Pictures of that Chevy have brought to mind when, as a kid, I first fell in love with automobiles while taking a trip with my "PaPa" (grandpa) from Nellis AFB to Las Vegas in his '51 Styleline. I got to sit on his lap and hold the wheel the whole trip. A really big deal to a 5 year old.
Thanks again Murilee. I now have a big smile on my face and couple tears of joy in my eyes.
@GTBruiser: One of my fave things on Jalopnik are the stories of how as a young child each one of us got hooked on cars in a different way. That's a nice one!
@lilwillie hides autos in the attic: Flew into Green Bay, drove to Winona, then up to Sturgeon Bay, then flew back home out of Green Bay. I've also done the trip via Minneapolis.
Oh my, the '50 Chevy strikes my heart, Murilee, your playing with my heart again!
My dad has a very nice rust free 1950 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe in storage. Black, Stove-Bolt 6 with ta 3 on the tree. There is a pill bottle (Glass) in the glove box from 1964 too!
It was his grandmothers I believe. When she died, he was driving it back from South Carolina to Houston TX, when the motor died in Georgia. Trashy gas (Old, and just crap pump gas), and the lack of driving before my dad was able to get it (Sat for many years) caused a valve to stick and it locked up. I think it stayed with an uncle of my dad's for a few years until my dad was able to drive a tow truck all the way from Houston to Georgia to pick it up. I grew up in Dallas with it sitting in my driveway, usually under a car cover. Back when I was young it was hulking, massive, and reminded me of the Bat Mobile. In 2001 when we moved back to Houston it went into storage. I wasn't over 10, so the car was still huge to me. About 2 years ago, we went into the storage lot to pull some parts for the CST10, and I decided to pull some of the covers off it. Hadn't seen it in nearly 7 years. Boy, Hun's car was a lot smaller now. I never got a good picture of the whole car (Only the one attached above), and lost the others I had when the Hard drive on my PC froze, but if someone wants I can go dig up the photographs and scan them, if murilee can post them, That'd kick ass. A 20 year old DOTS set of photos.
Currently it sits holding old car parts in the trunk, and a built TPI 350 under the nose, but only as an oversized engine stand, that was for another car of my past. A certain '78 El Camino.
Wautoma! I spent an entire month there in the summer of 1989. There used to be a resort right off of Highway 21 on Bughs Lake, and the show-band I was in had a month-long gig there. I remember seeing the Milty-Wilty Diner but I don't recall ever going in (our meals were comped by the resort). A sleepy little town, it seems like Wautoma's main notoriety was that it was just down the road from Plainfield - home of Ed Gein. I could imagine Ed hanging around the diner "play area" watching the children...(shiver).
@BRAWNDO_POWERED: Agree; because if I had to choose, I think I'd need to buy those signs instead of the cars--the cars I could find somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure the signs are one-of-a-kind. For good reason.
I want something better. I want a Singer 1500. When only the best will do.
I love those little thumbnail cartoons in the Vauxhall ad: It has a big nose to better smash unruly boys; contains both a speedometer AND a fuel gauge; the rear window is included, even though they couldn't be bothered to build the middle of the back seat.
But I would totally rock that Daimler, if it didn't have a slushbox. Why, it's practically the practical man's Rolls Royce!
@Van Sarockin, rogue trebuchet: What of contrast of expectations. Think of what US luxury car ads were like in the late '50s - prose consisting of breathless flights of ecstatic fancy, glorious full color, elegant women in gowns and fur, grand scenery or mountains of drapes and chandeliers. Now look at this dull, dry Daimler ad - it gives this admittedly nice car all the sex appeal and charisma of an adding machine.
'It efficiently changes gear, up or down, always at the right time, and always more quickly, more smoothly, than one could do it oneself'.
They were saying that even before my parents were born. Valentino Balboni put it well when he said 'You have to become one piece only.' With a manual transmission, you are an integral piece of the machine, stirring coals deep in the heart of the fire, while computer controls have very little need of you being there, and would eliminate you entirely if they could. Silicon transistors do not require and do not respond to any change of force or delicacy, reason or subtlety; they are creatures of absolutes. And while their absolutes and boundaries have been made smaller, they have become far greater in number, their scope more expansive, their control more complete, your input less relevant. You are placed ever further from the nerve center of the machine, replaced by digital senses. The tide has turned: destroyers of machinery gave Luddites their name, but now it is the machines, electrified and calculating, that destroy the human.
@Murilee Martin: I'm staring at a picture I took of UDmans Corvair that's about to be turned into a stencil. I could draw or paint in a suitable background to create a similar style. I'll get right on it.
Andy Wallwhore- I know, everybody's funny, ...now you kinda funny too. was starred
Andy Wallwhore- I know, everybody's funny, ...now you kinda funny too. was unstarred
@Matt2000 - British Leyland 4WD FTW!: i wonder if they mean hens as lady chickens, or just ladies. The former makes more sense, but the latter might suggest that women like it too, or something to that effect.
@Rockford_Brodie:
This is a British car company, so clearly they're referring to some strange kind of traditional Druid witchcraft alchemy unfamiliar to us Americans.... you know, you bring home some hay today, shape a few handfuls of strands of it into an effigy of a chicken, whisper some incantations under the light of a full moon, burn the straw chicken effigy; then mysteriously, the next morning you have a yardful of chickens.
