Sepia Saturday 185 - rain

I'm quite glad that this week's Sepia Saturday theme is out of sorts as it's great to be finally enjoying summer, and it looks like it's here to stay. My submission however for this week is on theme and features a car in the rain, from a vintage advertisement for Girling Disc Brakes, from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine.

Vintage advertisement for Girling Disc Brakes, c.1959.

    

Sepia Saturday 168 - falling in love (Ford Zodiac style)

I had planned to stay on theme for this week's Sepia Saturday, but on browsing through a few vintage magazines for a suitable image, I came across this advertisement. Admittedly I should have posted this in early February for a Valentine related theme, but I've missed that and next February is too far away. It's a vintage advertisement for the Ford Zodiac from the February 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine.

Vintage advertisement for the Ford Zodiac, Motor Sport magazine, February 1959

They've discovered each other, and they're wonderfully happy ... as you will be, when you discover the Zodiac. Let your eye linger on elegant lines and lovely colours, single or two-tone ... the sumptuous interior, with soft leather seating, rich astrakhan carpets. Feel the power - fast, safe, and, if you wish, fully-automatic. Note the very reasonable cost and all the built-in extras. You'll know ... you and the Zodiac are made for each other!

    
More vintage magazines on my web site
 

Sepia Saturday 163 - vintage motor oil advert, c.1959

Well we seem to be clear of snow here in West Berkshire, for the moment at least, but not to miss out on the theme for this week's Sepia Saturday I found this vintage advertisement in the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine. It's for BP Energol Visco-static motor oil, and the picture on the advert is of Mr McCarthy's Ford Zephyr after a night out in the New Zealand Alps. I particularly like the strap line of advert, "Snowed up in the mountains yet it started first touch". This feels very much like 1950's langauge to me and I can imagine someone like Leslie Philips saying this ... possibly followed by "ding, dong", or "woof".

Vintage advertisement for BP Energol Visco-static motor oil, c.1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Sepia Saturday 155 - men in overalls

I've taken this week's Sepia Saturday theme at face value, and am sharing a few vintage advertisements featuring men in overalls. They all come from the March 1960 edition of Motor Sport magazine. I particularly like the advertisement featuring the petrol attendant. A small glimpse of the sort of service we used to get in the UK many years ago, which has now largely been replaced by surly staff sitting in the warm, behind a till asking if you want any half-price chocolate today.

Vintage advertisement for Filtrate Colloidal Oils, Motor Sport magazine, March 1960

    

Vintage advertisements for Jubilee Clips and National Petrol, Motor Sport magazine, March 1960

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Theme Thursday - bubbles (bubble car)

It's been a while since I posted anything on this blog, but fortunately this week's Theme Thursday has given me a great prompt to do so, Bubbles. My take on the theme is a bubble car, as featured on the front cover of the March 1957 edition of Motor Sport magazine. It's actually the Messerschmitt which won the National Cat's Eyes Rally.

Motor Sport magazine, March 1957

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Theme Thursday - Future

I am all over the place this week not really knowing what day it is, so it was a bit of a surprise to me when I started seeing submissions for this week's Theme Thursday, Future. I like to be challenged, but this one took some real lateral though and searching but I eventually found this motoring magazine from the early 1970's with what seems to feature the type of car people thought we'd all be driving in the future. It looks kind of space-agey, and clunky at the same time. I can almost imagine someone dressed in a glittery spacesuit getting out of the back door (mainly because in my recollection of sci-fi TV in the 1970's that's what everyone was wearing ... particularly in the U.F.O TV series).

Drive magazine, c.1972

Sepia Saturday 101 - over the hiils and fast away

Taking the car as the theme for this week's Sepia Saturday, I've rummaged through my vintage Motor Sport magazines and found this advertisement from the April 1959 edition. The advert is for the Austin Healey, with a backdrop of 4 tweed-suited, landed gentry, no doubt off for a jolly good time, probably involving a picnic rug and matching hamper, and using words and phrases like "rotter", "dash it all" and "come on ginger, don't be such a bad egg".

Vintage advertisement for the Austin Healey, c.1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Vintage advertisement - Dyna Panhard, c.1958

I certainly can't claim to be a car expert, but I always find it curious when I come across a car manufacturer or make I've never even heard of before. In this case it's the Dyna Panhard. On researching I found out that in fact Panhard is one of the world's oldest car manufacturers, founded in 1891. The Dyna was produced between 1954 and 1959, with 140,000 models being produced. I don't know how many of these made it over to the UK, but presumably some did given that the advertisement boasts Now with right hand drive.

Vintage advertisement for Dyna Panhard, Motor Sport magazine, c.1958

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Vintage advertisement for Sunbeam Rapier, c.1959

It's been a few weeks again since I posted to this particular blog, so to make amends here's a vintage advertisement for the Sunbeam Rapier 1.5 liter, from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine.

Vintage advertisement for the Sunbeam Rapier, c.1959

More vintage magazines on my web site

Also, why not check out my vintage postcards blog or my vintage resources page

    

Sepia Saturday 89 - vintage advertisement for windscreen washers

I'm not theming for this week's Sepia Saturday but instead have selected a vintage advertisement from a 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine. The advertisement is for Windscreen Washers. What I particularly like about it is the authoratitive statement made, presumably by the ernest looking man with the glasses in the white lab coat, which says, "In my opinion nobody should be allowed on the road without one".

