Mojo in chrome

                                          Moan, moan, moan.
                   
                   

A ball in the Lark!

There is something very strange about this video, because it's neither black-and-white nor colour: it's pink! Washed-out pink, almost pinkish-grey, ashes-of-roses pink. I suppose this is the effect of ageing, film stock changing colour as it slowly degenerates.

I became re-fascinated (as opposed to re-fastened) with the Studebaker Lark when a certain jingle recently popped into my head: "You're gonna have a ball in the Lark/The '62 Lark!" This ad ran on TV when I was eight years old, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. Certain ads seem permanently recorded in my brain, along with a lot of other useless stuff.

I'm trying to find one that goes, "Plymouth's on the move, Plymouth, Plymouth, Plymouth's on the move. . . ", but so far no luck.

It interests me how this car is presented. Obviously it's a jazzed-up version of what used to be a very stodgy, dull family car. The fact that the woman who drives it is running around in a bathing suit is never explained, but the voiceover insists that it's a "very sexy car". I believe this short film was meant for dealers rather than consumers, but it's still very interesting. They're obviously supposed to give it a certain spin.

It didn't work, and Studebaker collapsed, I think the year after the "ball in the Lark" ad (video below). Up to that point, the "Studey" had been a serviceable, solid, conservative car. A safe bet. Did the Lark kill it? More likely, it was competition from the other swank sports cars of the era: the T-bird (of Beach Boys fame), the Stingray, the Porsche 911.

And yes, I had to look those up.

Though I've made some very long gifs of these ads (OH how I love to make gifs of old car ads, late at night!), I want to include the
"ball in the Lark" jingle, along with that hectic dance number, like an Archie comic on amphetamines.

BONUS GIFS:The 1957 Studebaker! For some reason, old ads that are sepia rather than black-and-white make the best gifs. There is a certain crispness to them, and an ivory tone which is quite sensuous. And these are long, about a full minute each, when the average gif is a few seconds.

To me, it already looks pretty sexy. But what do I know.

Two-tone '53 Oldsmobile

Car porn: vintage autos to die for

Auto eroticism

                                                                                                                 

                                                                                     

Behold! His Mighty Hand. Or something. I feel as if I'm in one of those Cecil B. DeMille epics where Moses discovers the burning bush and takes off his sandals and falls on his face.

For this is The Ultimate Car. 

YES.

The 1939 Bentley Embiricos.

What is a Bentley Embiricos, you may ask? Hell if I know, except that of all the gorgeous, bulbous old cars I've ever looked at, this one is the most flagrantly, lavishly erotic.

Erotic, because why? Because its bulbousness, femaleness, shyly covered rear wheels implying an intimate boudoir or bridal chamber, contrast startlingly with slyly tapered, fiercely-pointed fenders, an even more fierce point at the tail, and squatty primeval-looking predatory "legs" that throw the whole machine into a kind of snarly crouch.

This is less a car than something alive. Something with animus, with soul.

I don't know who Embiricos was, and I don't care much (except I feel a bit guilty and negligent not researching him for this post). Some race car driver, or someone who could afford to have a whole car designed after him - like Edsel, except this one was GOOD. The Embiricos appears to have been manufactured for several years, from about 1936 to 1939, but I can't see much difference in it from year to year. It just goes from exotically gorgeous to exotically gorgeous.

It's funny, because to me it has more of the look of a '40s car, with all those pregnant-looking bulges. But at the same time there is the pointiness, even angularity, and a raciness that implies gazelle-like speed. You could take this thing out on the track back in 1939 and beat the hell out of all those pathetic Bugattis and whatever-else-was-around.

I think it's obvious by now that I know nothing whatsoever about vintage cars. But I know what I like. I have the most embarrassing reaction to them. I want to sit on the roof of this thing, facing its rear bumper, and just sli-i-i-i-i-i-de on down.

(and omigodlookatthoserearwindowstheymakemewanttoediieeeEEEEEE)

There is a name for this fetish-y thing I'm talking about. Can't remember it, but there was a whole TV series about it, My Amazing Whackadoodle Addiction or Compulsion or something. A woman was going to marry the Eiffel Tower, for example, but I guess he said no. Another woman wanted to marry a carnival ride (which didn't work, by the way - I didn't get that one at all, for if a ride doesn't work, how would you get off?)

I don't really want to marry cars like this one. I want to have lustiferous affairs with them, ride around inside them to the creak of leather and the woah-woah-woah-woah-woah hummy sound of an old-fashioned car engine. I've heard that riding in these things is sort of like being in a Sherman tank (not that I've ever been in one of THOSE either), in that they seem simply huge inside and out. 

Every year, Bill and I go to a local car show which is made up of about 85% vintage: cars older than 40 years. The oldest of these, a Ford predating the Model T, had a crank. The one I first had a real Jones for was a little red Corvette (do they come in any other colour?) that I wanted to slip into my pocket. But in the last few years, the '40s models, wide and swaggering, chugging along like mighty seagoing vessels, have done it for me. 

And yet, look at this one! It predates them all. And from every angle, it looks like a different car. It even looks downright modern from the side. This front view looks very race-car-ish - as a matter of fact, it's downright futuristic, like the Batmobile or Supercar. It looks as if it could easily take off and fly, its rear jets blazing.

But the sleekness from the side. . . oh God. Gulp. I want to lick it, to swallow it. It's just that kind of car. You could put it on a stick in the summer and consume it. 

I'd sing to it. Wrap it up in a blanket at night (one-o-those tarp thingies).

I'd wish upon it, instead of a star.

I'd knock on it, instead of wood.

"BEHOLD, HIS MIGHTY HAND!"

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. )