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  A N N O T A T I O N S
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PASTELOGRAM is named in honor of the poet Marianne Moore, who wascommission- ed by Ford Motor Co. in the 1950s to come up with names for its new mid-priced car. Among her suggestions: “Pastelogram,” “Turco- tinga,” “Silver Sword,” “Resilient Bullet,” “Utopian Turtletop” and the especially cryptic “Mongoose Civique.” Ford declined to use any of these and instead went with “Edsel.” The rest is history.

WE’VE HAD LOTS
of requests asking the Curator: “You’re so darn modest, we don’t know much about you. How about posting a picture or some biographical info? And have I told you about the time I was abducted by aliens?” Well, you get the idea. So here’s a little about our history.

FUN A LA MODE
The old Patent Office applications in the PatentRoom are a soft- serve lesson in history. New on the menu: Tees.


 

COME FLY WITH ME
The early aircraft designs on view at AdventureLounge will take you back, though maybe not all in one piece.



ARE YOUR SCANS limp, lifeless, lacking pep and vim? Visit ScanTips for fast, safe, effective relief.



THE ART
of Josh Agle. Martinis, girls, guns. Think James Bond meets Jetsons at a tiki bar in Palm Springs.

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   L I N K A T O R I U M
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PRELINGER ARCHIVE
CAR MANUAL PROJECT
IMPERIAL CLUB
WALTER MILLER
McLELLAN’S
IMAGINARY WORLD
RAY PATIN STUDIOS
LILEKS I.O.O.C.
SHAG ART
BUICKS.NET
PALACE OF CULTURE
KING OF THE ROAD
BROCHURES ON EBAY
STARBURST
FRANCISCAN OASIS
FRANCISCAN TRIO
SILVER PINE
SOCIETY of
   ILLUSTRATORS

ADVENTURELOUNGE
PATENTROOM
 
   

THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2005

≈ Thunderbird GO!

The 1958 Ford with Thunderbird power means GO with a capital “GEE”! No engine in Ford’s price range delivers so much getaway push at the rear wheels  . . .

The red coupe is a Ford Skyliner, a steel-top convertible whose two-section roof folded into the trunk. The design of the B-pillar echoed the Thunderbird’s, a treatment repeated on the hugely successful Galaxie of 1959, which was also the last year for the Skyliner.


≈ Martians Demand “IFIC”

What is “IFIC”?
Even men who streak through space
    and know their cosmic rays
Can’t explain, although they know
    it works in wondrous ways.
Flavor, freshness, take your pick,
    whatever “IFIC” means,
It makes Beech-Nut Gum the favorite choice
    of Martian kings and queens.

Don’t be alarmed if the Martians come demanding “IFIC.” Just offer them a little Beech-Nut Gum and they’ll go away.

≈ Morning Tee

Any breakfast cereal helps a gal avoid “mid-morning letdown”  . . .  as long as it’s Post Grape-Nuts Flakes. Try ’em!

The illustrator here, Dick Sargent, was noted for his humorous Saturday Evening Post cover art in the 1950s.

≈ The Cornflake Kid

“Any corn flakes go over big with me  . . .  as long as they’re Post Toasties.” Seems they just don’t make bowls big enough for Post Toasties corn flakes. Maybe it’s that nice sweet corn flavor. Pour yourself a bowl — you’ll love ’em!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005

≈ The Vicious Cycle

Fun Flavor is just the start of the happy talent of Barley Malt, wherever it’s used. And what a wonderful start it is! Malt’s high, wide and hearty Fun-Flavor range extends from the bright refreshment of beer and ale to the nourishing goodness of cereals. Malt renews your energy and aids digestion  . . .

Did consumers in 1959 need to be encouraged to drink beer and eat bread? The reasoning behind the Barley and Malt Institute’s long-running ad campaign in mass-circulation magazines, as opposed to trade publications, is obscure. It might have been part of a lobbying effort to change the liquor laws in certain states so that beer could be sold in supermarkets and baseball stadiums. Or it could have been a continuation of the earlier “Beer Belongs” campaign of the U.S. Brewers Foundation. The illustration here is unsigned but looks to be the work of Edward Augustiny.

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005

≈ Men of Steel, 1945

Steel plates are HEAVY! Heavy-duty Autocar Trucks — make no mistake about this — have the precision-built guts that mean low-cost-per-mile performance and surer profits for heavy-duty haulers everywhere. Why else would Elmer Breuer, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, contract hauler for Republic Steel, have been an Autocar user for 15 years? Shown here is one of the Breuer fleet of 67 Autocars, hauling the steel plates that are designed to keep enemy shells out of American tanks. Heavy going  . . .  but easy rolling for Autocar.

A wartime illustration for Autocar of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, by the artist William Campbell. His pictures of big trucks, done in a naive style reminiscent of the children’s books of the period, no doubt graced the bedroom walls of many a li’l industrialist, if not the boardroom walls of their fathers. Now they can decorate either.

