Old Car Brochures

http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/

by smacktoward • 7 years ago

116 67 7 years ago

oldcarbrochures.com

dhbanes• 7 years ago

I clicked a few links and got 404 every time.

King-Aaron• 7 years ago

I didn't have this experience, i.e. http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/Australia%20and%20New%... resolves for me

js22• 7 years ago

If you’re on an iPhone the site redirects to http://oldcarbrochures1.bmobilized.com/ which doesn’t resolve.

cam_l• 7 years ago

I didn't see any Peugots?

ian0• 7 years ago

I cant help but thinking from these brochures that people had more picnics in the 50s/60s than we do now. Perhaps it was a trend for awhile. Or maybe related to the fact people couldn't easily live together before marriage :P

duxup• 7 years ago

Maybe it is like how you might think there are a lot of Americans who are frequently hauling things and going off road in their pick up trucks ... but they probably aren't ;)

Not unreal, but perhaps the volume of depiction and such was more aspirational than reality.

Waterluvian2• 7 years ago

I think you're on to something.

The picnic scene is a lot like the picket fence suburb scene. Iconic atomic family American dream.

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

The poor use the shit out of their used 20yo trucks hauling scap metal and saving $15 delivery fees on bulky things.

It makes me wonder if the poor of 1955 had more picnics.

trop• 7 years ago

In 1991 I drove down the Natchez Trace Parkway and as the morning passed, saw car after car pull over onto the grass to the side of the road for a picnic. As a northeasterner, this was not something I had ever seen before. I'm curious if this tradition continues.

d-sc• 7 years ago

I don’t watch much tv, but when I do I see a lot of car advertisements that feature a car on some winding country road. Which, while nice, most of us spend the time in our car in traffic/commuting. So I’d view it more of a change of our desires or ideals.

whenchamenia2• 7 years ago

I have the opposite problem. Modern cars are buily for cities, and the ubiquitus mcphearson strut design is terrible on back roads. I could care less how I look driving past reflective buildings.

moftz• 7 years ago

Air travel was more expensive back then so having long car trips and the picnics that go along with them weren't uncommon. Additionally, cheap fast food joints weren't as prevalent so it made more sense for families to just pack food for the trip than rely on a cheap eat being along the way.

apo• 7 years ago

This reminds me of the most surprising scene in Mad Men.

The family has just driven the family car into a beautiful spot for a picnic. Wife remarks to husband how beautiful the spot is. Husband says "it's perfect."

Shortly after that they get ready to leave. The blanket is strewn with beer cans and other trash. With a flick of the wrist, husband ejects the trash into the surrounding landscape and wads up the blanket.

Trash problem solved, apparently.

linksnapzz3• 7 years ago

Ah, offhand casual slander of mid-century American values on a show written & created by rich hollywood gen-x's...

Despite the careful attention paid to selecting period office furniture, this show is in fact, fiction.

Spooky232• 7 years ago

Picnics were pretty common afaik. Fast food wasn’t as saturated and highway rest areas and state parks had charcoal grill stations.

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

Love it! I had to go lookup some of my old rides.

anonu• 7 years ago

http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Ford/1924_Ford/1924...

Funny how this Ford was marketed only as a "summer and fall" car... Forget about the winter...

Also - interesting to note that I see no car model years between 1941 and 1945. WWII I suppose...

smacktoward5• 7 years ago

Yes, all civilian car production in the U.S. was suspended for the duration of the war so the auto plants could be used to produce military trucks, tanks and aircraft.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

I'm astounded sometimes how little people know about history anymore.

Waterluvian2• 7 years ago

May just be an advertising angle. But I do remember my grandfather telling me that a bad car will have holes in its floor after just one winter worth of slush and road salt.

smacktoward5• 7 years ago

The one in the brochure (a 1924 Model T) didn't have a fully enclosed cabin -- there was a windshield and a fabric top, but the doors were only half-high and didn't have any windows or bodywork above them, just big open holes.

So yeah, if you take one of those out in a snowstorm, you're gonna have a bad time :-D

iamspoilt• 7 years ago

This is gold!

inferiorhuman• 7 years ago

While looking for some proprietary hose fittings I came across back issues of an automobile trade mag. Here's one from 1964. What a time to be alive.

http://www.ai-online.com/Adv/catalog/downloadCatalog.php?id=...

smacktoward5• 7 years ago

I feel like the 1974 Lincoln/Mercury brochure (http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Lincoln/1974_Lincol...) may represent peak '70s salesmanship...

Last year 44 out of 50 airline pilots rated a 1973 Marquis Brougham more comfortable to drive than a $31,000 European town car.
We've demonstrated the excellent ride of a 1973 Monterey Custom in a dramatic test: a vial of nitric acid was safely suspended over a $50,000 natural Russian sable coat on loan from Maximilian of New York, while traveling over rough and irregular road surfaces.
Sexy European cars with great style and superb performance have had, all too often, prices that run into five figures. Until Capri that is.

... not to mention Detroit's bizarre '70s fascination with what to the modern eye are unbelievably tacky materials:

The [Lincoln Continental] Mark IV instrument panel is simulated cashmere walnut woodgrain matina and burl walnut woodgrain applique.
For 1974, the Mark IV has new, sophisticated insulation against outside sound, thick 25-ounce shag cut-pile carpeting enhancing the luxurious interior, further hushing the ride.
Overhead rich vinyl sheathes sun visors and headlining. Super-soft, expanded vinyl covers the European-influenced bucket seats and even door panels. There are rich tones of woodgrain vinyl along the dash. Touches of European luxury everywhere.

A word I was unable to find anywhere in the brochure: "mileage."

