Bugatti bones

Sex on wheels: cars of the stars

FATTY ARBUCKLE AND HIS 1919 PIERCE ARROW

ERICH VON STROHEIM AND HIS CADILLAC

HAROLD LLOYD AND WIFE MILDRED DAVIS WITH THEIR BUICK

LINCOLN THEODORE MONROE ANDREW PERRY, AKA STEPIN FETCHIT, WITH HIS CADILLAC PHAETON

JOAN CRAWFORD WITH HER 1929 FORD TOWN CAR

BABE RUTH RECEIVING A 1926 AUBURN ROADSTER AS A GIFT

LILLIAN HARVEY AND HER MERCEDES

JOHNNY WEISSMULLER WITH HIS 1932 CHEVROLET

CLARK GABLE WITH HIS 1932 PACKARD

LAUREL AND HARDY IN THEIR BUICK 1930 SERIES 30 MODEL 30-45 PHAETON

JOAN CRAWFORD (AGAIN) AND HER 1930 (OR 1931) CADILLAC FLEETWOOD

CARL BRISSON BEHIND THE WHEEL OF HIS 1934 ISOTTA FRASCHINI

AL JOLSON WITH HIS MERCEDES

JEAN HARLOW WITH HER CADILLAC

WILLIAM POWELL ADMIRES GARY COOPER'S DUESENBERG

BUCK JONES WITH HIS 1933 PACKARD SPECIAL

ERROL FLYNN DRIVING HIS PACKARD

.... AND AUBURN ROADSTER

TYRONE POWER WITH HIS DUESENBERG

.... AND POST-WAR JAGUAR

ROBERT MONTGOMERY WITH HIS CADILLAC SPORT PHAETON

JOAN CRAWFORD (YES, AGAIN) IN HER 1933 FORD ROADSTER

JAMES "JIMMY" STEWART WITH HIS PLYMOUTH

GINGER ROGERS AND HER 1937 DODGE

NORWEGIAN OLYMPIC FIGURE-SKATING CHAMPION, AND HOLLYWOOD STAR SONJA HENIE, POSING WITH HER 1936 CORD 810

CECIL B. DE MILLE WITH HIS 1937 CORD

RITA HAYWORTH WITH HER 1941 LINCOLN CONTINENTAL

BING CROSBY GIVING RIDES AROUND THE STUDIO LOT IN HIS 1939 OLDS COUPE CONVERTIBLE

CARY GRANT PARKED ON THE FENDER OF HIS 1941 BUICK CENTURY

JOHN WAYNE AND MAUREEN O'HARA IN A 1914 STUTZ BEARCAT

(Sent to me by Matt Paust, along with another display of rip-roaring Old West photos which I might reproduce here. These are, as far as I am able to make out, in the public domain, unless passing them around five thousand times means you gotta get permission. I won't say anything about them because they speak for themselves. I have a major jones for old cars AND a major jones for old Hollywood, so this is pure bliss to me.)

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Cars! Cars! Cars!

This was my first shock. It's a "whatisit" from 1949 (or something), bulbous like a fungus, or puffy lilke a marshmallow. The hood has these strange vents in it. The creepy protruding headlights  look a bit like Jeff Goldblum's eyes in The Fly. Not a pleasant car, at all.

Maybe it's all my recent musings on the Edsel with its shit-bucket grill, but I became fascinated by all the chrome doo-daddies on the front of these things. This looks like a giant strainer that seems to go the wrong way. Bulby, bulging shapes were the norm back then. When was this? Either the late '30s or early '40s, I think. What car? Who knows. Did I keep track? No. I don't even like cars, but I liked looking at these.

Plain beautiful. Saner-looking grill, though the headlights still have that odd ocular look. It's funny how designs evolve and shade into each other: here the extreme bulbousness is played down, the line is sleeker. Must be late 40s or even 1950.

Home, James! I would describe this one as "stately". Might be a Rolls. This one displays the tiny slitty windows that became the norm for a few years. How did you see out?

This is never a car! Maybe part of a car. Maybe it can fly.

At first glance this looks just like the first photo, but it isn't. Note the difference in the hood, opening in the other direction and without those odd-looking vents.  The headlights are dramatically different, more like spectacles than googly eyes, and there's that tall centre grill like something off a baleen whale. The more you look at them, the less similar they seem. But they're both odd as hell. In fact, to me this looks more like a back end than a front end.  Can it be driven either way, I wonder?

This one is called the Westerburg Flying Roadster with double-axle streamlined Viking shield and removable Matchbox wheels.

Harold Lloyd might have had one of these.

Just to prove I was there. A second later I heard a surly voice behind me: "Don't put your head in the car!" Does this mean the door of the trunk might come down and decapitate me?

(I should explain that this was the Port Coquitlam Car Show. It's nice to go every couple of years and wander around, contemplating HOW ON EARTH some of these cars ever got built. And they thought the Edsel was odd-looking. )