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Pop Schreiber Teardrop
Built from a kit sold by Pop Schreiber's hobby shop
Harry "Pop" Schreiber immigrated to the United States shortly after World War I and opened an appliance repair and hobby shop on Kansas City's East Side. While it was the appliance repair business which put bread on the table for the Schreiber family, the hobby shop in the front of the store was Schreiber's real love.
Kansas City was part of the post-World War II boom in tether car racing, and in response to the growing popularity of the hobby, Pop Schreiber sold a teardrop-shaped .19-size mite car kit which was designed by members of the Kansas City mite car club. The car was well engineered, inexpensive, easy to build, and the finished car was quite competitive against mite cars of that era.
The car was patterned after the Hornet .60-powered Matthews V-Car which was the first tether car to exceed 100 mph. Like the V-Car, the mite car was teardrop-shaped with the engine cylinder head exposed at the front of the car. The two-piece body was short and stubby, and was cast in either magnesium or aluminum. Included in the kit were a set of 2 to 1 spur gears, an A-shaped stainless steel trailing axle, and a pair of
Pac-A-Lite ball bearing wheels and knife-edge tires. Selection of the wheels and tires for the drive axle, and the fuel tank, were left to the discretion of the buyer.
Because the kits were sold by Pop Schreiber's hobby shop, the cars became known as "Pop Schreiber Teardrops".
The car shown in the photos was built from one of those kits and has a magnesium body and engine mount. The car is powered by a McCoy 19 race car engine and is fitted with a custom-made copper fuel tank, along with a pair of Real McCoy rear wheels and 3-inch diameter semi-pneumatic tires mounted on the drive axle.
