I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)

benjaminh

1920....The roller coaster cartoon is visualizing how prices rose during the Great War as the economy overheated and are now crashing as a deep recession sets in. The article details the brutal executions of the Czar and his family after the Russian Revolution. As you might have seen, a few pages back there was an ad featuring the Czar and his fancy car. Overland is showing that even if you don't know exactly where you're going it is fun to explore around with your car. I do that today in my car, although with AndroidAuto and navi I always know where I've gotten to....

Mr_Shiftright

Such great graphics back then.

benjaminh

1920....The Post cover is by Norman Rockwell. The new Commonwealth Car ad says that more people travel by car already than any other way by far. The Octopus tire has a small diagram below the big picture that shows how each suction cup gets a little vacuum, which might have created a sucking sound loud enough to get the attention of H. Ross Perot.

benjaminh

1920....Uncle Sam is tangled up in European affairs, GM opens the largest office building in the world, it's amusing to see the shoe styles that go with the Auto Lite ads, FDR is running for VP, and, finally, this is a rare ad for the important but neglected universal joint....

benjaminh

Getting toward the end of 1920. I know these images take a little while to load, but since the text is often small they need to be somewhat high rez if they are to be read....This set features another Norman Rockwell cover as well as another strange tire design. The truck looks a lot better for the driver than the GMC trucks of a few years earlier since at least it gives some protection from the weather. It does look like a lot of extra care was taken in designing and building the new Lincoln.

benjaminh

Mr_Shiftright said:

Such great graphics back then.

Yes the design sensibility is both alien and familiar—and yet somehow fun and elegant at the same time. As someone once said, "The past is a foreign country."

benjaminh

1920 A Buick now looks quite a bit different than a few years ago—but shockingly still no mention that it's a General Motors product. Seems like Lincoln has some good engineering in its engine. And after millions of dollars of investment tires are starting to last longer, 15,000 miles being quite amazing at this point....

benjaminh

And with this we finish up the selection from 1920....I'll give us a break at least till tomorrow.

fintail

Spottings today - Hanomag or Airstream, you decide:





And this buggy:

berri

...one toke over the line buddy

benjaminh

A couple more from 1920....In the world of the Michelin advertisement, I wonder if the people driver the cars are ever concerned about this giant rubber man, or if it's just reassuring to see him because they have his tires? (PS And unless someone says not to, I'll probably start posting some pix of ads and a few covers from the Saturday Evening Post of 1921.)

benjaminh

I'll add another little comment that from the selection of ads I'm posting it might seem like people of this era did lots of ads with giant things—giant tires, giant batteries, a giant wearing a smart suit, giant flying cars, etc., and to some degree that's true. But actually for every ad I'm posting I've looked at scores of ads from different issues that are fine as ads but not as visually interesting to me that I haven't posted. What I'm trying to say is that the ads I'm posting are not quite representative of all ads from these years in the Post, but are in some way or other a little bit interesting. Although some of the ones I'm picking are just "normal" ads of the time illustrating these old cars—or parts of cars.

One other thing that interests me is how much the companies making the components in these cars—the batteries, spark plugs, axles, etc. are advertising their wares and building up their brand names.

benjaminh

The advertising copy for that Peerless car ad above is strangely wistful. Since it's impossible to read the ad without double clicking on it, I'll type some of it here just in case someone might be interested.

"....Up Life's winding course, regret pursues change and change bites the heels of habit and custom. The stage-coach of romance gives place to steam and speed. The electric light snuffs out the soft-beamed candle. Tinkling sleigh-bells drown in the roar of motor horns.

But Youth knows naught of the old, Age accepts the new, and who will say that smiles were brighter or spirits keener at the Christmases of our fathers than they are today?

Richer and wider is our modern life, with its locomotives, its electricity, its motor cars—they have extended our horizons, increased our comforts and opportunities, multiplied our human relationships.

Here at the Peerless factory we measure our accomplishment by the degree to which the Peerless Two-power-range Eight shares in this widening and enriching process. As the new year approaches, we renew our pledges of devotion to ideals of sound building and honest dealing.

