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Circa 1905 Straight Dash Oldsmobile @ 26
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Haulin' Ford Pinto Girl
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Pole's Beer Mexican Chili Hot Dogs Coca-Cola in Bottles
1950 Chevy convertible sporting Miami rental plates (thanks, anonymous) on another sunny day in postwar Florida.
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Country Picnic
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Sports Car Racing in Finland c.1954
1953 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider by Pininfarina at speed.
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1920-1 Kissel Gold Bug
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Don't Blow My Cover
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Flathead Ford V8 Skeleton RFD Hot Rod
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Salisbury Motor Scooter Dealer Tempe Arizona
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c.1930 ACF Bus Eight Mile Road & Livernois Detroit
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Raymond Jones 1947 Studebaker Convertible
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Training Wheels
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Backyard Special
Europa opens weary eyes.
(John A) Lasley Tool & Machine Co., Beloit WI
Sport 1931 = 1pOB; Velie M-5, later 90hp Lambert and 65hp Continental; span: 20'0" length: 18'0" load: 300# v: 110/100/45 range: 300 ceiling (est): 11,000'. [N819N] is one of the original Roza creations of the early '30s. It was acquired by Franklin Aircraft Co., who modified it as a prototype for their Sport 90.Purchased by Lasley c.1935, who built and installed Peyton Autry-designed wings, then sold it to Lloyd Gabriel. After a crash, it was rebuilt in 1953, reportedly with 125hp Continental, then crashed to destruction in 1957 while buzzing a house. Lasley Sport biplane photo and text from Aerofiles.
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1950 Olds 88 Troy Special
Kustomrama has the story on this postwar Olds 88 sports roadster built by Springfield, Illinois garage owner Wally Troy for the 3rd Annual Indianapolis Custom Auto Show held at the state fairgrounds on June 1, 1952, where it won a fine “Special Award for Outstanding Design” trophy. The Troy Special subsequently appeared in Hot Rod, Hop Up and Motor Trend and was named one of 1952's ten best customs in Trend Book 105 - Restyle Your Car. When I first saw the Gil Elvgren Coca-Cola ad, I assumed it referred to this car, but adbranch dates the ad at 1950, two years too soon. The fellow pictured does not appear to be builder Wally Troy, whose family has been searching for the car.
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The Week In Pictures
'39 Plymouth convertible.
Somebody's bad experience with a '54 Hudson Hornet, despite the factory wires.
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GM Art & Colour 1927-67
When Harley Earl's father sold the Earl Automobile Works to Hollywood Cadillac distributor Don Lee in 1919, Lee put Harley in charge of custom body design and sales. In no time he was hobnobbing with Mary Pickford and Fatty Arbuckle and Douglas Fairbanks as well as getting his West Coast couture Cadillacs shown at New York and Chicago salons, where they attracted the attention of GM's Alfred Sloan and the Fisher Brothers. Fred Fisher and Harley became golf buddies at the Los Angeles Country Club and when Cadillac needed help designing a youthful companion car, Harley got the call. His clean homage to Hispano-Suizas he'd admired in Paris led to his being asked to create and head General Motors Art & Colour, the most influential automotive design department of the 20th Century. The roadster shown here is inscribed Santa Helena Brasil, where road conditions might have called for the less familiar disc wheels.
1929 Buick
The first car styled completely by Art & Colour became the unfortunate victim of aPregnant Buick hysteria that swept the country. Sales plunged and Buick lost its #3 sales position to Hudson/Essex.
1930 ChevroletAs I started trying to identify prewar vehicles in snapshots, I grew to appreciate hood side panels. The basic elements of a car, truck or bus of this vintage seemed fairly similar from one nameplate to the next, but the hood side panel was a flat canvas slit with vents that could be thick, thin, straight or curved; arranged as verticals, horizontals or diagonals; in one block or in groups; as long as air moved through like it was supposed to. The 1929 Chevrolet, with its distinctive vent array, was one of Harley Earl's earliest GM production designs, a slight windshield rake one of the few changes for 1930. A '55 Bel Air hardtop of its time.
Following the success of Oakland's Pontiac and Cadillac's LaSalle, Buick tried its hand at a companion car. The 1930 Marquette was introduced in June of 1929, months before the new Buicks, but October's stock market crash caused the line to be dropped before dealers had finished hanging new signs. Oldsmobile's companion car, the V8 powered Viking, suffered a similar fate.
Sporting life in the Brazilian upper class.
A mild winter day on Shelter Island in the baby Cadillac.
The fender valances and sloping grille of Amos E. Northup and Julio Andrade's 1932 Graham Blue Streak sent every American car maker scrambling. GM and Ford were Grahamified by 1933 as were Hudson, Terraplane, Packard, Studebaker, Pierce, Reo and Willys, with pretty much the entire industry embracing the Blue Streak aesthetic by 1934.
Frank Hershey left Hudson for Art & Colour in 1932, just in time to save the struggling Pontiac division with fender valance speed streaks, chic hood vents and a Bentley-inspired grille.
Exquisite biplane bumper and trademark tall narrow LaSalle grille head a full complement of Art & Colour effects, somewhere in Europe.
1934 Cadillac V8
Summer car with '47 Connecticut plate mounted on biplane bumper with Dagmar bullets.
Lord of all creation passes amid mortals. 1 of 5 V16 two-passenger coupes coachbuilt by Fleetwood in 1934 for around $7750 when a Chevy Master Deluxe could be had for less than $600.
1935 Pontiac
Debut of the centerline silver streak.
Washington State sinkhole nearly swallows popular fencing mask grille sedan.
1936 Oldsmobile 8
Fencing mask with upmarket detailing, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
1936 General Motors Parade of Progress Silvertop Streamliner
1937 Oldsmobile 6
In 1937, when Art & Colour became General Motors Styling and design teams were given separate studios for the first time, Olds tried mounting its taillights at belt line level for a little spice. Mr. Matsuda's bumper sticker promotes the upcoming rodeo in Salinas, California, an agricultural center just inland from Monterey and where John Steinbeck wrote Of Mice And Men.
1937 Pontiac
Fender valance speed streaks continue along with central silver streak.
