This piece is called “HobbyPop RoadShop” by Bruce McCall, from ~1957, from the book The Last Dream-o-Rama. Or so my research suggests. And of course, this post certainly doubles as a ‘retro-futurism’ posting, as well.
Another view:
https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Draft-5f307c0c16ab2__880.jpg
(unfortunately, that double-underscore (“__”) in the URL seems incompatible with PF’s image-insertion mode, or maybe I’m doing it wrong?)
Anyway, here’s a fun mini-article going in to more detail:
https://paleofuture.com/blog/2007/11/26/cars-detroit-forgot-to-build-1950-1960.html
Drive safe out there!
Fun comment; thanks for adding on.
Now, I’m certainly no car expert, but AFAIK cars weren’t commonly extra-wide / extra-long until maybe… the mid-to-late 50’s or so? So, apart from the monster SUV phenomenon that came later, that was maybe only two decades of big cars out of what, ~80yrs of automobiles? Or roughly a quarter of the entire time.
A lot of these early century sons of bitches were genuinely enormous. For instance:
Here is a 1930 Franklin Series 145. It has a wheelbase of 125" which is 2.5" longer than a current bloated regular cab F-150. This is their “sport runabout” model and therefore has… two seats. (It does have a rear facing jump seat in the back as well, I believe.)
Here is a 1913 Stanley Mountain Wagon. It seats twelve. It’s a friggin’ school bus. It has a wheelbase of 136" and the rear seats also overhang out the back by about an additional three feet. It’s also absurdly tall, since early cars were based more or less directly off of horse drawn carriage chassis and parts, so he floorboards start at about 18" off the ground. It has 36" diameter wheels. I can’t find a statistic online and if you want numbers for the track you’ll have to wait for me to fly back to Nevada with my tape measure. But you could easily park a mid sized modern car between its tires.
When you stand in front of these things in person they’re monumental. There were plenty of small early cars as well, of course, but a lot of them are surprisingly gigantic.
Oh wow, look at those!
Thank you x2 for such a great, demonstrative comment. oO
Yes, again I’m not even remotely a car-person, but I’ve always found their sheer artistry fascinating, at times. Both very old autos and the many amazing concept autos, for the most part.
Unfortunately, based on a quick search just now, I don’t see either type of community on the Fediverse…?
Maybe not. You could always create it!
Many things are possible in life, altho as both the founder and content-creator of a 3yr FV-project already, plus a regular contributor to half-a-dozen other communities, at this point I’m more interested in turning any stray efforts of mine and others upon a group pledge-posting project.
I did breach this topic a month ago, and have been kind of gathering resources upon the next step, since then: https://piefed.social/c/[email protected]/p/2030925/a-couple-quick-thoughts-on-sustaining-faltering-communities
Early cars were feeakin’ HUGE. But then only rich people had them before Ford really changed the game.
1940’s Bugs Bunny lampoons how cars are getting bigger.
Check out this 1935 Duesenberg.