking skills as a coachbuilder for Don Lee while still in his teens, creating bespoke coachwork for movie stars of the day.

By the late 1930s, the Midget racer craze had come full tilt, and Kurtis’ company Kurtis Kraft was producing some of the best Midget cars around. Like any astute businessman, Kurtis surrounded himself with the best drivers and designers in the business, and delivering Midgets became his sole focus.

Kurtis had a strong talent for creating startlingly fast cars of basic design, but by the late 1940s, Midget racing was eclipsed by faster open-wheel Indy-style race cars. By the late 1940s, Kurtis was producing only a small number of Midget cars, and was instead working on building cars for Indy.

On to Indy, and the road

Kurtis quickly grew to be the premier name in chassis design for Champ cars to run at Indy. 1950 saw Kurtis achieve his first win at the Indy 500, with Johnnie Parsons driving. That year, no fewer than 14 drivers who qualified in the pack of 33 were driving Kurtis Kraft chassis, and three of the top five finishers were driving Kurtis Kraft as well. By 1955, nine of the top 10 finishers were driving a Kurtis Kraft chassis.

Kurtis also decided to offer a much more forgiving road-going variant that could be easily customized and would be difficult to beat. In 1949, Kurtis introduced the KSC (Kurtis Sports Car), which was very well received. The car graced the cover of the very first issue of Motor Trend and ran impressive speed trials at over 140 mph.

The KSC quickly garnered the attention of not only the general public, but the attention of Earl “Madman” Muntz as well. Remember the Muntz Jet? Well, Muntz dug the KSC so much that he purchased the rights and the tooling for the car. Muntz took the design, added a couple of seats, a few inches in wheelbase, stuffed in a Caddy V8 and presto, the Muntz Jet was born.

Once Kurtis was done with any contractual obligations to Muntz, he decided to build a new sports car — the 500S. Introduced in 1953, this car took much of its design from the Kurtis Indy chassis. The mindset of Kurtis was to bring flexibility to the client. He offered his chassis in various stages of completion. He could build the entire car for you or give you a basic kit with the drivetrain left out. Sometimes brakes and suspension were left to the client as well.

Driver Bill Stroppe decided to take a 500S racing and quickly found success. Stroppe racked up no less than eight 1st-place finishes and beat up on powerhouse names like Ferrari and Jaguar in the process. Further victories came in 1954, cementing Kurtis Kraft as the premier chassis builder of the day.

A rare sight

This meteoric success, however, did not translate into enormous and lucrative sales. Roughly 30 kits and completed cars were delivered between 1953 and 1955, when Kurtis made some changes and dubbed the car the 500M. The changes included a new closed-fender body, as well as modifications more at home on a street car than a dedicated track competitor. A plush interior was added, which even included provisions for a radio.

Since the car had gained a bit of weight, its track prowess was diminished and privateer efforts were lackluster at best. Only about 20 kits and full cars left the factory before a funeral march started to play for the 500M.

One of the last

Since our profile car was built as a 1956, holds a chassis number of KK15, and was invoiced as 500M, it stands to reason that this was one of the last chassis produced. The confusion lay in the body, as the 500M was a closed-fender car. But with Kurtis Kraft, no real rules applied to production, so there are no wrong answers even when it comes to the body.

This car appears to have been thoughtfully put together even if it was completed only recently. A period-correct 283 Chevy mill was installed, backed by a modern 5-speed. I know the 5-speed is not exactly period, but I am sure it adds an element of civility to the car for street use. Overall, the car looks to be in fantastic order — and you could eat off that 283.

Personally, I think these cars deserve a lot more credit and a much higher price tag than they currently have. These chassis dominated Indy racing for five years and influenced many other chassis builders for years to come. With only about 30 or so built, you won’t see another 500S at Cars and Coffee. The rarity factor is definitely there.

However, the collectibility rub might be the perception that these were nothing more than kit cars at the time — even if they weren’t exactly in the back of the comic book next to the sea monkeys. That train of thought puts this car in the camp of kit-built Cobras and GT40s, which I don’t think is an appropriate comparison.

Regardless, the market usually sees these trade for more than this one brought here, especially in this condition. So with that in mind, I have to call this one well bought — and it should prove to be a ton of fun for its new owner.

(Introductory description courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.