Somehow that year's Studebaker ended up with a very similar front end, the headlights of the '38 President and State Commander echoing the angular Olds grille to a startling degree.
1938 Studebaker State Commander
Photo from Live Journal.
c.1938 GMC Greyhound 743
1939 Buick
Final appearance of the Parade of Progress Silvertop Streamliners, replaced for 1940 by Futurliners.
This pinnacle of prewar style was the first major project of Bill Mitchell, Harley Earl's eventual successor as head of GM styling. Introduced in 1938, the 60 Special's two-piece doors with thin chrome window frames, coupe style extended trunk and suitcase fenders with chrome strips instead of running boards between them all belong to a beautiful future. I suspect the young lady is only pretending to belong to this extravagant sunroof-equipped glamor wagon, the palms of Miami moving across its flawless curves.
1939 Chevrolet
Area farmer's treasured friend, resplendent in either Bordeaux or Cape Maroon. The low horizontal grille of the 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, devised after Bob Gregorie turned the car's tall radiator on its side in line with the V12's crankshaft-level fan to address a tendency to overheat, caused another industry-wide styling shift. Catwalk trim has sprouted on either side of the tall graceful prow of the Chevy '39 in response. Side windows still look like holes punched through a helmet in contrast to next photo and preceding one.
1940 Cadillac 60 Special
1940 LaSalleThe last LaSalle. Cadillac figured the greater prestige of its own nameplate might move more units of its companion car, which became the Cadillac Series 61 for 1941.
Refining the horizontal face.
1941 Buick
1946-7 Buick
1947 Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan
Kittatinny Mountain Tunnel, on a section of Pennsylvania Turnpike opened on October 1, 1940.
1947 Buick
Flow-through fenders, fastback and driving lights, with butte.
Olds and Cadillac introduced all-new postwar designs a year before Pontiac, Chevy and Buick.
Here come fins.
1949 Buick Riviera And portholes, sweep spears and hardtops.
Paleolithic 1936 Chevy looks on in wonder and envy.
1950 BuickAll the better to eat you with!
New Hampshire plates, 1 of 458.
The color is officially Pueblo Tan but will always be Pumpkin to me. One of two auto colors I loved as a kid, the other a miles-deep iridescent blue that appeared on '49-50 Fords.
Based on a Raymond Loewy design.
1955 Chevrolet Bel Air
Ferrari-inspired grille hangs with the cool kids @ SCCA meet.
Uncommon factory bumper guard.
1956 Pontiac Club de Mer
The Club de Mer, a low, two-passenger sports car with an anodized brushed aluminum body, is Pontiac's experimental 'dream car' of 1956. Equipped with a 300-horsepower Pontiac Strato-Streak V8 engine, the Club de Mer stands only 38.4 inches to the top of the windshield and is 180.06 inches long. Built on a 104-inch wheelbase, the car is 69.7 inches wide and has a tread of 56 inches front and 54 inches rear. Road clearance is 5 inches.
The exterior body color is cerulean blue, while the interior is fashioned in vermillion red leather. Most striking feature of the Club de Mer is the dorsal fin which flashes up from the rear deck surface. The fin not only adds fleetness to the car's appearance but also functions as a stabilizing influence during operation. Twin bubble windshields, designed to deflect wind upward, protect the passengers.
At the nose of the car is the air intake aperture for engine cooling. This chrome lined opening half engulfs the lower section of the front end. The highway and parking lights are brought together in dual arrangement, one placed directly over the other. The entire lamp unit is so designed that when not in use, it revolves and disappears into the body, leaving a completely smooth front surface. Excessive motor heat is removed through outlet ports located on the sides of the front fenders.
The Club de Mer's synchomesh transmission is mounted behind the passenger compartment and connects with a special type rear suspension. This arrangement allows for greater leg room for driver and passenger.
1956 Cadillac Eldorado Seville
Dagmars, jewelry and chrome - the sweet smile of success.
Harley Earl at General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, designed by Eero Saarinen & son Eliel. Under construction from 1949 to 1955, the 330 acre, 25 building complex was officially opened by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 16, 1956 with 5000 citizens in attendance. Here we see the main display area of the Styling Dome. Photo from Design Observer's Modern Architecture For The American Century.
Stingray split window, early 60s Cadillac fins and curious grille predicting Edsel as it recalls TASCO and Henry J.
1957 Oldsmobile 98
In Seacrest Green, somewhere in Florida.
1958 Chevrolet Impala
1958 Chevrolet XP-700
Bill Mitchell, who took over GM Styling on Harley Earl's retirement in 1958, used this Chuck Jordan concept as his personal transport before it was restyled and recolored from red to pearlescent silver for its official debut at the 4th International Automobile Show in New York in April 1960. Although there's a fuel injection badge on the fender, general consensus says 283 V8 w/ four barrel. Exotic details include Lucas Flame Thrower headlamps, Dayton wire wheels and periscopic rear view mirror. Updated with a Stingray nose, the car reappeared at New York's 6th International as the XP-755 Shark, retiring as the Mako Shark after yet another restyle. Seen here prowling GM Tech Center's 11 miles of roadway and 85 acres of parking lot.
GM Styling Section administration building lobby. The fiberglass 'teacup' reception desk was sawn up and hauled away in the early 70s along with the hand painted Buell Mullen stainless steel screen behind it, replaced with knockoffs for the Design Center's 75th Anniversary in 2003. Photo from unknown web source.
1959 Chevrolet Impala
1960 Cadillac Coupe de Ville
The wraparound beltline and flat top were widely copied overseas, appearing as early as 1961 on the NSU Prinz, Fiat 1300, Simca 1000 and BMW 1500, with Renault R8, Mazda 800, Rootes Group Imp and Chamois, Zaporozhets 966 and various auto salon specials close behind. Artist rendering below from NSU Prinz.
Sharp-eyed baronniesereinedecaux suggests that these are French license plates, with the 75 indicating Paris registry.
At the drags somewhere in Southern California, with Loewy coupe next spot over and '58 Impala behind.
1963 Pontiac Tempest LeMans
Chrome rims, Southern California.
From a Tom McCahill cover story in the October 1962 issue of Mechanix Illustrated.
