Little Van Goes

I wrote about my new-to-me Little Van Goes.

Invite The Gang Over For An Old-Fashioned Automobile Party

From invitations and decorations, to party games and activities such as the recharging batteries game (in which women spoon-feed men an entire glass of water), a "Ford" stunt and Mason jar "Blow Out" game, The Social Hour section of the The Royal Neighbor (October, 1932) has you covered.

There's even menu ideas such as "Hot Gas" (hot chocolate) and "Extra Tires" (donuts) -- which surely will lead to the more popular spare tires about the midsection.

Drive-In (To My) Skirt

Retro-styled circle skirt with drive-in print via Twolia Shops.

50's Car Ads

Three car ads in the same 1950 issue of Newsweek.

Because We've All Heard The Nova Joke

We've all heard that Chevy's Nova didn't go over so well in Spanish speaking countries because Nova means "No go", even though it's not true, so why not leave it parked and let it be a camper? This retro ad features the Nova 6 Hatchback with the "tent-like Hutch", an "available feature" I'm not so sure people took Chevrolet up on.


Nova ad found in the July, 1974, issue of Psychology Today -- that issue's been passed around quite a bit, at least in scanned form. I shared an article on political activism from the issue here, sent scans of pages on nuclear families to Shawnee, and posted an ad with doggies here.

Into The 60s With Air BP

Another ad from inside 1961 BEA "About Your Flight" Booklet.

Retro Alfa Romeo Ad

French ad in 1961 Maxim's Booklet

Sani-Flush Your Gunk Away

We've all heard how Lysol's been used to clean the err, "female engine"; but did you know that Sani-Flush was once peddled as the do-it-yourself car radiator flush?

Vroom Vroom

Preparing my CQ quiz, where you are to guess the car make, mode, year and the film or TV show it appeared in, I found plenty of Javelins -- which I have the serious hots for.




Thanks to these guys & gals who not only watch the films and shows for cars but take screen shots and identify and document them at the Internet Movie Cars Database, we can enjoy an entire page of AMC Javelins in movies and TV series. (If you love Javelins as I do, you may also wish to see pages/categories for AMC AMX Javelin in movies and TV series, AMC AMX in movies and TV series -- and all AMC vehicle listings.)

Of course, you may prefer another maker/model... Here's the Internet Movie Cars Database list of all vehicle makes.

Remember When From 1959

Because I've been digging through & scanning old issues of The Saturday Evening Post, be prepared for a number of scans from them. Up now, Remember When? Pictures With A Past.


Text reads:

Recognize the smiling lad at right? Frank Sinatra was just one of a New Jersey quartet, the Hoboken Four, when he got his start on the amateur hour of Major Bowes (center) in 1936. From radio Frank turned to singing for the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands, then to films. He proved he could act as well as sing. Now past his forty-first birthday, he's still going strong.

Calvert Gostle

Text reads:

Here is a grim idea aborning: That planes could attack as well as scout. These Army officers fired a Lewis machine gun from the air in 1912. I made this photo before the take-off. The tests, at 500 rounds a minute, succeeded. The plance did not shake apart. Even so, early World War I air battles were fought with revolvers.

C. J. Mac Cartee

Text reads:

This stirring scene points a moral, as did almost everything in 1921. It was: Women can master the motorcar. Left, how to caress a radiator cap and get shocked by the ignition. Right. a familiar scene of the day--how to inflate a pneumatic tiree and patch a punctured tube. This was habit-forming.

Ezra Quincy

Miss MoPar Says

When I was 14 or 15, just prior to sneaking into bars at 16, me & my teenage gal-pals went down to our local "strip" to cruise for guys -- who were cruising their cars. Back then, all the cool boys were "MoPar men".



As I learned nothing about cars (but plenty about boys) during this time, I have nothing to say about the ad -- other than I would have loved to be Miss MoPar, at least the Miss MoPar of our town.

Via Flickr.

Chickens On Wheels

While they're not exactly the thing my mom collects, My vote is for "terrifying" as these pass through town. "Alien Chickens Attacking!" the headlines will read, and parents will lock their kids in the basement for safety rather than being out past curfew.

They could just be from the UK -- in September, a study was released saying people reacted more quickly to animals in the road than other vehicles, so the only logical deduction to get there is that if cars looked more like animals, people would drive safer. I do admit, if a fifteen-foot-tall chicken were approaching at 100kph down the Autobahn, I'd do the bangers and mash on the brake pedal.


Now, before you think that this is a great idea for a fried chicken delivery truck -- because, I mean, if the truck looks like chicken, the fried chicken must be darn good, right? -- I'll type for you the caption on the back of this postcard:

SPERRY'S FAMOUS CHICKEN WAGON. Fleets of these animated trucks that cackle and crow are an important part of Sperry's CHICKEN DINNER candy bar promotions.

First, get past the 'animated, cackling, crowing' part, and then I'll wait for your double-take on those last three words. I don't know if this means that Sperry's, a candy maker from Milwaukee, experimented with different flavors, much like Jones Soda has -- there's lots of speculation online, but they might have just been chocolate bars with a chicken as the logo. There's a bunch more here, including earlier chicken trucks. If you want to read the side of the trucks better, this guy has a closeup of the fourth truck from the left.

The postcard itself was published by "Barg and Foster Candy Co., Milwaukee Wis., 91626" -- the ZIP code, but the old abbreviation, would probably place this card from the 1960s.

Winky Wanky Do? I Didn't

Winky or Wanky, the safety cat was spotted by hubby and one of the kids.

One time I should have run errands, huh.

Car Record Players, 1961

From the Consumer Reports archives:

The needle of the Norelco Auto Mignon stays in the groove of our 45s, even when we drive over rough roads. But since there's no record changer, we must insert each record we want to play, then remove it when the song is over.

How the 1950s Saw Themselves

In 1958, RCA Camden released "Hits of the '50s", just 1/5 short of the actual decade's end. Not that they were missing much -- the hits for the rest of the decade echoed what's on this record: light popular music, with just a touch of rock-and-roll. This is a 'cover' album in the traditional sense, new versions of popular music performed by B-list musicians rather than the one who popularized the song. The Honeydreamers, Connie Haines, Dave Martin and the Strollers, they had names outside of this album, and are a step above a studio band. The songs are actually pretty good: Peter Ricardo's version of the Banana Boat Song takes from the Tarrier's version, and is a bouncy alternative to the rather somber Bellafonte version.

However, the cover is excellent:

click for a larger view

That space helmet kicks ass -- remember, in 1958, sending a person into space was still a sci-fi fantasy. Once we started popping people out of our atmosphere, space helmets stopped looking like this one, opting for a more stark, aviation style.



The antenna on top is a classy Googie, Jetsons thing -- with radio and television dominating the world, everything in The Future would need an antenna, even your head (they were actually pretty close). Back in the fifties, though, putting airtight plastic over a kid's head was preparation for their spacefaring futures -- their flying cars were only a few years away. Until then, though, Dad dons his porkpie hat, mom wears her opera gloves, everyone hops into the Volkswagen to drive it to the farthest star. Make sure the canvas roof is closed, though. That cloth sunroof, incidentally, warranted a credit on the back of the cover: Volkswagen Sunroof supplied by Fifth Avenue Motors, New York City. The photographer's name, the models' names? Nowhere to be found.