This piece is called “HobbyPop RoadShop” by Bruce McCall, from ~1957, from the book The Last Dream-o-Rama. Or so my research suggests. And of course, this post certainly doubles as a ‘retro-futurism’ posting, as well.
Another view:
https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Draft-5f307c0c16ab2__880.jpg
(unfortunately, that double-underscore (“__”) in the URL seems incompatible with PF’s image-insertion mode, or maybe I’m doing it wrong?)
Anyway, here’s a fun mini-article going in to more detail:
https://paleofuture.com/blog/2007/11/26/cars-detroit-forgot-to-build-1950-1960.html
Drive safe out there!
Taking the notion of “land yacht” rather literally, I see. The blue one there has to be pushing three lines wide.
It gives me a giggle whenever I see people in online spaces these days howling about cars getting “bigger and bigger” while utterly failing to realize that motor vehicles have been comically massive throughout more of their history than not. The sharp compactifying of vehicles during the '70s oil crisis and to a lesser extent as fallout of the the 2008-ish financial bust were outliers in the American car landscape. (Europe is a bit of a different story, of course.)
I had occasion to stop by the National Automobile Museum in Reno a short while ago and it’s incredible just how stark raving humongous the footprints of so many early cars are. Quite a number of them absolutely would not fit between the stripes of modern highway lanes. I wonder if some of the 8 or 10 seater oldschool touring cars would require a class A license by today’s rules.
Fun comment; thanks for adding on.
Now, I’m certainly no car expert, but AFAIK cars weren’t commonly extra-wide / extra-long until maybe… the mid-to-late 50’s or so? So, apart from the monster SUV phenomenon that came later, that was maybe only two decades of big cars out of what, ~80yrs of automobiles? Or roughly a quarter of the entire time.
A lot of these early century sons of bitches were genuinely enormous. For instance:
Here is a 1930 Franklin Series 145. It has a wheelbase of 125" which is 2.5" longer than a current bloated regular cab F-150. This is their “sport runabout” model and therefore has… two seats. (It does have a rear facing jump seat in the back as well, I believe.)
Here is a 1913 Stanley Mountain Wagon. It seats twelve. It’s a friggin’ school bus. It has a wheelbase of 136" and the rear seats also overhang out the back by about an additional three feet. It’s also absurdly tall, since early cars were based more or less directly off of horse drawn carriage chassis and parts, so he floorboards start at about 18" off the ground. It has 36" diameter wheels. I can’t find a statistic online and if you want numbers for the track you’ll have to wait for me to fly back to Nevada with my tape measure. But you could easily park a mid sized modern car between its tires.
When you stand in front of these things in person they’re monumental. There were plenty of small early cars as well, of course, but a lot of them are surprisingly gigantic.
Oh wow, look at those!
Thank you x2 for such a great, demonstrative comment. oOYes, again I’m not even remotely a car-person, but I’ve always found their sheer artistry fascinating, at times. Both very old autos and the many amazing concept autos, for the most part.
Unfortunately, based on a quick search just now, I don’t see either type of community on the Fediverse…?
Maybe not. You could always create it!
Many things are possible in life, altho as both the founder and content-creator of a 3yr FV-project already, plus a regular contributor to half-a-dozen other communities, at this point I’m more interested in turning any stray efforts of mine and others upon a group pledge-posting project.
I did breach this topic a month ago, and have been kind of gathering resources upon the next step, since then: https://piefed.social/c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip/p/2030925/a-couple-quick-thoughts-on-sustaining-faltering-communities
Early cars were feeakin’ HUGE. But then only rich people had them before Ford really changed the game.
1940’s Bugs Bunny lampoons how cars are getting bigger.
Check out this 1935 Duesenberg.
I hope June Cleaver remembers to warn Ward before she hits any sort of speed bump or pothole! Otherwise he’s losing his hand to that table saw for sure. Why is he gripping the blade like that anyhow?
All part of demonstrating the amazing safety features on this futuristic beauty!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3DjyC9f8LPU
Unfortunately, IIRC something internal to the saw breaks when it hits the safety cutoff, which is pricey to replace. Still better than the alternative!
A street ship?
It’s cool, but I would argue this is more !raygungothic@piefed.social in style.
Mmm, I think it hits all three styles pretty well. Some things are like that.
I’d also argue that this community needs more posts on a regular basis!
I’d also argue that this community needs more posts on a regular basis!
Only if they’re on-topic. It’s not like you had nowhere else to put it, that community exists for posts like this one.
Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t accommodate your lordship, this time around.
Better luck next time, ma dude. :D