Coupe version powered by Pontiac's OHC 6, its design cues reappearing on Corvette, Firebird, Opel GT and Toronado. Photos from Conceptcarz and beyond.
1965 Chevrolet Impala
US Army Fort Bragg North Carolina bumper sticker.
1967 Oldsmobile Toronado
As motor life posts are based on my own photo collection and the photographers and subjects of snapshots of this and more recent vintage are typically still alive and in possession of their treasured mementos, the Motorama stops here. The '65 Riviera, '70 Camaro, '71 Vega, '63 Stingray, '67 Eldorado and heartbreakingly beautiful '06 Solstice will have to wait. For the real story, check out Michael Lamm & Dave Holls' A Century Of Automotive Style - 100 Years Of American Car Designas well as Lamm's The Pontiac Solstice Book.
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Wild Youth - Stockers, Hot Rods, Jalopies, Bikes, Customs
1951 Studebaker
1936 Oldsmobile
Circa 1948 Mustang
1938 Oldsmobile 6
Model A Ford
1939 Ford Deluxe, '48 Minnesota plates
Surfin' Suburban 1956 Plymouth
1941 Ford
1939 Plymouth
1938 Ford Deluxe
Tarzan & Jane w/ 1950 Ford
1946-8 DeSoto w/ Wisconsin mirror enthusiast positively identified by adhesive letters on the hood apex spelling The Fox
1956 Chevrolet 210, rural prom night
1950 Ford
1930s Austin Ruby
Aberdeen Washington vicinity Piston Pusher w/ 1952 Ford & new 1956 Plymouth Plaza
1940 Ford, Spartanburg South Carolina, Ginger riding by in my car
Chicago Illinois, South Side
1950 Buick, Fort Bragg North Carolina vicinity, offending digit
1971 Ford Pinto
1957 Ford Skyliner, Chicago vicinity
Model T Ford, Binford North Dakota
1950-2 Nash Rambler Convertible Landau, restoration not in progress, What are you looking at?
1947-8 Chevy, California plates, surf's up
1965 Chevelle Malibu SS
1951-2 Dodge Coronet
Prewar Powell P-40 Streamliner, Honolulu Hawaii
Sportsman track car, Aberdeen Washington vicinity
1953-4 Ford, '53 Pennsylvania license
Mystery cycle car
1955 Ford, '63 Connecticut plates
1938 Chevy
Car I stayed on in West Palm
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1931-3 Auburn Speedster On Muroc Dry Lake & Route 66
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The Week In Pictures 2
H/Stock '69 AMC Javelin sponsored by illegible Truro, NS dealership. At time of post, driver Dewayne Cleveland was Director At Large of ATVANS - the All Terrain Vehicle Association of Nova Scotia.
Lotus Eleven. Wardan Hill 1963.
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Thunderbowl Comet Again
Subject of my very first post, this formidable machine was identified by Dan Strohl of Hemmings Daily as the Golden Eagle aka Thunderbowl Comet. Although the car's story varies from one teller to the next, it did at least portray a Muroc Dry Lake LSR contender in a 1936 Jimmy Stewart B-movie called 'Speed', turning up years later as opening act at the Carpenteria Thunderbowl, a quarter-mile dirt track near Santa Barbara, California. As Auto Puzzles editor Ray B. posted, "The Carpinteria Thunderbowl was operational between 1947 and 1956. Anton Krivanek reminisced about the circuit: I used to go there when I was about 14. The guy who owned it had a great big streamliner called the Thunderbowl Comet. It had the name painted on the side and it had a big fin on the back end with a stylized comet with a tail of sparks and stars painted on it. He'd trundle it around the track before the races to impress the rubes (me). In my memory it was so long it could hardly make it around the corners... Years later I saw it parked alongside Highway 14 out near Acton as a draw for a sad little western roadside attraction. I told Strother MacMinn about it and he drove out there and checked it out... He had seen it parked on the street in Hollyweird in the late '30s or '40s. It was on a stretched L29 Cord chassis and eventually was bought and dismantled for its Cord parts." I recently acquired the photo above, the script on the side plugging (indecipherable something like Egge) Speedway Carburetors of Glendale. Below is the photo previously posted, followed by movie frame captures from IMCDB. Check out the original shotgun/centerline fin aiming setup. Used car / rental lot snapshot was found at H.A.M.B. Jalopy Journal and the last four were pilfered from Auto Puzzles, where further information and photos can be found. I thought 'Our Famous Salad Bar' might lure Antelope Valley tourists to the Village Inn of Palmdale, California, mentioned in a Frank Zappa song, but another Auto Puzzles photo brings Noel, Missouri out from behind the cage post. Salad bar, honey! We really must give it a try the next time we're 1600 miles east of here! The distinguished gentleman smiling from the cockpit is designer Alex Tremulis, another luminary who made the Acton pilgrimage to pay respects. According to Strohl, the beast still exists.
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New York City Auto Shows 1952-56
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Vignale, Touring & Stabilimenti Farina Street Show Again
Taken in Rome and Vienna by an American stationed in Europe after the war.
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1947 Cisitalia 202 Mille Miglia Aerodinamica Coupé, designed by Giovanni Savonuzzi and built by Stabilimenti Farina. Or maybe Vignale. As I understand it, Fiat engineer Dante Giacosa, creator of the Topolino, was enlisted by Cisitalia founder Piero Dusio somewhere around 1942 to design an open wheel race car based on the little mouse with an 1100cc mill in place of the stock 500cc unit. When WWII ended and Giacosa needed to return focus to Fiat, he recommended Savonuzzi, head of Fiat's experimental aircraft division, as his replacement. Following Dusio's offer of a massive salary increase and a company car, Savonuzzi became Cisitalia's Technical Director, finishing development of the D46 racer and then turning his attention to what would become the 202 sports coupe, envisioned by Dusio as, '...a car that is wide like my Buick, low like a Grand Prix, comfortable like a Rolls-Royce, and light like our single-seater D46.'Built in variants by Pininfarina, Vignale and Stabilimenti Farina, the 202 is widely regarded as the original GT, with Pininfarina's version gracing the Museum Of Modern Art's landmark "Eight Automobiles" exhibition in 1951. Also seen here is a Peugeot 202 delivery truck, with Mobilgas pumps at the curb and Topolinos at extreme right.
