(no subject)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

LIFE, 1949 (exact date unknown).

1949 model. Air conditioned, all-metal construction, 6.5 feet wide and shoulder high, with enough room inside for the seats to fold down into a double bed. And it got 25 MPG, under ideal conditions. Let's compare that to a Hummer, circa 2009, doing maybe 20 MPG ...

We don't *deserve* jetpacks.

Comments

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Damn.

I want one of these! Screw SUVs...this is awesome.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

totally. I wish you could get a car that had modern guts but looked just like this.

oh and also, I want the clothes to go with it. kthxbye.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell yes.

I mean, LOOK at it! It's the greatest thing that's ever happened to automobiles!

It's unmarred by fender openings! I don't even know what that means, but I WANT IT!

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

I love the type, the way it mimics a speeding car.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

the layout of car ads from the 40s and 50s was some of the best ever, I think.

[badgerpdx.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Vintage fonts rule! (although I do actually quite love Hevetica: It's what I grew up with...)

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

We don't *deserve* jetpacks

We don't deserve Tang, for that matter...

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Tang is for astronauts.

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

We don't deserve astronauts! ;p

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Actually, we don't deserve cosmonauts. They're made from great stock.

Yuri Gagarin was a poet AND a test pilot. He wrote a beautiful description of what he saw while he was making the first human orbit of the Earth as part of the first human trip into outer space.

He died doing what he loved: testing experimental aircraft. They just don't make pioneers like that anymore.

They also don't make sweet Nashes anymore.

-beep beep

[weelisa.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I'm off to google the poetry of Yuri Gagarin...

[zorinlynx.livejournal.com]

And the sort of accident where you'd just get out of your car and curse out the other driver in today's cars would be lethal in this one.

Thank you but I'd rather take modern safety and crash survivability any day. :)

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Buh-but... chrome!

[christhawk.livejournal.com]

There's no reason they couldn't engineer a car with side airbags AND a double bed, is there? :)

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

totally :) that's why I want something modern that just *looks* completely like this ...

[badgerpdx.livejournal.com]

2009 Chevy Malibu vs. 1959 Chevy Bel Air in offset frontal crash:

You are quite right.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

That was educational, yet it was also great crash pr0n. Thanks!

[wrascalism.livejournal.com]

killjoy!

:oP

[badgerpdx.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was REALLY suprised at the result. I would have expected the 59 to hold up much better than that. I figured it was heavier and the metal gauge would have been thicker: I thought it would have pushed the Malibu around but the passengers in the newer car would have fared much better. They did, obviously, but I didn't expect the passenger compartment of the 59 to be so affected.

[mhkrabat.livejournal.com]

...and the styling of this Nash and all others up to the mid 1960s was penned by Batista "Pinin" Farina, who later had his surname changed to "Pininfarina". He also lent styling to Ferrari, Maserati and a number of others. I didn't "get" these cars when I was a kid, now they're mostly about as plenty as hen's teeth and I love them!

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I learn such interesting things in this community!

Streamlining was such an archetypical phenomenon, I don't know if you follow that kind of design trend? but it was applied first where it meant something - aircraft, high speed trains, water craft - but was soon adopted as a metaphor for modernism in general and overused the way "cyber" was in the 70s, applied to things like toasters and ashtrays but most enduringly as an operative metaphor for human processes.

[mhkrabat.livejournal.com]

As a buff of railroading in the 20th century, I've carelessly charted the progress of design and style. It was a natural that this school would include automotive works in the portfolio. The method came to make such work a day things as steam locomotives and trucks appear stylish yet remain workhorses. See it stretch out to include things like phones, toasters and blenders was fun.

[wrascalism.livejournal.com]

Actually....

It was the body after this one in 1952 that was based on a Farina design. The one in the ad was designed in-house.

(I read a lot of Collectible Automobile magazines.
:o)

[mhkrabat.livejournal.com]

Well! Now that's very interesting to me. My impression of this m/y car is that Farina played on it's fine lines and made them his own, taking them and distributing that look to other makes as well as maintaining the family likeness that Nash and Rambler had for years. There are Fiats in the late 50s and early 60s that strongly resemble Ramblers.

[janenx01.livejournal.com]

I deserve a jetpack.

That said, this car is amazing.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Well OK, just for you. But. What I REALLY want is finely-controlled anti-grav.

[badgerpdx.livejournal.com]

Really! Mister Wickham.

[badgerpdx.livejournal.com]

My father remembers his father having one and driving all over in it. They would sleep in the car, save $$$ on hotel bills. I suppose they did it at rest-stops so they could use the rest rooms to wash up.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

perhaps this is why they needed lysol to douche with.

[meig.livejournal.com]

LOL

[meig.livejournal.com]

Did Cadillac come from the old Nash line? That badge certainly looks pretty Cadillac-ish.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Wikeeeepedia says, Nash became General Motors, so it's possible I guess ... danthered? mhkrabat?

[wrascalism.livejournal.com]

Nash and Hudson merged in 1954 to become American Motors...then gained success with the Rambler, Javelin, Pacer and Jeep and Eagle 4-wheel drives.

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

Correct. Nash and GM don't share any significant automotive DNA. GM's founder, William C. "Billy" Durant did try to buy Ford, in 1907, but the deal fell through when Henry Ford wanted to be paid in cash and the bankers didn't have enough faith in Durant to approve the loan. Durant, who already controlled Buick, started General Motors the next year.

Nash (actually Nash-Kelvinator) and Hudson Motor Car Company merged to become AMC, as wrascalbc mentions above. When AMC folded, Chrysler picked-up the pieces, before it was in turn Pac-Manned by Daimler-Benz (think Mercedes-Benz.) Then Daimler-Benz coughed-up Chrysler like a hairball, and it was bought-out by Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. Chrysler is now in process of being acquired by Fiat. Mostly because Fiat wants Chrysler's U.S. distribution network, from what I've heard. (This after a failed deal with GM in which GM paid Fiat two billion USD to get out of. Ironically, there's now talk of Fiat taking over GM Europe.)

So, Nash is now Chrysler, and soon to be Fiat. More or less. Ironically, it was Chrysler who started the whole automotive 'streamlining' fad in the first place, with the 1934 Airflow.

[bernthewitch.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment with some wildly thought up witty thing, but y'all beat me to it.

*dies ded from comment lol*