I Brake for Cruver and Salad Dressing

By Douglas R. Kelly

Alright, show of hands: how many of you have finished up a day of antique, artifact, or treasure hunting by bringing your finds into a restaurant for a relaxing meal with your friend or significant other and a little “show and tell” session around the table? I’ve found this kind of debriefing to be really enjoyable over the years and, more often than not, educational as well.

After the Friday “set-up” day, also called the “early bird” day, at the annual Allentown (Pennsylvania) Antique Toy Show last month, my friend Marc Star joined me for dinner at a local eatery. It was a great chance to catch up and talk about the day’s events, and the two of us soon had much of the four-person table covered with toys and boxes. When the server came to take our drink order, he kind of slowed his roll when he saw tinplate and plastic cars parked next to the napkin dispenser. He asked, “Huh, what’s with the toy cars?” We told him about that day’s show and the huge number of high-quality vintage pieces that were for sale, and he seemed genuinely interested. So we took out a couple more items from our bags while he went away to fetch the drinks.

After I’d shown Marc a tinplate Porsche made by Kellerman (CKO) that I’d managed to acquire, he began to unwrap a comparatively large box that rang a faraway bell in my brain. The yellow and blue colors were sort of familiar, but when I saw the words “Futuramic Oldsmobile,” I locked in and realized I’d seen this box only in pictures. It belonged to an approximately eight-inch-long plastic 1949 Oldsmobile 98 promo model made by Cruver, a Chicago-area
manufacturer of household items during the 1940s and 1950s.

Cruver made just two toy cars, to the best of my knowledge. One was a simple, one-piece plastic Buick measuring about five inches in length. You can learn more about that Buick, and a mysterious copy, in my Toys from the Attic entry in the July issue of the JOAC.

The other was the beauty Marc was unwrapping. He set the medium-blue Oldsmobile down in front of me without saying anything. If I’d been standing, you wouldn’t have needed a feather to knock me over. I’d seen perhaps two or three other examples for sale over the years, but each showed some degree of body warping and was missing parts. Marc’s example looked straight as an arrow and had all its original brightwork: side trim, bumpers front and rear, hood ornament, hubcaps, the whole nine yards.

The blue body gleamed as though the car had been faithfully waxed every Saturday afternoon for the past 76 years.

I managed to croak out the words “Where?” and “When?” as the server brought our drinks to the table. The poor guy must’ve wondered if he was witnessing a medical emergency, because I’m sure the color had drained from my face. Had I somehow missed the Oldsmobile at the show earlier that day? Marc chuckled and explained that he’d managed to be the high bidder in a recent auction featuring the collection of a well-known toy car collector and was understandably pleased to have added the Olds to his collection.

The Cruver Oldsmobile is something of a Holy Grail to promo collectors, and rightly so.
Stem to stern, Cruver nailed this one. It’s a very accurate rendition of the 1949 Model 98 sedan.
The model was also produced in beige, but I think the blue version is the better-looking of the two. It also seems unlikely that Cruver made very many of them, given its rarity compared with other early promos today.

The box that came with Marc’s car was in very good shape, and the box art practically screams, “Here come the 1950s!”

This one doesn’t come cheap. The few incomplete and worn examples I’ve seen, usually without a box, were priced around $300.

In my opinion, Marc’s exceptional example is worth twice that. What a tremendous find for him. We made sure it was safely wrapped up and back in Marc’s bag before our server returned with the chicken scallopini.

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Douglas R. Kelly is the editor of Marine Technology magazine. His byline has appeared in Antiques Roadshow Insider; Back Issue; Diecast Collector; RetroFan; and Buildings magazines.