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Circa 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300 or 2500, Touring Superleggera coachwork, with sealed beam conversion and clipped bumper.
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1951 Abarth 205 A Berlinetta by Vignale. The shell for Carlo Abarth's first in-house creation after leaving Cisitalia as that firm headed for bankruptcy was Giovanni Michelotti's sharp interpretation of Pininfarina's Cisitalia 202, with both ends tucked under for a more aggressive stance and cool modern eggcrate grille and driving lights in lieu of the 202's baby Buick face. Portholes replace those missing grille teeth for a touch of early fifties American glitz on a design that might not be easy to date without them. Supposedly only three of these stunning coupes were built, all shown more clearly @ Ultimate Car Page, but the door handle is mounted much higher in this photo from a period auto show while the car waiting at the crosswalk above splits the difference. It may just be the angle, but the hood scoop here looks flatter, too.
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Mystery car. Maybe a Stabilimenti Farina Alfa 6C, with Fiats on either side.
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Circa 1951 Fiat by Stabilimenti Farina
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Circa 1953 Denzel (WD) being shadowed by a Jeep.
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Circa 1937 Mercedes-Benz 290 lang Cabriolet A.
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Paris Salon de L'Automobile 1948 / 1955
42ème Paris Salon de L'Automobile, Parc des Exhibition, October 1955.
Unveiling of the atom age Citroën DS, another collaboration from Italian industrial designer Flaminio Bertoni and French aeronautical engineer André Lefèbvre, creators of the revolutionary monocoque Traction Avant some 23 years earlier. As philosopher Roland Barthes wrote in tribute, I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object... It is obvious that the new Citroën has fallen from the sky inasmuch as it appears at first sight as a superlative object.
Renault 4CV. Development began in secret during the German occupation of France. Following Hitler's defeat, Ferdinand Porsche, in France to investigate the feasibility of moving the Volkswagen project there as part of war reparations, met numerous times with the 4CV development team to offer advice on weight distribution and roadholding. Introduced at the 1946 Paris Salon, the 4CV became France's first million-selling car. Here, one sensible old-timer and his wife window shop as crowds swarm the chic new Dauphine a few feet away.
Lancia Aurelia B24S Spider by Pininfarina. Lancia never had much of a presence in the United States. The average American was not interested in spending big money for a small, modestly powered, exquisitely engineered jewel when he could get tonnage and brute force for less. The prospect of global searches for parts and service when something went wrong was likely another deterrent for the level headed. But Lancia's stateside status turned when a pockmarked B24S beater, pulled out of a Northern California garage after forty-nine years, fetched $803,000 at a 2013 Gooding auction in Scottsdale. Gooding has another more presentable example on tap for 2014, carrying a seven-figure estimate this time around. Prière ne pas toucher, peasants!
Chrysler Special Corsair II. Chrysler Firepower Hemi in a Nardi chassis, with body by Carrozzeria Boano of Turin, who built a Lincoln Indianapolis concept car that same year.
Salmson 2300 Sport LeMans Cabriolet by Motto of Turin, perhaps the prettiest Salmson and unfortunately the last. High prices in a struggling economy and a punitive French motor tax rate on its 2.3 liter DOHC four doomed the car from the start, and only 227 2300s were sold between 1953 and 1956. At which time Salmson left the automobile business for good, selling its Billancourt plant to neighbor Renault.
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Beater
Consider the life cycles of non-living things. Every drop of rain that falls onto a slope washes away another bit of mountain, just as a clock is already ticking when auto assembly line workers tighten the first bolts on a fresh chassis. The '55 Hemi Imperial they're building passes from bank manager's indulgence to secretary's dreamboat to teenager's hot rod love nest in a season as far as the mountain is concerned. But just as sediment from high country streams lives on as flood plain and delta, some stylish Nova SS hardtop has donated its grille and maybe its V8 to the humble '67 Chevy II 100 post coupe below, keeping some of itself out there in the wind, part of the cycle, for another couple of weeks at least.
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These guys are working hard on a shoestring somewhere in the hills of Southern Ohio, just across the river from Kentucky, manual jacks in a line and Seger on the radio somewhere.
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Model T sheet rod, your average everyday $15 car.
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Scarred '51-2 Buick faces another long drive home to Michigan with the four boys fighting in the back.
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'41 Plymouth P11 2-door sedan, '53 Colorado plates, converted to pickup after spending the late forties as the canvas-roof woodie seen below.
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BMW 2002 w/ wide-angle rear view mirror and aftermarket rims. Polaroid roll film print.
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'34 Desoto Airflow w/ '41 Michigan plates on a warm day in late fall, a few leaves still clinging to the trees.
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'52-4 Henry J Corsair Deluxe serving as mascot for Gammell's Atlantic Service in Lebanon Pennsylvania. A December 1969 Lebanon Daily News clipping gives the station's address as E. Cumberland St. @ 2nd, but it says E. Lehman St on the door and we're at the corner of S. Sixth according to the sign over the fire hydrant.
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'37 Ford convertible with sealed beams and honeycomb grille mesh. Produces its own unique combination of rattles, flapping, squeaks and exhaust roar when in motion.
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'31 Chevy stripped to the essentials and repurposed as farm tractor.
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Selectively shaved '50 Chevy Styleline Deluxe w/ aftermarket headlight rings, gas door guard and drip rail mirror. Third car so far with a whitewall up front.
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'36-7 Cord 810/812 Phaeton Sedan convertible in New York Central freight yard.
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US Army soldier on military base with '33-4 Austin 4 Bantam.
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MG 1100 Sports Sedan aka BMC ADO16, from a series of photos taken in the eighties and nineties by an unknown British Columbia car spotter.
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Outside the high school in McClusky North Dakota, north of Bismark. This '50 Hudson Pacemaker 6 replaced a '48-9 step-down that wound up on its top in a field along the highway outside of town.
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Citroën Traction Avant, still kicking in São Paulo Brazil in the mid-sixties.
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Bucolic Pacific Northwest scene featuring an Oregonian and his favorite girl and a dusty '28 Dodge Victory Six. Kent & Genevieve on the banks of the Columbia July 30 1933.
