Winter Storms Bring Winter Memories.....

The recent storms in the mid western and eastern USA and Canada conjure up a ton of winter memories as a kid. It was pretty cool(no pun intended) to see winter scenes in 1950's car brochures and on billboards, since Fort William and Port Arthur was covered in that white stuff for at least six months of the year. The ads would show that these cars were also very hardy in the winter months as well as in summer.

Here is a bright red 1956 Buick hardtop and a metallic green 1954 Chrysler cruising along one of our slippery highways possibly in Northwestern Ontario. The first picture also shows some ice sailing and a few skiers. What incredible art work for their day. Also remember how tough it was to keep those white sidewalls clean in the winter.

Here's a 1936 Canadian Prestone ad from Liberty magazine. The art work is always great in these old ads.
Pyroil was a super additive for your oil. I would imagine it was similar to STP. It would decrease the friction from the metal to metal cold winter starts. Pyroil still makes many engine and fuel additives to this day.

Willard still makes batteries to this day as well. I always enjoy the wonderful art work that was on billboards back in the '40's and '50's. This is a US Mobilgas winter urban ad that would have appeared in Life or Post magazine.

Another automobile ad from the 1940's is Pyro anti-freeze. Pyro is another company that survived the test of time to continue to produce many automotive additives to this day including rust inhibitor and brake fluids.
The Firestone studded tires in this ad looked like they could plough through anything. It took from this ad to the present day to perfect studded tires for the street. After a few accidents from studs coming out of the tires and injuring people, they were outlawed for the street for many years, but I believe you can buy studded tires again. Check out the cool old Skidoo in the same ad as well.

Here is a beautiful piece of architectural work. Many service stations were designed to look like homes or mansions to appear friendly and inviting to the customer. Today's gas only and/or convenience store(definitely without service) are boring edifices in our modern day compared to then. The last winter billboard style art piece is of a beautiful 1960 Wide-track Pontiac at a ski resort...what beautiful lines.
Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them!

Those Wonderful Wagons of the 1950's

Just around the time that the Texaco Kid was used in advertising and Harley Earl was designing everything Art Deco including that cool TV set, the car manufacturers were having a heyday designing their beautiful new station wagons to be a combination go-to-work and weekend family vehicle. Not just were they a utility item but their design encompasses the post war boom and the more affluent society of the 1950's.

Many car guys and hot rodders of today, having a difficult time finding a project worthy of their custom, restoration, or hot rodding talents are turning to these great wagons as a source to show off their 50's roots and building talents. Take one of these wagons, lower it with wide whites spinner hubcaps and lakes pipes and it becomes a thing of beauty to behold.

Occasionally if you are lucky their seems to be more of this type of body style just lurking in a garage somewhere in great condition and with low miles that a little old lady had been reluctant to get rid of after her husband go too old to drive or maybe had passed away. They are out there...just use your x-ray vision to look into all the garages in your city, or canvass door to door and offer a small stipend to look into their garages....and who knows you may even find a 1950's Coca Cola machine like I did....LOL.

If you can't guess their years, just ask........and click on photos to enlarge.

New 1955 and 1956 Pontiacs

Awe yes....one more regarding Pontiacs. Here's what '55 and '56 Pontiacs looked like before we destroyed them.....refer below for the story! And now.....GM wants to end the Pontiac era forever I don't get it!....take me back!!

Destroying Pontiacs

Yes, we always blamed the jalopy jockeys for destroying all those 32-34 Fords, but in the late '60's we destroyed many 50's Chevys and Pontiacs. One of the ways to win hobby stock races in the 60's was to find an old car that had more cubic inches than the other. The rules were that you had to run a 6 cylinder engine. '55 and '56 Pontiacs had 261 cubic in engines factory stock and Chevrolets of the same years had 235 cubic inches. Another little trick was to add solid lifters that were factory stock in '49 and '50 Chevrolets....which would also give you another little edge. Consequently, when my first car was built, it had to be a Pontiac, and I also had a set of solid lifters on my dad's work bench from my first car, the '49 Chevy. In the first year(1967) we destroyed 2 '56 Pontiacs both 2-door cars and in 1968 with a fresh engine our team did fantastic, with quite a few wins in the early part of the season and were actually leading in points with almost 200 cars racing. Ending up 3rd overall in points for 1968 one more old Pontiac bit the dust when I got T-boned only 3 races before the end of the season. This last car we did was in incredible condition and actually drove it home before we started ripping it apart and adding a roll cage etc.
The first picture was taken in 1968 with myself in the drivers seat with my pit crew, welders and builders, George Tergie and Clay Macgowan leaning on the fender. I have been life long friends with these great guys who helped me a ton on these cars. We sure had great fun in those days. We were all only married about a year with our wives up in the grandstand at Riverview Raceways cheering us on. The second picture is of yours truly after the first race I ever raced in 1967. The b&w picture proves that were did collect the checkered flag occasionally and the last one was taking our car to the first race of 1968. Another super guy Dave Lovis who was also on our pit crew went on to try racing himself later on. These really weren't considered jalopies in 1967, but inspired as we were by those great guys that raced at the CLE locally back in the '50's, I knew we had to try it ourselves.....It was very exciting!! Click pics to enlarge