The Peerless Motor Car Company
CLEVELAND : OHIO"

benjaminh

1921....

benjaminh

1921....As the junkyard piles up with scrapped cars in one ad, in another you are encouraged to get your daughter the new Jordan Playboy model of car as a gift.

benjaminh

International Business Machines already seems like a very big corporation in 1921. I like the little sort of Buddha figurine that's part of the decor of the house that also just got a box of fancy and yummy looking chocolates, although the treats seem to indicate maybe there's still some desire for things notwithstanding the teachings of Buddha to give up desire. But maybe that's not Buddha. He looks a little too happy like he just ate a few pieces of candy. The price cutting found with the fancy Selz shoe is something found often in advertisements in 1921. As a deep recession hit that year unemployment soared to 11% and many companies had to cut prices to try to prop up demand. There's an article in the Post from 1921 that I didn't copy that interviews a shoe store manager who says that they have customers and they are moving the merchandise, but they aren't really selling shoes but rather just giving them away at cost.

I'm not sure I'd be able to start a car with a manual choke. I think I'd try to lever it open for starting and then dial it back once the car is warmed up, but the controls on a car from 1921 are somewhat alien to me.

benjaminh

1921....Pirates were popular this year for selling Whitman chocolates. Look at that manually operated traffic signal. By the end of the 1920s had most big cities movies to automatic traffic lights?

benjaminh

1921....My brother-in-law the engineer affectionately calls the then-exotic metal featured in one of these ads "Molly".

benjaminh

1921....The last image here is from an article about the Navy's new aircraft carrier.

benjaminh

1921....Sunoco warns you of a giant hand that is going to come and take your money because of a ruined engine if you don't change your oil often enough. 100 hp must have been mind-blowing back in 1921.

benjaminh

1921....The long text advertisement for the fancy Marmon automobile says that "well-to-do men" in smaller cities finally have a chance to get a Marmon—because of the recession.

benjaminh

1921....Something people who are looking at these have surely noticed is that all the advertisements—even for the same brand in the same year—are different. Back then they didn't repeat ads as far as I can tell—it was one and done. And by this point I feel like I've had a series of lessons from the ads about how the internal combustion engine works and what can go wrong.

benjaminh

And 1921 comes to a close, with ominous hints of the future with militarized "Disarmament" cover.

Mr_Shiftright

The Jordan Playboy, as some of you might know, brought a new level of emotional urge to the display of automobile advertising. Widely recognized today as a ground-breaking shift in how cars were sold, the Jordan Playboy ads appealed to desire far more than practicality or merely mundane mechanical trivia. The ads were sheer poetry.

Ironically the actual car, the Jordan, was nothing special in terms of engineering. It was an assembled car (bolted together from outside vendor sources) of modest performance (initially), but it used quality components and it had, for the time, a sporting kind of look to it (wire wheels, etc).

Jordan's swan song was probably its most interesting car--the Speedway Ace (1930 or so?). It boasted a 100 mph potential top speed, but it was far too pricey for the years of the Great Depression. Jordan also tried to sell a kind of "luxury compact" (not his words) but that was way too bold a concept for the 1920s.

All in all, the company lasted about 14 years.

fintail

"Disarmament" is by Joseph Leyendecker, a prolific artist of the era. He also had a prescient Post cover as WW2 was beginning:

benjaminh

1922....Don't quite understand the red color of the sky and the red color of the Coke, but it is visually interesting which I think is the point. With falling prices seemingly still hitting almost everything you could get a Firestone tire in 1922 for $10, a battery for $20, and a car for less than before. Haynes has a detailed explanation of its engine. And Norman Rockwell shows you what 3D was like back then.

benjaminh

1922....The last is a detailed article about what it is like for a traffic officer to operate a traffic light and sign system. It's readable if you click on it twice. Sounds like a tough job. At the Mobil dealer the customer's head has literally turned into a broken record player with a demand for a "quart of oil" but not thinking about the quality of that oil. Paige has cut the price of its car by $500—which was huge in percentage terms—although by 1922 I think it was possible to buy a Ford Model T for c. $350, making every other car on the road seem like a lot more.

