🚗Is THIS the most dangerous car ever made?

This is a kinescope of (obviously, given the long awkward silences) a live stage show which was typical of very early TV. Nobody knew how to use the new medium, so when they weren't doing "radio with pictures", they were just filming vaudeville shows that had been running for years. Ed Sullivan somehow kept this ancient format going into the early 1970s. There were no re-takes, so glitches and ill-timed entries were common. I'd put this ad in the late 1940s, likely on "the DEW-mont Network" (infamous for the fact that when it went bankrupt, most of the kinescopes were quite literally dumped in the Hudson River). We get a good long look at this fierce-looking thing with the bared teeth, but my favorite bit is where they demonstrate just how easy it is to CLOSE THE DOOR - and, even more alarmingly, how easy to open it. That heavy, four-foot-wide passenger door they've just bragged about literally opens at the touch of a finger, so it won't slam on your feet or ankles (which it wouldn't anyway!). But just think about it. Seat belts literally did not exist back then, so one tiny touch would pop the door open like a jack-in-a-box and eject whoever was in the passenger side with enormous force. But, as they used to say in the bad old days, you don't need a seat belt anyway because in the event of an accident, "you'll be thrown clear".

Come ride in my teal automobile

Though any color would do,

I would much prefer a green-blue.

Benny and the Jets

Ginger ninja

 

  

 

A George Takei moment

I have been looking for this for YEARS! You know those Pinterest atrocities - chunks and hunks of images, half the text cut off - abominations, really. I found a piece of this image several years ago and went looking for the rest of it, and couldn't find anything. Nothing whole, anyway. People carve things up into Facebook profile pictures/covers, YouTube avatars, etc.  But at last, when I least expected it, when I was looking for something else, this popped out at me.

I think it is simply glorious, and in pristine condition. It is THE post-War spirit, complete freedom from care and restriction. No more rationing of happiness or anything else! The fierce glare of the car only adds to the atmosphere, the bared teeth and aggressive, staring headlights.

And then I found this:

I think this was originally two pages in a magazine. I have seen, somewhere, a poster-ish version of the first page, but it's inaccessible to me.

I am having a George Takei moment.

OH MY.

Meanwhile, please join my Festival of Old Red Buicks. I would have made a slideshow out of this, as usual, but the proportions didn't work, so I'll glom them all together into one "thing".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An old guy driving a beautiful old Buick.

Car porn: vintage autos to die for

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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