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Messerschmitt KR200 Kabinenroller & Kabrio, USA plates, on military base somewhere in Germany with superior officer's '59 Rambler Ambassador Cross Country station wagon, VW Beetle and photographer's shadow.
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'38 Hudson Terraplane, '49 Utah plate. Taken outside Tooele Utah by Max (Pancho) April 1949. Location is likely Tooele Army Depot, originally set up as a WWII munitions storage site.
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Studebaker Commander from 1966, the very last model year, with front fenders rusting out behind the wheel wells like they do. Built in Hamilton Ontario, with snow tires and BC Canada plate.
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Model A Ford jalopy as rolling billboard for Rocky-Ray-Rusty and the KORL Ozark Drifters Western Music @ Pete's Club, Nightly 8 till 12, antlers and all.
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Attempted resurrection of '52-3 Kaiser Dragon somewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania, farm wife and jug of Zerex antifreeze close at hand.
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Back in BC with a badge engineered Mercury Econoline sold only in Canada. Although the belt line accents sweep back from a box that mimics the shape of the emblem between the headlights, I'm assuming they're not factory issue, since random scraps turn up around the door handle.
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'34 Ford Five-Window Coupe somewhere in Southern California. She's got hubcaps & a few more lights now. Looks better too.
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'57-60 Wartburg 313/1 Sportwagen Cabriolet constructed by Karosseriewerk Dresden, one of 469. BMW's old Eisenach plant, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain after WWII, turned out BMW-based EMWs and DKW-based IFAs before Wartburg production began in 1955. Sliding the abbreviated cockpit rearward and extending the hood left the tweaked three-cylinder two-stroke engine and transmission stranded a considerable distance from the firewall.
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'31 De Vaux Custom Coupe w/ '41 Texas plates. Economy car devised by Norman de Vaux, organizer of William C. Durant's West Coast operations for Chevy, Star and Durant; along with engineer Elbert J. Hall of the Hall-Scott Motor Company, designer and builder of airplane engines and rail cars, who assisted Packard's Jesse Vincent on the Liberty V12 before concentrating on bus, truck, tractor and marine engines following WWI. Production of the De Vaux began in Grand Rapids MI in early April 1931, with cars rolling off an Oakland CA assembly line by the middle of the month. By January '32 it was all over, rights and Michigan assets passing to Continental Motors, who tried their luck on a couple of slightly refined versions before retreating to engine building in 1934.
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'40 Ford DeLuxe convertible coupe.
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Jaguar XK-120 Roadster somewhere in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. One of the owner's projects around this time was stuffing a spare Jag mill into a Crosley Hot Shot, seen in Backyard Special.
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Tomboy with '39 Ford DeLuxe sporting sealed beam conversion and '48 Minnesota plates.
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Hard working '33 Olds skeleton down on the farm.
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'26 Model T Ford jalopy w/ '47 Iowa plate.
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'56 Packard Custom Clipper w/ '87 Montana plates.
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'36 Ford Convertible Sedan w/ Pines Winterfront grille bars (middle bar removed to clear the hood stacks), '37 Desoto bumper and '49 Olds wheel covers. Here is a picture of my car at school. I have new hub caps and white side wall tires which I put on after you left. Herb Keekamp and Don Pasel are by the car.
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'30-2 Cord L-29 w/ Pilot Ray driving lights and '39 New York World's Fair plates. This is my Dad getting help on the car from the neighbor children. Imagine the uses of bailing wire around the front-drive Cord's troublesome U-joints and half shafts.
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'63 1/2 Ford Falcon Futura convertible w/ badge for Windsor 260 V8 fitted to the first 75 or so Shelby AC Cobras. This one appears ready for a parking lot gymkhana against a Fiat 124 Coupe, Triumph GT6 and, if you squint, Alfa GTV and Fiat 850 Spider. Hopefully the big Buicks backed against the wall at left are staying where they are for the time being.
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'54 Studebaker Commander Conestoga station wagon. I've never understood the scorn heaped on sedans and wagons produced alongside the sleek coupes created by Robert Bourke and Holden 'Bob' Koto for Loewy Studios. Maybe they're not as sexy as Starliners, but their crisp clean modernity, derived from one of the great industrial designs of all time, should earn them favorable comparison with the bread and butter Dodges, Pontiacs and Fords of the day. This particular car seems to have suffered through many high country hunting excursions, transporting dead bears and deer and who knows what home with the conquering hero.
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'27 Lincoln Coaching Brougham by Judkins w/ graffiti 'This Is The Car That Takes The Beverly Hillbillies To The Palace Theater'. Beverly Hill Billy's Hack in front of the Palace Theater 6th & Broadway Los Angeles May 20th 1931.
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'69 AMC Javelin SST 343 somewhere in British Columbia.
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'34 Chevy in Cinder Point, between railroad tracks and the Illinois River on Peoria's South Side. My dad car May 1949.
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Space age '67 Dodge Monaco 500 in Vancouver BC.
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Iron age '36 Dodge growing lighter by the week.
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'32 Buick ranch hack somewhere in California's Central Valley.
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'60 Olds Dynamic 88 owned by the guy who's always yelling at the kids to get off his lawn.
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'32 Cadillac Phaeton on duty as possible ferry jitney, maybe New England. Sign on shed reads Nedman Boat Line.
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Standing proud with battered '50 Olds 98 and grape stake fence.
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Taken by Roberta Hill, a Washington DC Civil War and bus-streetcar-railroad historian, movie buff and avid collector of license plates and Beswick China horses. Here she documents a '48-53 Chevy pickup truck w/ DC plates and creepy doll heads.
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'59 Chevy Impala convertible on Sylvan Lane in Creve Coeur IL, across the Illinois River just a couple of miles south of Cinder Point, seen behind the '34 Chevy eight photos back.
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'47 Crosley Convertible w/ '47 Virginia plates, nearly new and already headed downhill fast.
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'58 Packard Hawk caught trying to eat its own bumper. Polaroid SX-70.
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Easy going girl with '38 Nash, '51 New York Empire State plates.
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'55 Chrysler Imperial Coupe.
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'35 Ford w/ '42 New Mexico plates and fog lamps with nameplate logo across the top and ribbed trim on either side, so far unidentified.