≈ Tree-Luggers

Autocar Diesels cost more because they’re worth more. No one knows this better than Associated Lumber and Box Co., one of the Leading producers of special lumber in the United States. They rely on these famous, heavy-duty trucks to haul Ponderosa Pine and Sugar Pine in the Sierra-Nevadas   . . .

From 1945, a relic of those days before corrugated cardboard when merchandise was shipped in wooden crates and barrels. The illustrator is not our beloved William Campbell, who might have been taking a break to cleanse his overworked palette, but rather one O. Baumann.    

THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2005

≈ Heavy Hauling, by George!

This heavy-duty Autocar Tractor with semi-trailer, owned and operated by George Transfer and Rigging Co., Baltimore, glides through the area with the greatest of ease in spite of its cargo of 12½ tons  . . .  that 4-bladed, 14-foot propeller that will soon be flailing salt water astern some ocean freighter  . . .

An Autocar illustration from 1945, unsigned but unmistakably the work of William Campbell, whose work we could recognize by now in our sleep (and, eerily, often do). Autocar, an early practitioner of co-branding, featured a different customer in each of its ads.    

TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005

≈ The B-44 Hydra-Matic Olds

When you come to buy a car equipped with one of the new drives, remember what everybody’s saying: “You can always count on Oldsmobile.” You can buy a Hydra-Matic Oldsmobile B-44 with the confidence that can come only from a General Motors product. You can own it with the secure feeling that 130,000 owners have already driven it more than 300,000,000 miles. You can drive it with the satisfying knowledge that it will save you hundreds of foot and arm motions per hour of city driving, as well as save you from 10 to 15 per cent of your gasoline! No clutch to press with Hydra-Matic Drive! No gears to shift in the forward speeds! Nothing to do but steer, step on it, stop! Try Hydra-Matic Drive in the new Oldsmobile B-44, today.

The “B-44” designation applied to Oldsmobile’s 1942 models was in honor of the make’s “Better Looking, Better Lasting, Better Built” 44th-anniversary cars. The vaguely futuristic, militaristic connotations of B-44 were right on the money — a few weeks after this November 1941 ad appeared, Pearl Harbor was attacked and civilian production of automobiles was suspended “for the duration.” It would be almost four years before any more cars rolled off Detroit’s assembly lines. GM’s Hydra-Matic automatic transmission, starting its third year in production, would find wide use in light tanks.    

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2005

≈ Morning, Noon and Night

Fresh from 1959, it’s the Superior Mustard cookout lady. Just in time for your Fourth of July barbecue, if you bring her to the picnic on this T-shirt. Pert, saucy and probably around 70 years old by now if our math is correct, she’s pre-shrunk, too. (Also just arrived from our third-world sweatshops: The Angry Pig Diner and other retro-rific images from PatentRoom.) We also have a DeSoto T-shirt.

≈ Swing In  . . . Take Off !

New Swing-Out Swivel Seats invite you to step in and discover the greatness of the ’59 Dodge. Get aboard, swing in, and the seat locks in place. Pull down the center arm rest. You are in a position of wonderful control, wonderful support. And now — take off! You have never seen, felt, owned anything like it.

Chrysler’s “Swing-Out” swivel seats made their debut as an option for the 1959 model year but didn’t find many takers. The following year they were modified to swing out automatically when the doors were opened. The year after that, they were history.

SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 2005

≈ New ’59 Dodge

The Newest of Everything Great  . . .  The Greatest of Everything New! New things, great things, reward you in this ’59 Dodge. New HC-HE engines — high compression, high economy — whisper their promise of eager performance at substantial savings. Orderly rows of buttons on a gleaming panel welcome you to the first all-pushbutton car, with fingertip control of driving and weather  . . .

When the cute Plymouth Neon came out 10 years ago, its ads showed the front of the car over a headline that said “Hi.” If there had been a similar campaign for the 1959 Dodge, the ads would’ve said “Grrr.” Or “Boo!” The sales catalog we took this image from (it’s the cover) contained this added bonus from the original owner — a worksheet listing the options he wanted on his new Dodge Royal.

THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005

≈ The Best of Everything

The New York Times tipped us off this week to the first-ever DVD release of “The Best of Everything,” the 1959 film version of Rona Jaffe’s potboiler novel about career girls finding fulfillment, heartache and, most important, husbands, in the New York publishing world. We’d been looking forward to this because we’re a big fan of Suzy Parker, the model discovered by Richard Avedon who will be familiar to any collector of ads from the 1950s.  The movie, which was supposed to be her crossover into a film career, was shot on location in New York and should appeal to any fifties-phile. The biggest star in the picture (besides Joan Crawford, Hope Lange, Diane Baker and Suzy) is the home of  “Fabian Publishing” at 375 Park Avenue — the real-life Seagram Building, which had just been completed. Among the movie’s 35 sets is an enormous soundstage version of the 37th floor; downstairs there’s a restaurant, but it’s not the Four Seasons. There are also shots of Lever House and plenty of late-’50s cars. Suzy, who had a movie voice about as sexy as a glass of tap water, manages to at least look fabulous. Toward the end of the picture she wears some killer high heels.

