Last Call: Gas Menagerie Edition


Considering that there wasn’t much to differentiate the immediate post-war Fords from their pre-war antecedents I don’t know just how “out front” they could be in this 1946 ad. That being said, I do like that the elephant is making a double entendre about trunk size here.  
Last Call indicates the end of Hooniverse’s broadcast day.  It’s meant to be an open forum for anyone and anything. Thread jacking is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.
Image: Noirish LA

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25 responses to “Last Call: Gas Menagerie Edition”

    1. Manxman Avatar

      An amazing career.

      1. Rover 1 Avatar
        Rover 1

        Winner of the IoM TT four times as well.( Your name reminds me.)

        1. Lokki Avatar
          Lokki

          For those unfamiliar with motorcycle racing, the Isle Of Man TT is the most awesome, stunning, and frightening race anywhere on this planet – only a man with balls of steel could be brave enough to look death in the face four times and win.
          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iRWp9rhfS_0

          1. Rover 1 Avatar
            Rover 1

            I must go back for another look soon. The riding, (and speeds!) are unreal.

        2. outback_ute Avatar
          outback_ute

          He also won the 1966 CanAm championship, no small feat!

    2. dukeisduke Avatar
      dukeisduke

      Wow, truly sad news. Rest in peace, sir.

    3. crank_case Avatar
      crank_case

      Absolute legend, RIP, he was still well able to tear round in a GP car round goodwood circuit or up the hill on a bike in recent years. He never seemed to have lost his passion for all things with an engine.

  1. Jofes2 Avatar
    Jofes2

    The Geneva show last week reminded me once again: Why is this putting-live-women-on-top-of-cars tradition still a thing?
    This is a time when car makers seem to do everything to appear modern and with the times in all their other advertising. Someone at the marketing department started to realize at some point that women, too, buy cars. This someone isn’t planning the motor shows, though, because what a way to turn off female visitors. Imagine how it would feel the other way around, walking around on a car show with lightly dressed men leaning on every car.
    Even if you ignore all the objectification qualms, it’s still just really frigging weird. Who on earth would buy a Skoda Octavia Scout because a girl in a white dress is leaning on it? This is a car that’s advertised as an all-purpose adventure machine to explore muddy mountain trails with. High heels would be rubbish.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66af64fa5f707069246692be8fead2ca72149ea375cf4fb17f5d97dfad20d21f.jpg

      1. Alff Avatar
        Alff

        Is that a Miata?

      2. Batshitbox Avatar
        Batshitbox

        I’d buy it some bottled water, just out of human kindness.

        1. Vairship Avatar
          Vairship

          I can’t say that he looks thirsty, but that DOES seem like an uncomfortable pose on hard concrete.

      3. Kyle Allen Avatar

        I’d buy him a damn shirt to put on. Car good, fag bad!!!

        1. Vairship Avatar
          Vairship

          Are you sure you’re on the right website?

          1. Kyle Allen Avatar

            What are you talking about?

    1. Lokki Avatar
      Lokki

      You know- I am going to tell you Jofes2, that you are wrong. I am at the Amelia Island Concours this weekend, and one of the featured events yesterday was a fashion show of cars with models as passengers or sometimes drivers of special cars from various decades. They dressed in clothes appropriate to the car. The women I was with at the event, and the women around us throughly enjoyed the combination of fashion and cars. Rather than disliking the models, they wanted to be them, and to dress as fashionably.
      Perhaps this is merely an uneducated lowbrow American opinion, not worthy of sophisticated European standards, but given the caliber of the audience at Amelia, this is probably about as sophisticated a group of Americans as you’ll find anywhere.
      As for advertising:
      women don’t usually buy cars for their mechanical attributes (beyond the safety aspect of mommy-mobiles); they buy them as fashion statements – image projections of themselves. The Skoda Scout girl projects that you can still be a fashionable woman of city even while driving a practical car.
      As evidence of who the model’s outfit is aimed at, look at her dress. This is hardly an outfit intended to attract men. It would be much different (or missing all together) if the intention was to attract men to the car. It is the modest but stylish dress of a successful young woman.

      1. Rover 1 Avatar
        Rover 1

        Well put.

      2. Jofes2 Avatar
        Jofes2

        I see how you are thinking, but what I am against is not mixing cars and fashion. What you’re saying about women buying cars as extensions of themselves goes for me too. I’m not overly interested in the mechanics of cars, that’s more of a bonus, but the aesthetics. Using human models as a way of strengthening a cars image is not a problem, that’s done in all advertising. Someone is driving the car, or standing dressed in a certain way to go with it, etc. That thing with drivers and cars from different decades you were describing sounds fun.
        However, I don’t think that’s what the big motor show people at Geneva and similar places are trying to do at all. Seeing how the tradition dates back, it’s quite clear that these women got there mostly as eye candy for the men. If they really did want to put models there to strengthen the image of the cars they were selling as fashion statements, it would have been done differently. There would be more different types of models around based on what kind of cars they were advertising. Now, almost all of them are presented like the one in the picture regardless of whether they are selling a Skoda Octavia, an Alfa Romeo 4C or a Toyota Land Cruiser. These are clearly cars aimed at different types of people and if the models were there to reflect that, it would show. I don’t think that’s the case, though. I don’t think the models are even meant to represent users or buyers of the car, but presence and power of the company selling it.

  2. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Just home from a day in the mountains. We were in two cars, my Tesla driving friend showed off his earth rotating power a lot. On the way down, I didn’t even use my poor-man’s-RWD aka hand brake. Slippery twilight snow:
    https://s27.postimg.org/ekkflux6b/20170311_182637.jpg

  3. Batshitbox Avatar
    Batshitbox

    Weekend Update: A pickup game of “Shiny Laverda / Shitty Laverda”, sponsored by my local scooter shop.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99f67405135571b97cfa7e04e2d239fee803ea208d10d1d7a07d106ea97208ef.jpg
    While out running errands today, I passed by my local Italian classic scooter shop, who happened to be having an open house. This is the shop with the Maserati motorcycle, and the Nissan Figaro wearing Vermont plates in California.
    Last summer I had stopped by there asking if they knew anyone who could tune the Dell’orto carbs on my Laverda. The mechanic said he had no idea what a Laverda was, but please bring it by when it’s back on the road. A scant 5 months later I returned with my freshly tuned Laverda only to find they’d bought 5 or 6 of them from Italy in the meantime.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c27e73a9b800eb5a810b7e198de237db786c0bc03e510ce245cebe4414e8ade9.jpg
    So today 4 of their Laverdas were out there on the sidewalk, alongside their mad collection of Vespas and Lambrettas, and a few Alfa Romeo automobiles. I just had to go get my Laverda and bring it to the show. Once again, I was the guy that shows up at a rally focused not on my particular make, but I’m used to that.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8dcbbaec2456ab7a9d59d838d84a989deb5ce9397c9627f614b6e2365c3bd7e6.jpg
    After 30 years of owning a Laverda, it’s still a thrill to see more than 2 of them in one place. Everyone at the open house was dressed all fancy, and the bikes were all tits perfect, and I showed up wearing a Moody’s Diner t-shirt on a Laverda with no bodywork. But I got mad respect for riding my Laverda in and out of there.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      What’s parked in the background of your photos is just as interesting. Cool!

      1. wunno sev Avatar
        wunno sev

        for real. Camry and Solara in one shot? buy a lottery ticket.

        1. Sjalabais Avatar
          Sjalabais

          Only on this site. Straight focus.

      2. Alff Avatar
        Alff

        Add those sedans to the list of cars I should have bought when I lived in a place where they were fairly plentiful and cheap.