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R-2 Electric, located on Pier 63 at the west end of 23rd St. in Manhattan, filled the wiring needs of budget-minded New Yorkers in the late eighties and early nineties. My friend Janet was resident office manager. Her living space included a waterside deck with an old porch swing hung over the murky Hudson - amenities an Upper East Side billionaire might kill for. The parking lot was always filled with an assortment of woebegone work vehicles picked up at police auction and prepared for service by a Vietnamese immigrant with a genius for making do with whatever was at hand. Along with tired Voyager and Caravan K-Car minivans, there were always a couple of oddballs like a Mercedes Benz ambulance. These utility heaps led a very tough life on the streets of New York City, but R2 employees knew there was always a replacement available if whatever they were driving that day was taken out by a Checker cab kamikaze or towed from a loading zone. These Polaroid SX-70s were taken in 1993 as the car sat outside a Tribeca coffee shop, a prime example of Manhattan road warrior bested only by a rustbucket East Village Chevy Cavalier with mismatched oven racks over the side windows to keep out intruders. Those were the days.
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These guys are working hard on a shoestring somewhere in the hills of Southern Ohio, just across the river from Kentucky, manual jacks in a line and Seger on the radio somewhere.
Model T sheet rod, your average everyday $15 car.
Scarred '51-2 Buick faces another long drive home to Michigan with the four boys fighting in the back.
'41 Plymouth P11 2-door sedan, '53 Colorado plates, converted to pickup after spending the late forties as the canvas-roof woodie seen below.
BMW 2002 w/ wide-angle rear view mirror and aftermarket rims. Polaroid roll film print.
'34 Desoto Airflow w/ '41 Michigan plates on a warm day in late fall, a few leaves still clinging to the trees.
'52-4 Henry J Corsair Deluxe serving as mascot for Gammell's Atlantic Service in Lebanon Pennsylvania. A December 1969 Lebanon Daily News clipping gives the station's address as E. Cumberland St. @ 2nd, but it says E. Lehman St on the door and we're at the corner of S. Sixth according to the sign over the fire hydrant.
'37 Ford convertible with sealed beams and honeycomb grille mesh. Produces its own unique combination of rattles, flapping, squeaks and exhaust roar when in motion.
'31 Chevy stripped to the essentials and repurposed as farm tractor.
Selectively shaved '50 Chevy Styleline Deluxe w/ aftermarket headlight rings, gas door guard and drip rail mirror. Third car so far with a whitewall up front.
'36-7 Cord 810/812 Phaeton Sedan convertible in New York Central freight yard.
US Army soldier on military base with '33-4 Austin 4 Bantam.
MG 1100 Sports Sedan aka BMC ADO16, from a series of photos taken in the eighties and nineties by an unknown British Columbia car spotter.
Outside the high school in McClusky North Dakota, north of Bismark. This '50 Hudson Pacemaker 6 replaced a '48-9 step-down that wound up on its top in a field along the highway outside of town.
Citroën Traction Avant, still kicking in São Paulo Brazil in the mid-sixties.
Bucolic Pacific Northwest scene featuring an Oregonian and his favorite girl and a dusty '28 Dodge Victory Six. Kent & Genevieve on the banks of the Columbia July 30 1933.
Messerschmitt KR200 Kabinenroller & Kabrio, USA plates, on military base somewhere in Germany with superior officer's '59 Rambler Ambassador Cross Country station wagon, VW Beetle and photographer's shadow.
'38 Hudson Terraplane, '49 Utah plate. Taken outside Tooele Utah by Max (Pancho) April 1949. Location is likely Tooele Army Depot, originally set up as a WWII munitions storage site.
Studebaker Commander from 1966, the very last model year, with front fenders rusting out behind the wheel wells like they do. Built in Hamilton Ontario, with snow tires and BC Canada plate.
Model A Ford jalopy as rolling billboard for Rocky-Ray-Rusty and the KORL Ozark Drifters Western Music @ Pete's Club, Nightly 8 till 12, antlers and all.
Attempted resurrection of '52-3 Kaiser Dragon somewhere in Eastern Pennsylvania, farm wife and jug of Zerex antifreeze close at hand.
Back in BC with a badge engineered Mercury Econoline sold only in Canada. Although the belt line accents sweep back from a box that mimics the shape of the emblem between the headlights, I'm assuming they're not factory issue, since random scraps turn up around the door handle.
'34 Ford Five-Window Coupe somewhere in Southern California. She's got hubcaps & a few more lights now. Looks better too.
'57-60 Wartburg 313/1 Sportwagen Cabriolet constructed by Karosseriewerk Dresden, one of 469. BMW's old Eisenach plant, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain after WWII, turned out BMW-based EMWs and DKW-based IFAs before Wartburg production began in 1955. Sliding the abbreviated cockpit rearward and extending the hood left the tweaked three-cylinder two-stroke engine and transmission stranded a considerable distance from the firewall.
'31 De Vaux Custom Coupe w/ '41 Texas plates. Economy car devised by Norman de Vaux, organizer of William C. Durant's West Coast operations for Chevy, Star and Durant; along with engineer Elbert J. Hall of the Hall-Scott Motor Company, designer and builder of airplane engines and rail cars, who assisted Packard's Jesse Vincent on the Liberty V12 before concentrating on bus, truck, tractor and marine engines following WWI. Production of the De Vaux began in Grand Rapids MI in early April 1931, with cars rolling off an Oakland CA assembly line by the middle of the month. By January '32 it was all over, rights and Michigan assets passing to Continental Motors, who tried their luck on a couple of slightly refined versions before retreating to engine building in 1934.
'40 Ford DeLuxe convertible coupe.
Jaguar XK-120 Roadster somewhere in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. One of the owner's projects around this time was stuffing a spare Jag mill into a Crosley Hot Shot, seen in Backyard Special.
Tomboy with '39 Ford DeLuxe sporting sealed beam conversion and '48 Minnesota plates.
Hard working '33 Olds skeleton down on the farm.
'26 Model T Ford jalopy w/ '47 Iowa plate.
'56 Packard Custom Clipper w/ '87 Montana plates.
