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February 2005
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY
28, 2005
It Sings in High "G"
IF you're one of
those men who like to feel the surge of smooth, "there's-more-where-this-came-from"
kind of power, just slip a new 1941 Lincoln-Zephyr into
high gear—on the straightaway or up some stubborn hill—and
listen to the whispered song of majesty it sings!
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY
27, 2005
Hooky De Luxe!
EVENINGS like these
. . . when the tree-toad choruses start tuning
up and the moon rises white and misty in the sky
. . . somehow a fellow gets the urge to play hooky
again. And when you feel the tug of wanderlust
. . . this call to the woods and hills and fields
. . . just get behind the wheel of a new 1941
Lincoln-Zephyr—and you're headed for hooky de luxe!
1956: Oven Lovin'
Women love color.
Now they have it in ranges and refrigerators that once
were always white. They love new convenience. They get
it in the new "built-in" ovens and washer-dryer combinations.
They love lasting beauty. It's theirs, in durable steel
cabinets fashioned to the shapes and styles of the moment
. . .
The illustrator here, Arthur Saron
Sarnoff, was known for his pinup art, Western cowboy
scenes and a series that featured dogs playing pool.
Drive This Full-Size Dollar
Saver!
Extra room for
extra comfort! A real beauty inside and out! Performs
as only a Rocket can! Just try this fashionable,
full-size Oldsmobile . . . and you'll
never be satisfied with less! Here are bigger, higher
doors . . . more headroom . . .
more legroom . . . plus new Twin-Triangle
riding ease and roadability! And Oldsmobile's full-size
Rocket Engine delivers instant action on economical
regular gas! Drive the dollar-saving Dynamic
88 at your Olds Quality Dealer's today! Fashion-Line
Design . . . Rocket performance!
In the background: New York's Guggenheim!
Museum!
Skyrocket!
A fiery new class
of cars is here . . . Oldsmobile for '61!
Sparked by the spirit of an exciting new SKYROCKET
engine—blazing a bright new trail in automotive performance!
Oldsmobile . . . with a completely
new and smoother-than-ever Hydra-Matic Drive featuring
Accel-A-Rotor action for quick, silken getaway! Oldsmobile
. . . with crisp, sleek style that reflects
its flashing performance . . . Fashion-Line
design . . . SKYROCKET go!
Oldsmobile Super 88—more spirited than ever for 1961!
The headlights of these cars feature
a styling theme that became popular starting with
the first quad-headlight models of the late '50s:
The engine pods of a B-52 bomber, with twin jets
hanging from a central strut.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY
26, 2005
Next Stop Hopperville
From early 1956 (which
explains why this picture practically screams 1955),
a Greyhound express on the Detroit Diesel Thruway. Meanwhile,
400 miles away on a farm in Kansas . . .
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY
25, 2005
Old Paint
As Industry Mobilizes
for National Defense, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company
Supplies Protective Paints to Safeguard This Vital Production
¶ Industry is mobilized as never before to turn
out the things the Nation needs to win the war! Wherever
clanging riveter, forge and press are fabricating the
tools of war, you'll find spray guns applying Pittsburgh
finishes to products from barges to battleships
. . .
Better Killing Through Chemistry
Victory, like every
other dynamic force, has a beginning—a center at which
energy is generated. Chemistry is the beginning of the
business of transforming raw materials into explosives,
planes, ships, trucks, and into tanks . . .
Michigan Alkali Company, Detroit . . . providing
Soda Ash, Caustic Soda, Chlorine, Bicarbonate of Soda,
Calcium Chloride . . .
The Elastic Allegory
From 1952, an illustration
by John Atherton painted in the final year of this wonderful
artist's short life. A visual allegory of the shift
from natural to synthetic rubber, it has many of the
surrealist art cues that made their way into commercial
illustration after World War II: vanishing lines of
perspective on a landscape of shadow-casting rocks beneath
wispy clouds, an enigmatic figure (in this case a styrene
molecule) hovering in the foreground. A skilled angler,
Atherton was known for his expertly tied flies, fishing
scenes and marine art. He died on a salmon-fishing trip
in New Brunswick, Canada.
America's Heaviest
Crop, 1942
Timber, America's
heaviest crop, is the most difficult to reap. Until
recently, trucks were not capable of making a profitable
business of going directly into most mountain stands
of timber and hauling logs to the mill. But White Super
Power Trucks are doing it now . . .
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY
24, 2005
Oldsmobile's Golden
Rocket
An interior shot
of Oldsmobile's Golden Rocket, a "dream car" from the
1956 GM Motorama. The huge steering wheel was articulated,
with the lower part folding forward for ease of entry.
The two-spoke vee design and split dashboard appeared,
in watered-down form, in the
1959 Oldsmobile.
Buick City, Cont'd.
From California,
Jeff S. writes in: "I was particularly intrigued
by the Buick City
page because I was born and raised in Flint and
worked for Buick Motor Division in Flint in the 1980's.
The shed in the photographs is on the roof of the Buick
Engineering building at the Buick complex in Flint.
