Friday, November 14, 2014

ARE YOU READY?....the "REAL" WINTER is on its way...prepare your wheels for freeze-up....

This is a little deviation on what we normally do on Hot Rods and Jalopies.  I was always fascinated by vintage advertising and have quite a collection of it on my own PC.
There are literally hundreds of brands of Anti-freeze to keep the coolant in your car from freezing in the winter months including all the major oil company brands.  The most well known is likely "Prestone"....I will cover a few others as well as some obscure ones here...... so without further adieu HR&J presents "Anti-Freeze".
If you're nervous driving around highways and freeways in the Winter months today in your modern automobile....just imagine what it would be like back in the 1920's and 1930's when many of the cars on the road didn't even have an interior heater, or even side window glass or snow tires.
Love the '32 Ford Coupe with the cardboard over the radiator to warm things up a little!...CLICK ON ME TWICE!


The Ghost of Winter Freeze-up!!


"Prestone" is a brand of Anti-freeze  originally made by Union Carbide.  Several varieties of Anti-freeze are sold under the Prestone name, in addition to radiator additives, such as stop leaks.  The Prestone name is also used for other automotive chemicals including windshield washer fluid, lock de-icer and gas line antifreeze.
Check out this wonderful billboard "Prestone" advertisement from the 1930's in Vancouver, B.C.
....Click on all ads and photos to enlarge.

1930's Billboard ad from Vancouver, B.C.

War-time Prestone Advertisement!
1930's Prestone Magazine Advertisement!


These are great old winter photos.....Here's a 1938 Buick ploughed in while the family was watching a movie back in Boston in 1940.....hope he installed his "PRESTONE".


Here's one more "Prestone" magazine advertisement from the early 1950's.  The art work was incredible and the price was reasonable.
SUPER PYRO anti=freeze was made by U.S. Industrial Chemical company in the 1930s and claimed that for only $2.00 you could protect your car from freeze-up for the whole winter long.  Click-on to enlarge.




The Aflac looking duck was used by the Zerex company way before the insurance company....as seen here.  
Zerex was manufactured by DuPont Chemicals.  They claimed back in the 1970's that if you punctured a can of Zerex anti freeze that it would seal itself (do you remember the TV commercials and claims?).  DuPont pulled the ads because of court cases due to a variety of false advertisements, and not just for anti-freeze.




A 1940 magazine advertisement for "Trek" anti-freeze.  Trek was manufactured by the National Carbon Co. Inc. from New York.  This ad appeared in a Canadian publication called Liberty Magazine.  Again, the graphic art is wonderful with the 1939/40 car shown.  The price was only $1.00/gallon or .25 cents a quart.




 "Thermo" anti-freeze here was manufactured by an odd named company called "Publicker Commercial Alcohol Co." in Philadelphia, and was also sold for only $1.00/gallon.  Commercial oil companies like Texaco here and many others had their own brand names.  This Texaco one was called "Texaco PT" which only stood for "permanent type".

Another brand name was "Hot-Shot"....produced by "Gooderham and Worts Limited" in Toronto and Montreal, Ontario Canada.

Another post snow storm winter shot taken somewhere in North America in 1922.  The first car has some side curtains but note that the second car is totally full of snow...and we complain today....LOL!


This final photo shows a bulk drum of Anti-freeze sold by the Fort Motor Company in its day for .25 cents/quart.
Hope you enjoyed our beginning of winter post on Hotrods and Jalopies.  As of this date, Hotrods and Jalopies has had over 206 thousand hits......Please keep coming back for more!!

6 comments:

kyllimarjaana said...

Your blog is goo. Hard work, so much history.Ilove.

Ralph Goff said...

What, no frost shields on the windows? It used to be a yearly ritual every fall when dad got new plastic frost shields glued on the interior windows to allow some visibility out of the otherwise frosted up windows. WEak heaters in those days could not keep the windows clear with a car load of people.

Dave Cano said...

Yes Ralph....I used them on my '49 Chevy...but you had to put them on when the weather was warm or in a warm garage, or they wouldn't stick. The worst interior heater I ever had was in my '64 VW...the gas heater would bang and pop, but never keep the windshield clear. Thanks

Ralph Goff said...

Yes, heating and defrosting was a weak spot in the VW. My brother ran one into the ditch one cold winter morning as he could not see through the windshield. The gas heater used almost as much fas as the engine and did not help visibility a lot.
You have some good vintage ads here.

Dave Cano said...

Thank you Ralph.

Bird of Paradise said...

I can remember this Preston Antifreeze commercial a cartoon shows this little man driving his car along with the various aother antifreeze as creepy looking creature thumb a ride and the little fellow it quite scared until he picks up Preston shows a knight type figure