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Vintage photos....Awesome!

4M views 13K replies 603 participants last post by  gprace 
#1 ·
Vintage pics? Anyone? The more I see the more I get into the photos.

Feed me.

I'll kick this snowball rolling....

 
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#2,895 ·


Detroit Michigan Davison Expressway around November 1942

When I look at pictures from the 1940's like this I can't help but think how America and the world was trying to move forward even in the time of a world war. The auto industry was pretty much stopped to help support the war effort by building tanks, trucks, jeeps, planes or anything else the military might need the next 3 to 4 years. An American Industry that helped win a war and we would never be the same after it was all over.
 
#2,897 ·


Detroit Area Davison Avenue Around 1941

This picture is so small town USA, but it's almost the heart of Detroit way back in 1941. Imagine the termoil going on in the world at this time and around the automotive industry with World War II on the Horizon. I have a feeling they had no idea how much the world was about to change, and many probably remember the last World War, which had no number it was just "the war to end all wars".
 
#2,939 ·


Detroit Area Davison Avenue Around 1941

This picture is so small town USA, but it's almost the heart of Detroit way back in 1941. Imagine the termoil going on in the world at this time and around the automotive industry with World War II on the Horizon. I have a feeling they had no idea how much the world was about to change, and many probably remember the last World War, which had no number it was just "the war to end all wars".
Not to be pedantic as I realize it is a US-centric photo and caption, but WWII was already underway and the world had already changed in 1941. The US just hadn't entered the war yet.
 
#2,899 ·
Virtually every one of the thousands of photographs I shot in my lifetime are Kodachrome slides. Paul Simon wrote his song out of sincere love for this film, as we who loved it listened to his ode to Kodachrome nodded and agreed. :) Nothing will ever replace the sheer pleasure of seeing one's Kodachrome pictures for the first time when they came back from the lab.

Nice Lincoln Zephyr in that shot, too, with metallic paint, no less. Metallic colors were just coming into vogue in the late thirties.
 
#2,904 ·
Balancing machinery like that has been around forever... they used to do it with steam traction engines to show the refinement and precision in control, as well as the skill of the operators. They still do them regularly at the "threshing reunions" and other vintage steam shows, and they're great to watch. It's supposedly quite difficult once the water in the boiler starts sloshing back and forth. The last one I went to had different classes for different sizes of "vehicles" (anything self-propelled, basically), and the fastest times would win prizes. :beer:


Having three vehicles balanced was probably just to add to the thrill for the marketing effect.


















 
#2,906 ·
Really? With everything in that picture, it is a post and a fence that you're focused on? :laugh:

It was probably done at a fairgrounds somewhere for publicity.


David recounted tales of the automotive gatherings his family hosted in New England. "We used to have over one-hundred fifty cars in our large backyard and have a party. They would bring a huge teeter-totter and try to get the cars balanced with no side touching the ground—least angle from flat in shortest time wins. Model Ts were good at that." Of course, it was the Oldsmobile Curved Dash Runabout that was famous for staging these sorts of exhibitions in period to advertise their maneuverability.
http://museostradale.com/radnor/piercegreatarrow_1906.htm
 
#2,955 ·
This "fashion statement" makes no sense to me

At least Cher made up for it.


http://theselvedgeyard.wordpress.co...get-screwed-up-from-time-to-time-and-so-am-i/ January, 1975– ’70s Superstar Cher getting into her Ferrari Dino 246 –Image by © Douglas Kirkland/Corbis. Cher’s taste in cars ran a bit more exotic than Gregg Allman’s– she most notably tooled-around in a midnight blue Jensen Interceptor, while he was (and remains) a Corvette guy.
 
#2,910 ·


New 1946 Fords Fresh off the Assembly Line

Taken in 1946 at a Ford plant. This would have been the first full production cars after WWII and the Ford plants converted from war time to peace time.
 
#2,915 ·
I was raised a city boy, but all of my cousins were on farms in NW Indiana and NE Illinois in the sixties, and to a one, when they grew enough to be able to press the clutch pedal (all other controls were hand on tractors, etc), they were driving the farm machinery. Most of them were driving tractors by the time they were about 10 or so as a result. Combines, etc required a little more maturity, though. On family farms, everyone worked. :)
 
#2,917 ·
 
#2,919 ·
I love the images in this thread...and while mine aren't exactly "vintage" in the respect that this one is only ~20 years old, I'll share nevertheless.



(please don't ask why I thought parking across the yard & leaning back against my car was "cool" :banghead::screwy::sly::facepalm: )

What I'd be interested in seeing are "before" and "after" shots on some of the city-scapes. With Google Street View, seeing what those areas look like now vs. then would be quite interesting.
 
#2,947 · (Edited)
I love the images in this thread...and while mine aren't exactly "vintage" in the respect that this one is only ~20 years old, I'll share nevertheless.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/Mikeyworks/VW General/FH000015.jpg

(please don't ask why I thought parking across the yard & leaning back against my car was "cool" :banghead::screwy::sly::facepalm: )

What I'd be interested in seeing are "before" and "after" shots on some of the city-scapes. With Google Street View, seeing what those areas look like now vs. then would be quite interesting.
Don't worry, we have a thread for this, too. :)
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthre...were-cool-Post-old-photos-of-you-and-your-car.

Edit - LOL, I just was just looking through that thread, and this photo was already there.
 
#2,924 · (Edited)
Back on track

 
#2,925 ·
Husterhoeh Kasern, Pirmasens Germany in the mid 50's, about 30+ years before I got there



the building to the right of the one in the center was the barracks I stayed in.

in the mid 60's in the snow...

 
#2,926 ·
And follow-up

 
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