Thursday, April 12, 2012

Ads, auto shows, and bank robbers in this week's Thursday Drive-By

I guess I should apologize right off the bat. If you click the links in this week’s Thursday Drive-By, you are going to eat up most of your day. There are so many great stories and vintage photos in these five links that you aren’t going to have time to get anything else done.

We’re looking at an infamous lead-sled, a compelling first car, old school auto shows, and about a jillion old car brochures. I think this is a really good installment of the Thursday Drive-By. Check it out and see what you think.

My First Car is a great blog that’s put together by one of the regular readers here. He’s quickly putting together a nice collection of heartwarming stories about people and their mechanized first loves. I really like this story that one of his contributors submitted about his mom’s first experiences behind the wheel, including a new ’57 Ford that she acquired fairly early in her driving career. There are even a couple of vintage photos of that car, which unlike most of the photos my parents took, actually centers the car in the frame. Check out this story, and the whole My First Car blog, by clicking this link.


The Jalopy Journal is sort of the base site for the HAMB, which is the ultimate destination for everything related to traditional hot rods and customs. This is a little story they did on the ten most beautiful cars of the 1950s, and I have to admit, they did a pretty good job here. I probably could have done without the Nash-Healey, but I love that they included the ’59 Pontiac and the ’54 Skylark (instead of the more obvious first-year ’53). Also, the 1956-’57 Continental Mark II’s certainly deserve to be there, but I think the regular ol’ ’57 Lincoln Premiere would have looked good on that list too. The debate could be endless, but the author clearly has good taste. Read the story here.


Last February, a contributor helped this site out with some pictures from the Chicago Auto Show. When I was putting that story together, I ran across an awesome archive of vintage pictures on the Auto Show’s official website. The way it’s laid-out is a little cumbersome, but once you get it figured out, you could easily spend hours looking over all these shots. They’ve got pictures dating back as far as 100-years ago, and then covering every decade in between. I’m telling you, this is just a fantastic collection of pictures. I love it. And if you like cars at all, you will too. Block out some time on your calendar and click this link.


How to be Sneaky, Underhanded, Vile, and Contemptible for Fun and Profit. How’s that for a blog name! It’s also known as the Bank Robber’s Blog, and it has all kinds of interesting stories about the shady dealings of interesting criminals. In this story, bank robber “One Eye” Bobby Wilcoxen purchased the customized ’55 Chevy known as the Aztek from the original owner. The Aztek was a very well-known custom back in the day, built in George Barris’ shop, and featured in many magazines. Eventually, Johnny Law took down Wilcoxen, and the Aztek was seized by the FBI. It was sold at auction, and reportedly seized again by the FBI when the next owners were caught transporting illegal substances. It’s a great read, which you can check out here.


You may have seen this before, but if you haven’t (or even if you have), you are in for a treat. The Old Car Manual Project has a gargantic collection of old car brochures and manuals to check out. They even let you download them for free. Some of this stuff came from contributors or other sources. However they got it, it is impressive to say the least. What kind of old car do you like? Chances are, they have some sort of period literature to go along with it. This is another one of those places where you could waste a lot of time. Well, “waste” isn’t really a fair word to use. It is worth every second. Take a look at the link here

1 comment:

  1. Hey! Thanks a lot for the link to 'my first car'. Mom will be thrilled to know she's famous now! :)
    Now, on to look thru all those Chicago Auto show pics...

    ReplyDelete