I thought about just changing the whole site into a blog, but there's something much more satisfying to me about having an entire website. Maybe one day, in an ultra perfect dream world, I will one day become a master of CSS, XML and .NET programming and this will be the coolest looking, least-updated website that has ever existed.
Now...on to the cars.
I haven't added any updates here since November of 2008 when I went to Portland to see Mark, who now lives here in stinky, glorious Brooklyn with me. I have, however, been bookmarking tons of stuff I've come across in the meantime that I wanted to share with the car-loving world at large.
Sadly, because it took me so damn long to get this blog crap figured out today, I've gotta keep it short. If there's anything you look at in the next week, it should be the Old Car Manual Project. This is an extraordinarily comprehensive site filled with vintage car manuals, brochures, fold-outs and various other ad materials, many submitted by dedicated followers like yours truly. I previously had a growing collection of my own vintage ads, most of which were lost during my trip down the long, bumpy road to adulthood, and are probably buried deep in my parents' basement under one of many boxes of other aging relics of my youth.
A random selection of examples from the TOCMP: '63 Plymouth, '47 Lincoln and the '57 Ranchero
Every automobile manufacturer, both defunct and still in existence, is represented within, not to mention a lot of awesome Canadian, Australian and a few English pieces as well.
I think what is so interesting (and titillating!) about old advertising materials is the psychology, and the artwork behind getting someone to buy your car "back in the day". (How could any other artist/designer/classic car lover not find them equally as captivating??) It's like a free lesson in post WWII commercial psychology...which might not be what you like to think about on a Saturday night, but that's probably because you are infinitely more popular than I am.
Or whatever.
While you're at it, check out the blog there as well for even more vintage iron and steel. I can never get enough of other people talking about cars either. For every new person, there's a dozen new cars and a hundred new stories.
**NOTE: I actually got some cred for posting some of my old ads, both at Found in Mom's Basement and over at Core 77. Hooray for me and my librarian glasses. **