Forget Corvettes. Porsches, and Ferraris. You're not going to win over the really cultured hot babes unless you drive a 1954 Wolseley. Never mind that it's built on a stretched Morris Minor platform and only might manage 75 mph with a strong tailwind. Sex appeal is more important than these trivial concerns, right?
Picture a modern suburban soccer mom wrestling this vehicle into the parking lot at the local Starbucks. As if you could steer this thing with one hand (and no place to set down your vente Mochaccino Latte in those B.C. -- Before Cupholders -- vehicles).
08/23/09
The Good News: That's still only halfway through.
08/23/09
08/23/09
Thanks again Murilee. I now have a big smile on my face and couple tears of joy in my eyes.
08/23/09
08/23/09
08/23/09
"Hey Sis, come over here & we'll go down this slide into a pit of antifreeze & old 30-weight together!"
"OK, in a minute - I wanna play in this sandbox full of rusty nails first!"
08/23/09
@HoonThatFerrari:
"You guys are BOTH lame! I'm gonna run up into the elephant's mouth & get shit out his ass!"
08/23/09
I like them.
08/23/09
08/23/09
They've made the drive from GB to Sturgeon Bay a fast and smooth one.
Now if they could improve some of the roads between Tomah and Oshkosh it would be a really fast drive.
All though that might take some character away from the drive. Twists, turns, little unincorporated spots. Fun drive.
08/23/09
Oh my, the '50 Chevy strikes my heart, Murilee, your playing with my heart again!
My dad has a very nice rust free 1950 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe in storage. Black, Stove-Bolt 6 with ta 3 on the tree. There is a pill bottle (Glass) in the glove box from 1964 too!
It was his grandmothers I believe. When she died, he was driving it back from South Carolina to Houston TX, when the motor died in Georgia. Trashy gas (Old, and just crap pump gas), and the lack of driving before my dad was able to get it (Sat for many years) caused a valve to stick and it locked up. I think it stayed with an uncle of my dad's for a few years until my dad was able to drive a tow truck all the way from Houston to Georgia to pick it up. I grew up in Dallas with it sitting in my driveway, usually under a car cover. Back when I was young it was hulking, massive, and reminded me of the Bat Mobile. In 2001 when we moved back to Houston it went into storage. I wasn't over 10, so the car was still huge to me. About 2 years ago, we went into the storage lot to pull some parts for the CST10, and I decided to pull some of the covers off it. Hadn't seen it in nearly 7 years. Boy, Hun's car was a lot smaller now. I never got a good picture of the whole car (Only the one attached above), and lost the others I had when the Hard drive on my PC froze, but if someone wants I can go dig up the photographs and scan them, if murilee can post them, That'd kick ass. A 20 year old DOTS set of photos.
Currently it sits holding old car parts in the trunk, and a built TPI 350 under the nose, but only as an oversized engine stand, that was for another car of my past. A certain '78 El Camino.
08/23/09
08/23/09
08/23/09
08/23/09
08/23/09
08/23/09
@BRAWNDO_POWERED: And I think it looked like this:
08/23/09
08/23/09
You'd have to leave the IH foundry sticker on the Plymouth, though.
08/09/09
I love those little thumbnail cartoons in the Vauxhall ad: It has a big nose to better smash unruly boys; contains both a speedometer AND a fuel gauge; the rear window is included, even though they couldn't be bothered to build the middle of the back seat.
But I would totally rock that Daimler, if it didn't have a slushbox. Why, it's practically the practical man's Rolls Royce!
08/09/09
08/08/09
They were saying that even before my parents were born. Valentino Balboni put it well when he said 'You have to become one piece only.' With a manual transmission, you are an integral piece of the machine, stirring coals deep in the heart of the fire, while computer controls have very little need of you being there, and would eliminate you entirely if they could. Silicon transistors do not require and do not respond to any change of force or delicacy, reason or subtlety; they are creatures of absolutes. And while their absolutes and boundaries have been made smaller, they have become far greater in number, their scope more expansive, their control more complete, your input less relevant. You are placed ever further from the nerve center of the machine, replaced by digital senses. The tide has turned: destroyers of machinery gave Luddites their name, but now it is the machines, electrified and calculating, that destroy the human.
08/08/09
08/08/09
08/08/09
08/09/09
08/08/09
Not sure it's technically post-war, but have to have a Bently
08/08/09
08/08/09
@Murilee Martin: There is one with the guy running from a shiny side up Gremlin, but I agree with your sentiment.
08/08/09
08/08/09
08/08/09
08/08/09
08/08/09
This is a British car company, so clearly they're referring to some strange kind of traditional Druid witchcraft alchemy unfamiliar to us Americans.... you know, you bring home some hay today, shape a few handfuls of strands of it into an effigy of a chicken, whisper some incantations under the light of a full moon, burn the straw chicken effigy; then mysteriously, the next morning you have a yardful of chickens.
08/10/09
08/08/09
Forget Corvettes. Porsches, and Ferraris. You're not going to win over the really cultured hot babes unless you drive a 1954 Wolseley. Never mind that it's built on a stretched Morris Minor platform and only might manage 75 mph with a strong tailwind. Sex appeal is more important than these trivial concerns, right?
07/25/09