Vintage advertisement for windscreen washers, c.1959

    

Sepia Saturday 85 - MG Magnette Mark III

Inspired by Alan's great photo in this week's Sepia Saturday, I turned to my vintage magazines collection to help me out. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for as I flipped through the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine, probably something classic with bumpers, when I came across this. It's an advertisement of an MG Magnette Mark III, and one of the reasons for posting this was that I had never heard of it before. A quick bit of research revealed that it was received to mixed reviews, so I'm assuming not many were made. On reading the description of the car, it claims to be 'freshly styled from bumper to bumper', so met my posting criteria on that count also.

Advertisement of the MG Magnette Mark III, Motor Sport magazine, March 1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

    

Sepia Saturday 60 - anyone want to buy a Roller?

Unlike last week I have actually managed to follow the theme this week for Sepia Saturday. This advert is taken from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine and offers a selection of Rolls-Royce, Rolls-Bentley and Bentley cars for sale ... and all at not much more than an iPad would cost today. Some superb models here ... I wonder if any of them are still around today.

Advertisement for Simmons, 12 Rex Place, London W1, c.1959

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Theme Thursday - Test

A more obvious choice for me for today's Theme Thursday of 'Test' would have perhaps been the Test Valley or the Test Way, which are not to far from where I live, but alas I couldn't find anything to hand. So, searching through my vintage magazine collection, I came across this Road Test report on the new Austin A40 Saloon de Luxe. The report was taken from the February 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine.

More vintage magazines on my web site

Vintage magazines - Drive, from the early 1970's

I've now finally managed to find the time to scan in the rest of the Drive manazines that I picked up a few weeks ago. For now I'll just concentrate on the front covers, but may at some time in the future also blog about the great advertisements inside.

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Autumn 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Spring 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Summer 1972

Drive Motorist's Magazine, Summer1973

As always, more vintage magazines and vintage postcards on my web site

Vintage Drive Magazine, c.1972

Whilst out looking for vintage postcards a couple of weeks ago I was delighted to stumble across 6 issues of Drive magazine from the early 1970's. I don't remember ever seeing this before but I'm fairly sure it's something my dad would have read. All of them have great covers, bizarre stories with classic 1970's fashions in the pictures, and some even better adverts. For this blog post I've chosen the New Year 1972 edition, which features an article and front cover dedicated to Spaghetti Junction. For readers in the US, perhaps this does not seem an especially large or complex intersection, but I do remember the stir it caused at the time. It was positioned at the junction of the M6 motorway, the A38 Sutton Coldfield road, the Aston Expressway to Birmingham city centre, and numerous other local roads, effectively joining up the M1, M5 and M6 motorways, and demolishing 130 buildings to make way for it. At the time this feature was written, it was already behind schedule, and had cost over £8 million. The junction is still in use today but has a network of other motorways to help ease the traffic.

Front cover of the New Year 1972 edition of Drive magazine

Feature on Spaghetti Junction

More vintage magazines can be found on my web site

Top Gear, eat your heart out

Following on from my previous post from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport, I thought I'd go back a little further in time and share some of the great advertisments form the April 1957 edition of Motor Sport magazine. These are just three from the magazine which also featured articles called 'The Parliamentary Debate on the British Motor Industry' and 'Top Men in Speed Say This New Tyre is a Winner'.

 

 Motor Sport magazine, April 1957

Advertisement for Courtaulds High-Tenacity Rayon - the World's Leading Tyre Cord

Madame Andrée Jan, here seen hanging by her teeth from a helicopter over Derby airfield on June 17th 1956, was suspended with perfect safety by a cord only 1/4 inch thick ... 

Advertisment for the Morris Minor 1000 ... 0-60 mph in 28 seconds

 

Advertisment for the Triumph T.R.3

T.R.3 versus Aeroplane ... and the Triumph T.R.3 won! So, I'd always thought that having carzy races between planes and cars was a Top Gear invention but it looks like the fun was to be had at least 40 years beforehand, albeit that this challenge was done on fuel consumption with the Triumph running at 43 mpg as opposed to the Auster J4's 22.1 mpg ... I wonder if The Stig was driving.

More vintage magazines and books on my web site

Vintage Motor Sport Magazine, c.1959

A bit of a departure from my previous two posts in this blog, where I move away from the world of Cult TV paperbacks and into the realm of vintage Motor Sport magazines. Those of you eagerly anticipating more Cult TV will have to wait a while ... but not too long ... and hopefully the same sort of mindset that draws you to Cult TV will also endear you to these magazines. Everything from the pictures of the old cars, to the vintage advertisements gives a fascinating insight into a world which, although not especially old, has changed beyond recognition.

 

Front cover of Motor Sport Magazine, March 1959

The Three Graces

Advertisement from the March 1959 edition of Motor Sport magazine for Ford, showing 'The Three Graces' of the Ford Consul, the Ford Zephyr and the Ford Zodiac. Proudly claiming Ford to be Britain's biggest exporter of cars, trucks and tractors.

 Back cover of Motor Sport Magazine, March 1959

Showing an advert for Lucas motoring essentials, inviting you to 'Greet the Spring' with items such as a dipping mirror, am  ignition coil, and an  electric screenjet.

More vintage magazines and books on my web site