I think it's extremely likely that the photos were taken
in order to give the artist details of the new models
for the brochure renderings." Thanks to Jeff for pinning
down the exact location of the photos.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY
21, 2005
40-Wheeler
From 1947, one of
the many futuristic renderings (by an undeservedly unknown
artist, in the style of Arthur Radebaugh) used in the
postwar ad campaign of Bohn Aluminum & Brass.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY
19, 2005
The Road to Zion
An illustration for
Gilbert Papers by the Western artist Maynard Dixon (1875-1946),
painted in the year of his death. It appeared posthumously
in 1947. Dixon spent the final years of his life painting
the southern Utah landscape around his summer home in
Mount Carmel, near Zion Canyon. Not long after this
oil was painted, the cliffs of the desert Southwest
served as a backdrop for thousands of uranium prospectors
at the start of the Atomic Age.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY
18, 2005
Buick City
With the aid of a
high-powered scanner, satellite photography and Google,
we've pretty much solved the mystery of the rooftop
Buicks. Read all about it
here. And see
the pictures (more than a dozen new ones)
here.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY
16, 2005
1954 Buick Roofmaster
Yet another curious
shot, of two nicely turned out models pretending to
drive a 1954 Buick . . . on the roof of
an industrial-looking building in Michigan (according
to the license plates of the cars in the background),
probably around Detroit. Our best guess is that this
was a study for the artists who illustrated the brochures.
In a number of these photographs you can see the
reflections of the people who took them.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY
12, 2005
The New Look
You may have noticed
the site has undergone something of a makeover during
the past week. We hope the result is that it looks less
1997 and more 1957. There's also an RSS feed (top
of this page) for people using newsreaders. In case
of what might seem to be a broken link, try going back
to the page you clicked on and hit "refresh," then click
again. Or better yet, clear your browser cache to purge
any dead links.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY
11, 2005
Solitaire (1936)
ONLY A FEW jewels
achieve the rare distinction of being "solitaires."
For only a few can appear magnificent without a flattering
setting. The Packard, we feel, is one of those jewels.
Even if you take away its proud name, even if you strip
it of its enduring identity—it will still be a monarch
among motor cars. It will still be a peer in mechanical
excellence. It will still be without an equal in the
luxury men and women love. But you can no more divorce
a Packard from its name, from its prestige and identity,
than you can separate it from its comfort, or the swift-flowing
ease with which it rides the roads. For more than a
third of a century, the Packard name has stood for the
utmost in fine motor cars. Packard today has the largest
fine car clientele in the world. More large Packards
are in use in America than any three other fine cars
combined.
Subtext: Packard is starting to
feel the heat from Cadillac.
Words From the Wise
(1936)
MOTORISTS who have
been accustomed to higher priced cars (and have traded
them in on LINCOLN-ZEPHYRS) are the most generous in
their praises of this new kind of automobile. Quoting
from a few of the many letters recently received: "It
takes 70 as smoothly as 45 in any other car." The V-12
engine in the LINCOLN-ZEPHYR, designed by Lincoln, built
by Lincoln, develops 110 horsepower. The next car with
a twelve-cylinder engine costs more than three thousand
dollars. "My LINCOLN- ZEPHYR has gone over two thousand
miles and I am pleased to report 15 to 16 miles to each
gallon of gas." Economy as well as stimulating performance
is built into the LINCOLN-ZEPHYR. It writes a new record
on the roads. The beauty of complete streamlining is
evident at a glance. Seats are like divans. Passengers
step from pavement directly onto the floor of the car
. . .
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY
8, 2005
The Virtual Buick
Photo from 1953 of
a model seated at the controls of a 1954 Buick Roadmaster.
Probably done as a study for illustrators to use in
advertising and promotional materials, months before
the actual cars were available.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY
2, 2005
Better Gears for Tomorrow's
Skyliners (1943)
A new era in transportation
is on the way! Already skyliners of the future are past
the experimental stage, and tomorrow promises a world
of short distances—a world where Bagdad and Cairo, Moscow
and Budapest will be little more than sleeper jumps
from New York. The giant engines to power these airliners
of the future are today a reality. Making gears for
these engines is Foote Bros.' job. When the war
is won and these new gears can be produced for peacetime
industry, they give promise of new efficiency—new economy
to American manufacturers, whether they be applied to
skyliner engines or machine tools, farm equipment or
motor cars. Foote Bros. Gear and Machine Corp., Chicago
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY
1, 2005
The Gauges of War, 1942
How to get home from
Tokyo: Suddenly the arrow on a dial in front of you
quivers . . . you're on the beam, tuned
the wave length of a radio-location set somewhere in
China! Gruen . . . makers of the Precision
Watch . . . and Precision Instruments for
War.
South Pacific, 1942
The "Someday" of
Global Skyways . . . is Here Today! Veterans
of the air lanes over the Seven Seas since the first
Pan American Airways Clipper hopped off for distant
horizons are Chase Fabrics . . . specially
woven upholstery, carpets, linings and curtains. L.C.
Chase & Company, New York.
Parrot Jungle, 1942
Molded Plaskon is
now playing an important part in the operation of radios,
field and base telephones, and "walkie-talkies" used
by our armed forces throughout the world. Plaskon Company,
Toledo.
Dream Boat, 1943
Keep your spirits
high—speed Victory. Buy U.S. War Bonds Today—Tomorrow
command your own. Chris-Craft Corporation, Algonac,
Michigan. World's largest builder of motor boats. All
men and women at the three Chris-Craft factories are
working under the Army-Navy "E" with two stars for Excellence
in War Production
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