benjaminh

1922....I think this is the year that it starts being announced—as it is here—that Chevrolet is a division of General Motors. Before this it seems like this key fact was almost hidden for almost a decade?

benjaminh

1922....

benjaminh

1922....During 1922 the economy was growing, unemployment was falling, and General Motors was gathering market share. But still niche players like Hupmobile could have their greatest year ever as well.

benjaminh

1922....GM was smartly marketing cars to women in 1922. Norman Rockwell has a cover about old folks listening to the relatively new radio.

benjaminh

1922....

benjaminh

1922....J.C. Leyendecker has another good cover.

roadburner

Jumping forward 50 years, this is the advertisement that first introduced me to BMW cars; next I read David E. Davis Jr.'s Turn Your Hymnal to 2002 and it was all over.

benjaminh

1922....Was Dodge the first all steel car?

benjaminh

And with this striking cover by artist Coles Phillips it seems like the roaring flapper 20s are upon us—but what car is that supposed to be?

fintail

From my family album, I believe this is a 23 Olds:

benjaminh

fintail said:

From my family album, I believe this is a 23 Olds:

Wow!++ A 1923 Oldsmobile cost much more than a Model T of the time, but an Oldsmobile was more comfortable, safer, more powerful, etc. The Model T lacked such things as a speedometer, heater, etc.—all things found on the comparatively luxurious Oldsmobile.

benjaminh

1922....

fintail

Yep, those were relatively affluent people and an Olds was a nice but not too showy car.

As you like time travel material, here's the woman, my great-grandmother, seen at right in that pic, this around 1912, with another car (I think it was identified as a Kissel):

benjaminh said:

Wow!++ A 1923 Oldsmobile cost much more than a Model T of the time, but an Oldsmobile was more comfortable, safer, more powerful, etc. The Model T lacked such things as a speedometer, heater, etc.—all things found on the comparatively luxurious Oldsmobile.

Mr_Shiftright

The car in the Phillips poster looks a lot like a Bugatti Royale but that didn't come out until 1927, so I'd it was a somewhat stylized Peerless, perhaps what they call a Sedanca de Ville

benjaminh

fintail said:

Yep, those were relatively affluent people and an Olds was a nice but not too showy car.

As you like time travel material, here's the woman, my great-grandmother, seen at right in that pic, this around 1912, with another car (I think it was identified as a Kissel):

Another great picture. That really does take you back in time. My great-grandfather was a lumber man for many years, and I imagine him and my great-grandmother in scenes like this. There's an understandable pride in the car shown in this photo imho. Nice that the dog got in there too lol!

benjaminh

And with these ads and this cover a farewell to 1922....

benjaminh

1923....

benjaminh

1923....Apparently since these women didn't get a Philco battery a train might run them over. The Oldsmobile was for the typical American who didn't want a drawing room on wheels—or a Model T.

benjaminh

By 1923 the surreal quality found in some advertisements from just a few years before—the giant hands, giant tires, flying cars, etc.—seems to have almost vanished for the time being. The car shows of the time were clearly a big deal. But going to the opera in a Pierce Arrow limo driven by Jeeves as described in the essay in this ad is almost a surreal experience in luxury—ticking clock, reading lights, soft seats, ventilation system, etc.

benjaminh

I've now been looking at about ten years of the Post and I've yet to see a single ad for a Ford. I think Ford maybe had a policy of word-of-mouth advertising at the time? Anyway, this ad for oil for Ford gives us a clear picture of what a Model T of c.1923 looked like. I had some grandparents who lived in Raton, New Mexico for many years long ago, and so I'm somewhat familiar with that part of the country.

benjaminh

1923....

benjaminh

Helen Keller likes the Marmon. I think a few years later a Buick was often the "doctor's car," but in 1923 the Hupmobile was a doctor's car too. I like the detailed description of how a Dodge is started, which makes clear that starting a car wasn't always a successful thing back then.

benjaminh

This is what "suicide doors" looked like in 1923. This was also the year that it was recognized that the open car was passing away. Women in business were asked to consider a Chevrolet Coupé.