{"id":474524,"date":"2010-03-26T10:30:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T14:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/?p=41601"},"modified":"2010-03-26T10:30:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T14:30:34","slug":"amelia-island-concours-d%e2%80%99elegance-1954-kurtis-byers-500kk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/474524","title":{"rendered":"Amelia Island Concours d\u2019Elegance:  1954 Kurtis Byers 500KK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/amelia-island-concours-delegance-1954-kurtis-byers-500kk\/kurtis-desoto-lf\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41602\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kurtis-DeSoto-LF-500x358.jpg\" alt=\"1954 Kurtis 500KK\" title=\"Kurtis DeSoto LF\" width=\"500\" height=\"358\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-41602\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Frank Kurtis and his company, Kurtis Kraft, were best known for building successful midget cars, sprint cars and Indy cars.  Between 1950 and 1960, Kurtis built 120 Indy cars, which took five Indy 500 victories.  If you watched racing in the 1950s, you saw his cars in competition; eager to capitalize on this, Kurtis began building a limited range of two seat sports cars in 1949.  Between 1949 and 1955, about 75 cars were completed and sold.<\/p>\n<p>More pics after the jump.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-41601\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/amelia-island-concours-delegance-1954-kurtis-byers-500kk\/kurtis-desoto-hood\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41604\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kurtis-DeSoto-Hood-500x375.jpg\" alt=\"1954 Kurtis 500KK\" title=\"Kurtis DeSoto Hood\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" class=\"size-large wp-image-41604\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">You don&#8217;t see THAT everyday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_41605\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/amelia-island-concours-delegance-1954-kurtis-byers-500kk\/desoto-power\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41605\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DeSoto-Power-500x375.jpg\" alt=\"1954 Kurtis 500KK\" title=\"DeSoto Power\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" class=\"size-large wp-image-41605\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yeah, it&#8217;s got a hemi<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_41606\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/amelia-island-concours-delegance-1954-kurtis-byers-500kk\/desoto-kurtis\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-41606\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ridelust.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/DeSoto-Kurtis-500x375.jpg\" alt=\"1954 Kurtis 500KK\" title=\"DeSoto Kurtis\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" class=\"size-large wp-image-41606\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Interior is&#8230; spartan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The KK series were sold in various stages of completion, allowing the buyer a choice of  motor, transmission and body type.  Frame and suspension were pure race car, taken from Kurtis\u2019 1953 Indy car design.  This 1954 Kurtis Byers 500KK features a fiberglass body molded by boat builder Jim Byers, and uses a 291 cubic inch Hemi Fire Dome V8 motor built by DeSoto and good for 275 horsepower.  The car was used by the original owner to compete in various sports car and drag racing events into the 1960s, and it is  still campaigned by its current owners in vintage events.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/SFA9RbatDe6VjWg61LF4LQ1CuWQ\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/SFA9RbatDe6VjWg61LF4LQ1CuWQ\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/SFA9RbatDe6VjWg61LF4LQ1CuWQ\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/SFA9RbatDe6VjWg61LF4LQ1CuWQ\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frank Kurtis and his company, Kurtis Kraft, were best known for building successful midget cars, sprint cars and Indy cars. Between 1950 and 1960, Kurtis built 120 Indy cars, which took five Indy 500 victories. If you watched racing in the 1950s, you saw his cars in competition; eager to capitalize on this, Kurtis began [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2161,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-474524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}