A word I only came across on the last page of the brochure, down with the fine print: "safety."

userbinator2• 7 years ago

Early to mid-70s could be considered "peak American car", for a variety of reasons --- not long afterwards, emissions and fuel economy regulations tightened greatly and cut both size and power of cars.

But if you've never been in one and have the opportunity to, or even drive one, I'd definitely recommend it. There's nothing quite like the experience of being in a classic American full-size sedan, especially at highway speed. It's very different from the more common modern Japanese car, or even the big European ones.

(Full disclosure: I have one of these. http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chevrolet/1972_Chev... )

lm284692• 7 years ago

emissions and fuel economy regulations tightened greatly and cut both size and power of cars.

Which greatly improved efficiency. For example the new CLA AMG's engine makes 355hp, and that's a 2.0L [0]. In comparison the to 375hp for 7.5L for the Lincoln-mercury. 177hp/L vs 50hp/L. [1]

American cars of that era were literal boats on wheels. They're good if you want to drive straight lines while towing half your house and feel like you're in a sofa.

[0] https://jalopnik.com/reminder-you-can-buy-a-355-hp-turbo-fou...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_385_engine

novaleaf• 7 years ago

Everyone still get the experience of driving behind one of these, every so often. You can smell the partially burnt hydrocarbons trailing 1/2 mile behind these things.

throwaway2048• 7 years ago

Fake wood grain is one of the enduring mysteries, not only is it gross, tacky and objectively uglier than real wood, its not even any cheaper!

rypskar• 7 years ago

I would guess it last longer, since it is a dead material. Wood shrinks and expands with humidity so can't be so tightly fitted

mc322• 7 years ago

I think the deal with a lot of those materials is that at the time they were seen as “new” and “modern” and “synthetic”.

Kind of like when aluminum became a du jour metal and things traditionally made from other metals suddenly had to be made with aluminum —nowadays we think of aluminum as cheap and disposable (depending on application), but for s time it was the “Titanium” of its day, and the same for those other materials.

sokoloff2• 7 years ago

Though it's not cheaper on a materials basis, it may very well be cheaper on a fully-installed basis on an automated assembly line.

Spooky232• 7 years ago

Our parents/grandparents had wood grain, we have recycled plastic “performance” T-shirts that sell for $125.

Aloha2• 7 years ago

The carpet in those Mark's is actually fantastic.

dsfyu404ed3• 7 years ago

A word I was unable to find anywhere in the brochure: "mileage."
A word I only came across on the last page of the brochure, down with the fine print: "safety."

They're optimizing to sell cars, not to have the most upvoted comment on an article posted on /r/cars. The average buyer's caring about safety and the environment is mostly limited to "can I afford to buy gas for this" and "will the other decision maker in my household consider this safe enough".

smacktoward5• 7 years ago

This is just not the case, at least not in the modern world. There are quite successful auto companies who have made safety central to their marketing message. Go car shopping on Volvo.com today, for instance, and the very first thing you see is a big notice for their "Summer of Safety Sales Event."

They don't do this because they're trawling for Internet virtue points, they do it because safety sells cars -- especially in the family-hauler SUV and crossover segments, which these days outsell more traditional sedans and coupes by large margins. (See https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-2017-auto-sa...)

This notion that safety is only of concern to people who aren't directly relevant to the car-buying decision (such as, ugh, women) has flown in the face of the evidence for decades now. It's the kind of mindset that led that 1974 brochure to ignore the subject completely, which is one of the blind spots that ended up getting Detroit's clock cleaned by imports.

glhaynes• 7 years ago

Bet those words universally show up more prominently in modern brochures / their web page equivalents.

jedberg• 7 years ago

This is amazing. I found the brochure for both my parents' first cars. My dad had his first car until I was 13, so I most definitely remember riding around in it.

kreetx2• 7 years ago

These are always really interesting! I wish they had a better UI though since often the collectors appear not to be web devs (and we all are - here on hn :p).

dewey• 7 years ago

Honestly, most of the time these simple websites are way nicer to use than what "web devs" put out these days.

kreetx2• 7 years ago

I totally agree with you. For this site I would just wish it had the images to either full with or height mode and a next/previous button at exactly the same position to flip through the brochures. But I hear you on the js insanity front -- been there, suffered that. :p

hwj• 7 years ago

You might also like visiting the ZeitHaus in Wolfsburg, Germany. It's a museum packed with old cars.

maqdoom• 7 years ago

good to see But some links are misdirecting

http://oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/index.php/Canada --> http://oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/

and

http://oldcarbrochures.org/index.php/Australia-2 --> http://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/

wimagguc2• 7 years ago

An 1924 Ford cost $265 (In this Freedom Mailer: http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Ford/1924_Ford/1924...), which in today's money is only $3,968 (based on https://www.usinflationcalculator.com). Is that true? Why didn't _everybody_ have a car?

read_if_gay_• 7 years ago

Employee wages were lower as well I suppose.

wimagguc2• 7 years ago

Wouldn't that be incorporated in the inflation though?

sokoloff2• 7 years ago

1924 cars took a lot of labor on an on-going basis to keep running. (Hell, 1960s cars took a lot of labor to keep running as compared to today's cars that visit a mechanic perhaps annually.)

em500• 7 years ago

$265 is an outlier, $2000 was more typical: http://www.1920-30.com/automobiles/1922-car-prices.html

Incomes in 1920 (for the selection who paid income taxes) were around $3200: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/20soirepar.pdf

obituary_latte• 7 years ago

Man the 87 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z[0] is still such a beautiful vehicle. So much fun having a 5.7 liter 8 cylinder as an underachieving 16 year old newly minted driver!

[0]http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/static/NA/Chevrolet/1987_Chev...

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