A friend of mine once had some really stupid roomates. Not so much stupid, as ignorant. You see, he was showing them old Three Stooges videos and they responded with “Who are these idiots? Don’t they know this is like the most played out form of comedy, like, ever?!”. Yeah, except Curly/Shemp, Moe and Larry started it back in the 30s, idiots. Jump for context.
It’s with that in mind that I remind you these images by Syd Mead (you might recognize his art design from such films as Blade Runner and Tron) date from 1961. Meaning I don’t want to hear any commentary about how this looks like every other late-70s Star Wars-ish view of The Future (aka the 90s). The color, the vehicle design, the highways, the snappy outfits: they’re all cooler than what came to pass, and decades ahead of their time.
Also: Guigaro’s got nothing on Mead for wedge cars.
Check out the set here on flickr. Here’s another.
The Retro-Future Never Looked So Good: US Steel's A Portfolio of Probabilities
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24 responses to “The Retro-Future Never Looked So Good: US Steel's A Portfolio of Probabilities”
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I am listening to the newest Dethklok album as I stare at the bottom photo… and it works perfectly.
I LOVE retro-futurism… (did I just make that word up? DIBS).-
Then I call dibs on future-retroism!
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J Mays had an exhibit at the LA Museum of Art a few years ago (2002?) called. . . . wait for it . . . "Retro-futurism"!
He also wrote a book called that, celebrating the New Beetle (1998), Thunderbird (2002), and other, uh, retro-future stuff.
But Iheartstiggie, futuretroism is all yours!!
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People used to mistakenly think Soylent Green could be made out of any old people, but we now realize, based on birth rates, that Soylent Green has to be made almost exclusively from sub-Saharan and South Asian people.
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Ever since I was a boy I was drawn to futurists' concepts of what life will be like 20, 30 or 50 years from now. I've learned that rarely does that come about (where's my damn flying car?!), but usually for good reason (people can't drive in 2 axes, imagine the horror of giving them a third!). I guess this is why I enjoy Luigi Colani's concepts. His last concept in 2006 was the Colani Supertruck. It's fun to look at what futurists now are imagining and then wondering how much of it will actually come about?
<img src="http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog…-
Good heavens they look like mudskippers!
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I wonder if those wipers spin like a propeller or if each one wipes 33 percent of the viewing area.
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Now that's usin your noggin!
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I think it would be cool if they spun around. It would work well for the top half of the windshield, but the water pushed to the bottom of the windshield, would just be blown back up onto the windshield having to be swept off again.
cool pic, Engineerd, I think I saw this on some Modern Marvels or Discovery channel program… the designer of these is pretty wacky-but-cool. (couldn't come up with a better word to describe him)-
If the sea-going versions (they are used on many fast-moving and/or storm-stormin' ships) are any example, they work well.
Only thing is the diameter, much larger than the sea-going versions I've seen. Tip speed must be enormous (or, if slowed, water could collect at the center)
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Those things look like they are straight out of that old series "Highway Man"
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So is that the Grand Canyon Skywalk about 40 years before it actually got built?
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I exercise regularly just in case that whole coordinated unisuit thing is suddenly forced upon humanity at the behest of some alien race. I suppose the culprit might instead be Michael Bay.
<img src="http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/08/04/fantisland_wideweb__430x304.jpg" style="width: 400px; border: 0" alt="imgTag" />-
To quote the great philosopher of our times Jerry Seinfeld,
"I am so tired of having to come up with another little outfit for myself everyday. In fact, I will say this—and I think many people agree with me—I think eventually fashion won’t even exist. I think someday we’ll all wear the same thing. Because anytime I see a movie or a TV show where there are people from the future or another planet, they’re all wearing the same outfit. Somehow they all decided, “All right, that’s enough. From now on, this is going to be our outfit. One-piece silver jump suit, with a V-stripe on the chest, and boots. That’s it. We’re going to start visiting other planets and we want to look like a team.”
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Syd Mead never envision nanny-state pedestrian safety requirements.
BTW, I’d lay a few lira that Giugaro snagged a few ideas from young Syd… -
In the future, as envisioned back in the day, nobody will ever throw their back out. That's what these cars say to me. I've got a big picture of me getting in and out of these sleek wedges when my back is killing me.
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[…] * Retrofuturism’s one of those things I’d love to explore further if I had the time. Along with atompunk and jetpunk and all the other ways one can celebrate the forward-thinking optimism of the middle of the century without falling into the rockabilly trap. Anyway. Professor Michael Stoll of Hochschule Augsburg has uploaded a wonderful collection of Syd Mead retrofuturistic renderings (and so has GrainEdit.com), commissioned by U.S. Steel in the early 1960s. (via) […]
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[…] * Retrofuturism’s one of those things I’d love to explore further if I had the time. Along with atompunk and jetpunk and all the other ways one can celebrate the forward-thinking optimism of the middle of the century without falling into the rockabilly trap. Anyway. Professor Michael Stoll of Hochschule Augsburg has uploaded a wonderful collection of Syd Mead retrofuturistic renderings (and so has GrainEdit.com), commissioned by U.S. Steel in the early 1960s. (via) […]
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[…] * Retrofuturism’s one of those things I’d love to explore further if I had the time. Along with atompunk and jetpunk and all the other ways one can celebrate the forward-thinking optimism of the middle of the century without falling into the rockabilly trap. Anyway. Professor Michael Stoll of Hochschule Augsburg has uploaded a wonderful collection of Syd Mead retrofuturistic renderings (and so has GrainEdit.com), commissioned by U.S. Steel in the early 1960s. (via) […]
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