'36 Ford Convertible Sedan w/ Pines Winterfront grille bars (middle bar removed to clear the hood stacks), '37 Desoto bumper and '49 Olds wheel covers. Here is a picture of my car at school. I have new hub caps and white side wall tires which I put on after you left. Herb Keekamp and Don Pasel are by the car.
'30-2 Cord L-29 w/ Pilot Ray driving lights and '39 New York World's Fair plates. This is my Dad getting help on the car from the neighbor children. Imagine the uses of bailing wire around the front-drive Cord's troublesome U-joints and half shafts.
'63 1/2 Ford Falcon Futura convertible w/ badge for Windsor 260 V8 fitted to the first 75 or so Shelby AC Cobras. This one appears ready for a parking lot gymkhana against a Fiat 124 Coupe, Triumph GT6 and, if you squint, Alfa GTV and Fiat 850 Spider. Hopefully the big Buicks backed against the wall at left are staying where they are for the time being.
'54 Studebaker Commander Conestoga station wagon. I've never understood the scorn heaped on sedans and wagons produced alongside the sleek coupes created by Robert Bourke and Holden 'Bob' Koto for Loewy Studios. Maybe they're not as sexy as Starliners, but their crisp clean modernity, derived from one of the great industrial designs of all time, should earn them favorable comparison with the bread and butter Dodges, Pontiacs and Fords of the day. This particular car seems to have suffered through many high country hunting excursions, transporting dead bears and deer and who knows what home with the conquering hero.
'27 Lincoln Coaching Brougham by Judkins w/ graffiti 'This Is The Car That Takes The Beverly Hillbillies To The Palace Theater'. Beverly Hill Billy's Hack in front of the Palace Theater 6th & Broadway Los Angeles May 20th 1931.
'69 AMC Javelin SST 343 somewhere in British Columbia.
'34 Chevy in Cinder Point, between railroad tracks and the Illinois River on Peoria's South Side. My dad car May 1949.
Space age '67 Dodge Monaco 500 in Vancouver BC.
Iron age '36 Dodge growing lighter by the week.
'32 Buick ranch hack somewhere in California's Central Valley.
'32 Cadillac Phaeton on duty as possible ferry jitney, maybe New England. Sign on shed reads Nedman Boat Line.
Standing proud with battered '50 Olds 98 and grape stake fence.
Taken by Roberta Hill, a Washington DC Civil War and bus-streetcar-railroad historian, movie buff and avid collector of license plates and Beswick China horses. Here she documents a '48-53 Chevy pickup truck w/ DC plates and creepy doll heads.
'59 Chevy Impala convertible on Sylvan Lane in Creve Coeur IL, across the Illinois River just a couple of miles south of Cinder Point, seen behind the '34 Chevy eight photos back.
'47 Crosley Convertible w/ '47 Virginia plates, nearly new and already headed downhill fast.
'58 Packard Hawk caught trying to eat its own bumper. Polaroid SX-70.
Easy going girl with '38 Nash, '51 New York Empire State plates.
'35 Ford w/ '42 New Mexico plates and fog lamps with nameplate logo across the top and ribbed trim on either side, so far unidentified.
R-2 Electric, located on Pier 63 at the west end of 23rd St. in Manhattan, filled the wiring needs of budget-minded New Yorkers in the late eighties and early nineties. My friend Janet was resident office manager. Her living space included a waterside deck with an old porch swing hung over the murky Hudson - amenities an Upper East Side billionaire might kill for. The parking lot was always filled with an assortment of woebegone work vehicles picked up at police auction and prepared for service by a Vietnamese immigrant with a genius for making do with whatever was at hand. Along with tired Voyager and Caravan K-Car minivans, there were always a couple of oddballs like a Mercedes Benz ambulance. These utility heaps led a very tough life on the streets of New York City, but R2 employees knew there was always a replacement available if whatever they were driving that day was taken out by a Checker cab kamikaze or towed from a loading zone. These Polaroid SX-70s were taken in 1993 as the car sat outside a Tribeca coffee shop, a prime example of Manhattan road warrior bested only by a rustbucket East Village Chevy Cavalier with mismatched oven racks over the side windows to keep out intruders. Those were the days.
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Imports In The Land Of Giants
Wealthy Americans indulged in foreign cars from the earliest days of the Automobile Age; an imposing Rolls or Renault for the East Coast industrialist; a parade of extravagant Mercedes, Hispano Suiza and Voisin for Hollywood's movie colony - Norma Desmond's leopard-skin gold-plated Isotta Fraschini 8A Castagna transformable town car from Sunset Boulevard a case in point. It wasn't until after WWII that imports aimed at everyday people began to arrive in numbers. Certainly the war played a part. American GIs were exposed to a variety of foreign cars during their time overseas, many gaining first hand experience driving whatever local vehicles turned up in military motor pools. Following the war, Allies and enemies alike needed American dollars to rebuild struggling or obliterated economies and were soon sending us cars that were beyond the means of their own citizens due to austerity restrictions and steep postwar purchase taxes. As a result, many woefully inappropriate vehicles ended up here, spreading slowly from seaports on both coasts to the interior. In Fostoria, Ohio when I was growing up, you could get an Opel from the Buick dealer or a Vauxhall Victor from Pontiac. There was also a mom & pop Saab operation at the edge of town, with a tiny storefront showroom, a service bay and a patch of weeds out back with a couple of Model 93 parts cars and a dead Lloyd. You could get a VW, Fiat, Simca, Mercedes, Austin or MG by driving fifteen miles of corn field to Findlay or Tiffin. By the early seventies, the farms you passed typically had rusty import carcasses stashed with the prehistoric tractors and trucks on the far side of the barn, victims of road salt along with relaxed attitudes toward maintenance acquired through years of driving job-tough American iron. My friend Tom's dad, who owned a succession of used Buicks including a silver '58 Limited, judged each by how many years it ran without an oil change. An extreme example, but mid-century Americans had grown unaccustomed to fussing over automobiles, especially new ones. And it soon became clear to buyers and manufacturers that rigorous testing over cobblestone streets and winding country lanes did not prepare a car for Dwight Eisenhower's Interstate Highway System, where one could travel from howling winter blizzard to tropical heat in a single day. Fortunately, enthusiast publications like Road & Track sprang up to help hardy pioneers figure out which imports to avoid.