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2005

≈ Comin’ Round the Mountain

When was our last posting of a yellow 1947 Autocar? Seems like it’s been ages. Days, at the very least. So here goes. The artist  isn’t William Campbell but someone named Miller. The mountains remind us of the Chiricahuas in southeast Arizona.

SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2005

≈ Some Assembly Required

CONTENTS: One Hellcat. Hauling Hellcats and Wildcats (complete fighter planes in huge crates) is a job for masters of load and road. Heavy-duty trucks by Autocar! Equipped with a boom by Dade Brothers, Inc., one of these big tractors can lift its weight in Wildcats. Or Hellcats. On all fronts, Autocar provides special-purpose vehicles for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Forces  . . .  rugged reminders of heavy-duty Autocar Trucks to come at war’s end.

William Campbell once again takes brush in hand for Autocar Trucks in this 1944 illustration.

≈ Hey, That’s Us!

From 1946, another Autocar Trucks illustration. Shockingly, this one isn’t by Autocar house artist William Campbell. Maybe it was his day off.

FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2005

≈ More Prints

The Prints section has a new look, more selections and a wider variety of papers, sizes and, as the marketing department likes to call them, “price points.” Feel free to browse but please, no food or open beverage containers. Shirt and shoes optional. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 2005

≈ See your Edsel Dealer

Here’s the car you hoped would happen. A full-size car that makes sense. Styled to last. Built to last. Beautifully efficient. And priced with the most popular three! It looks right, works right. And it’s priced right. The beautifully efficient Edsel for ’59 is a car that slips easily into tight parking spaces — fits any normal garage. Same spacious room inside as before — but less length outside! It’s a car that’s powered to save  . . .

Another colorful ad for the doomed Edsel. For 1959 Ford abandoned its plans for big Edsels sharing bodies with Mercury and trimmed the model line to the Ranger and Corsair (pictured), both based on the smaller Ford.

TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2005

≈ Makes History by Making Sense

Exciting new kind of car! Luxury without going overboard. Power without gulping gas. Wonderful, practical features. And it’s priced with the most popular three! This is a new breed of car. A car with looks, features, power and price that make sense. It’s styled with beauty and grace you usually find only in expensive cars. It’s soundly engineered. Edsel’s compact 120-inch wheelbase makes parking a pleasure. Yet there’s room for six adults to ride comfortably  . . .

In December 1958, when this ad first appeared, the short-lived Edsel was beginning its second year. In an effort to increase sales, Ford repositioned the 1959 car as “King-Size Value” of the low-price field, to no avail. Slightly shrunken in stature, Edsel lost its pushbutton Teletouch transmission as well as the Pacer and luxury Citation lines, with only Ranger (pictured) and Corsair models remaining. In less than a year, the Edsel would be dead.

MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2005

≈ Fountain of  Youth

WHEN the stadiums throb with color and cheers and hushed hymns to Alma Mater — when the old grads return to relive memories and renew their youth — you’ll find these lithe, lean Lincoln-Zephyrs streaking through the brown countryside. Go wherever America’s at play and you’ll see them flashing in from every point on the compass. That’s because these sleek, powerful thoroughbreds — packed with hair-trigger “get-up-and-go” — are youth’s dream of what a perfectly poised car should look like, be, and do. And that goes for every man Jack who dares never to grow old; for this is the car Ponce de Leon would choose — youthful, rugged, able, yacht-smart in all details, with a he-car capacity to go places and do things.

We count at least a half a dozen separate Homecoming  dramas playing out across this colorful illustration for the 1941 Lincoln-Zephyr. It makes us pine for those smoke-scented autumn days at MU. Or would that be UM?

SUNDAY, JUNE 5, 2005

≈ Just One More

Heavy-duty Autocars are built to stay on the job. But like any other machine, however sturdy or delicate it may be — and like any other truck — Autocar Trucks do give trouble now and then. That is why we maintain a coast-to-coast service organization without equal in the trucking world.

Autocar ads (this one from 1947) are a little like salt peanuts — it’s hard to stop gobbling them up, they’re so delicious, and the supply is endless. Isn’t it?

SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 2005

≈ Engineered for Heavy Duty

Hauling gasoline from plants to stations — 5400 gallons at a time — is heavy-duty hauling. Autocar Trucks  . . .  famous for long life; unparalleled for dependable performance; owned and operated by such national leaders as Standard Oil Company of California. Buy Autocars by Autocar!

Another Campbell from 1945. If there are service stations in Heaven, we imagine they’d look something like this.
UPDATE: Ever-resourceful Ken at Patentroom.com has unearthed the plans for this filling-station design.

≈ Follow the Leaders, for They Know the Way

Superbly engineered  . . .  and don’t doubt that for a minute. Precision-built for any man-sized job done under any kind of going. Autocar Trucks cost more because they’re worth more. Ask Socony-Vacuum. They buy many Autocars. A limited quantity of new, heavy-duty Autocar Trucks are now being built by government authorization. A fortunate few haulers of essential loads can get them. Maybe you can qualify.

From 1945, a fine example of artist William Campbell’s big red trucks for Autocar of Ardmore, Pennsylvania.

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