Fiat Topolino w/ '47 California dealer plates. A very early attempt to sell Americans on the Italian Dream, leading one postwar Desoto to wonder how easy it would be to catch the little mouse and how it might taste.
British MG Hollywood Nov.'49.
Jaguar XK-120 with '51 Colorado plates.
Fresh arrivals at the port of Long Beach, California, including Lloyd, VW Beetle Cabriolet and Renault 4CV, the latter so tiny it makes the Beetle look big, Gran Torino to the 4CV's Pinto.
Likely WWII vet and pre-A Porsche 356 in postwar tract house heaven.
Allard J2 w/ '53 New Jersey plates.
Circa '53 MG TD.
Independent / orphan car fans easily adapted to imports, personality quirks intact. Here's a brand new '57 NSU Prinz w/ '56 California plates, nuzzled up to the family Nash.
Oval window VW Beetle w/ '55 Alaska plates. Having fitted an aftermarket windshield defroster, the owner is dreaming of a gasoline heater to keep his toes warm.
'55 Arnolt-Bristol Bolide w/ Massachusettes plates. 'American' car devised by Chicago industrialist Stanley H. "Wacky" Arnolt, featuring a Bristol chassis shipped from the UK to Italy for Bertone bodywork designed by Franco Scaglione. Most of the 142 built were then shipped to and sold in the US.
Circa '57 Volkswagen bus in Texas Brown over Bamboo, w/ pink Cadillac.
That house with the funny cars - a late Kaiser Manhattan and a Lloyd LP 400.
Porsche 356 open and closed, somewhere in upstate New York.
Morgan Plus 4 @ Holland Hill Climb, New York, August 23-4 1958. Joe McJury and Bob Pierce trying to figure out what opposition will clobber them. Their main competition was the TRs and an AC.
Mighty Mercedes-Benz 300SL roadster set up for SCCA competition.
New '58 Jaguar 3.4 w/ New York plates & white bucks.
Circa '57 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider.
Circa '56 Panhard Dyna.
Circa '59 Abarth 750 Monza Record Zagato. Fiat seen across from Central High.
New BMW Isetta with trusty stepdown Hudson demoted to curbside parking.
Messerschmitt KR200 helping sell tickets at City Yacht Basin in Miami, Florida.
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Vintage Car Store in Nyack, New York; authorized Renault, Peugeot and Rover dealer; with Bentley in showroom and used lot at left.
At least a couple of Rockland County's riskiest pre-owned vehicles, including MGA & TD, Renault 4CV, '53 Pontiac wagon, '57 T-Bird and Aston Martin DB2/4.
Late 50s Simca Aronde w/ '60 Ohio plates getting a taste of real winter somewhere near Burbank, west of Akron. As close as we could get to the house.
Circa '60 Skoda Felicia convertible, Feb. '65 Kodachrome print.
1950 Aston Martin DB2, one of the first 49 built, as indicated by the three-piece grille and kick panel vents.
New '60 Fiat 600.
Circa '58 Borgward Isabella TS Coupe somewhere in Southern California.
'60-3 Simca 5 in film noir setting.
Americanized Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite Mk. I w/ whitewalls and Buick sweep-spear.
Late 50s DKW 3=6 somewhere in California.
Anyone recognize this California Citroën garage? Just above, a bullet-nose Studebaker helps a fellow eccentric over a pass on the Blue Star Memorial Highway, while middle photo shows a typical American scene - Citroëns outnumbering Fords in a motel parking lot.
Renault Caravelle and twin-screw Amphicar sharing more styling cues than you might expect.
Circa '62 Jaguar Mark X. This was taken (by Dad, of course) after we came out of the airport.
Donald Young and '64 Austin Healey Sprite Mk. III, 2nd in Class at Norridgewock (Maine) Time Trials, Aug. 64.
Late starters with great promise from the other side of the other pond, circa '65 Datsun Bluebirds somewhere in Southern California.
'66 Sunbeam Tiger Series I w/ Ford 260 V8 and Playboy front plate.
Jaguar E-Type in sunny Southern California.
'66 Datsun 1600 Sports w/ Oregon plate. Marilu & Rog in Colville (Washington) at the Richardsons, Sept. 1967.
Circa '69 Opel Kadett B fastback somewhere in small town Ohio.
Citroën 2CV w/ '69 Nevada plates. Owner catches up on reading during long desert crossings.
Peoria, Illinois vicinity hill climb featuring Mustangs, Stingrays, Triumph TR4, MGB, Austin Healey, Porsche 356, MG 1100 Sport Sedan, Morgan Plus 4, Bugeye Sprite, Formula Vee, Sunbeam Alpine, Karmann Ghia...
Circa '70 Porsche 911 somewhere in Greater Los Angeles.
Novel attempt to increase top speed of two-cylinder Autobianchi Bianchina.
This '71 Renault 16 was my fourth car, after two VW campers and an Austin America. The first owner was the older brother of a girl I went to high school with. Stranded in San Francisco after the ancient Beetle I'd ridden in from Ohio broke down for good, I answered a ride share ad and a couple of days later the 16 showed up downstairs, hometown bound. Speeding up a long on-ramp arc to the Bay Bridge, the car heeled smoothly over on its torsion bars and I was sold. Along with everyone who rode in it after it was mine, a couple of months later. Of course it broke regularly, and getting it repaired in Ohio was a nightmare before someone tipped me to a competent and honest dealership in Alliance. But I still loved it. With bi-level ventilation, reclining seats, center armrest and electric sunroof, it was more luxurious than my mom's Electra 225. Especially after pieces of shoestring were carefully fitted between the halves of the plastic control stalk pod to stop the buzzing. Front-wheel drive was a revelation as well, even though as soon as you replaced the half-shaft on one side, the joints on the other would start to go. But it took me from Ohio to Boston and then back to California before winding up on its top in downtown Pomona after being broadsided at a light.
'74 Datsun 260Z w/ Texas plates and aftermarket spokes.
The Japanese eventually won. Here's a circa '80 Honda Accord w/ Connecticut plates, bikes on the roof, modern lifestyles on the rise.
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