This is another of the older car magazines I have in my collection. It's a title called Motor Guide, and this March 1957 issue, two months before I was born, includes a three-page article, The A-Bomb vs. Your Car. The article begins on the right side of the image above, page 13, and concludes on the spread, 14-15, below. Needless to say, the car, and its occupants, didn't fare well the closer you were to the bomb site... It's very interesting that this Cold War hysteria was so blatant so many years after we actually dropped the bombs in Japan. We all know that it would reach feverish pitch with the Bay of Pigs incident in 1961. This magazine's publication date, March '57, was 5-6 months before the successful launch of Sputnik by the Russians. Regular readers will recall my recent post about 1953's build-your-own garages and A-Bomb shelters...
The A-Bomb vs Your Car article concludes on this spread.
Motor Guide magazine apparently went monthly with this issue, Volume 2, Number 2. I've done some Googling to find out more about this magazine, but haven't come up with anything more more than a few issues for sale on Craig's List and eBay.
Also included in this issue were three "tech tests" of the upper-middle class market's Dodge, Pontiac and Mercury sedans for '57. Summaries: Dodge: Suspension is excellent, plenty of power. Pontiac: Nice ride for a family car—Good, substantial feel. Mercury: Hottest of three cars under test.
An article about Detroit's newest "fad," dual headlights, pondered the legality of such designs, as 11 states had not amended their motor safety laws to include 2 headlights-per-side. Very interestingly, the article concludes with the mention of the fact that "almost 40,000 persons a year" die in traffic accidents. In 2009, there were approximately 34,000 similar deaths. Considering how many more cars there are now, how much more crowded the entire country is, I don't think there is any more evidence needed that proves today's cars are the safest they've ever been, in very real, life-saving, ways.
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this Motor Guide magazine. I remember Motor Life and of course Motor Trend. I got a subscription to Motor Trend for Christmas in 1957 and the first subscription issue was January 1958 that had a group test of the Plymouth Belvedere, Ford Fairlane 500 and Chevrolet Bel Air. The next issue had the same sort of Dodge, Mercury, Pontiac test that Motor Guide had. In those days, foreign cars were quite a curiousity in American car mags, at least in Motor Trend. I think R&T under the Bonds and C/D (which was then Sports Car Illustrated, I believe) covered them better. There was also a digest-size magazine called Foreign Car Illustrated that I had a subscription to. It was locally published in New York and the pictures, all grainy black and white, showed the cars in various New York City locations which interested me almost as much as the cars!
Paul, NYC
Hi Everyone - I'm heading home to St. Louis in a few hours, full report when I get back. The gals had a great time, giggles and driving ourselves crazy, but in the end it was all simple FUN.
ReplyDeleteSo take care and I will see you soon.
PS I get a black mark for not taking my camera to the Aria hotel where we saw Viva Elvis, wow, what a structure and beautiful glass sculptures everywhere. way too big for my comfort to say there, but really something to see. Later....
gotta run
Safe trip home, Annie!
ReplyDeletePaul, when I was writing this post, I almost wrote "the upper middle class full sizers from Dodge..." etc. I caught myself though, as the only cars the domestics produced in '57 were full sizers! Compacts, or any second line of cars, wouldn't come to fruition until 1960. and speaking of NYC, i have some traffic photos from midtown Manhattan in the mid 1960s. I'll have to find 'em. My dad worked in Manhattan and every once in a while I'd drive down there with him, toting my little camera of course!
Safe travels Annie, looks like you will arrive home to good weather!
ReplyDeleteCasey, I hope you do post any and all Manhattan (or NYC of ANY kind!!) pictures! I am way too big a chicken to probably ever go there but I am SO SO fascinated by it.
Paul, hat's off to you living there! Must be SO interesting...it's just me and the sugar beets where we live (not literally, but not a lot of people and nothing of real interest aside from some odd land formations in the outlying miles!! Agriculture and land too barren to farm are what we see ...guess it could be interesting on its own...not sure as that is all I've ever really known!
Have a good one everyone!
mare
Post war patriotism was selling every product back then
ReplyDeletethat was made in the good US of A. Sadly, the Russians and Germans also has atomic technology and it went into the wrong hands, this is not to say that dropping bombs on the civilan Japanese population wasn't the right thing to do either, but our nation allowed us to get away with it.
As far as rogue nations responsible for terror, we can always resort to non-destructive bombs like the neutron bomb, just in case diplomacy fails. Glad I'm not making these decisions.
BOMBS ON PEARL HARBOR WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.ALOT OF TORTURE ON OUR BOYS BACK THEN ALSO.ETC. THE SURRENDER PAPERS WERE SIGNED ON MY BROTHERS SHIP. MY BROTHERS FAMILY STILL HAS THE AMERICAN FLAG OFF THAT SHIP.
ReplyDeleteGRANNY
that's a really cool memento, Granny! he never told me, but I found out recently, for a post here, that my Dad's ship took off from Pearl Harbor a week before the bombing, and then had to turn around and go back there. That generation sure didn't say much about their war experiences.
ReplyDeleteMY BROTHER DIED WITH HIS STORIES BUT ONE. THAT ONE WAS WHEN HE ENDED UP IN THE OCEAN FROM AN ATTACK ON THE SHIP. A SAILOR SAVED HIM. HE COULDN'T SWIM. ENOUGH SAID. I MISS HIM UNTIL THIS DAY. HE DIED FROM CANCER A FEW SHORT YEARS AGO. HE WAS MY HERO.
ReplyDeleteGRANNY
My father was too young to serve in WWII but his older brothers saw it all. They were MPs and saw action all over the world. And they wouldn't talk about it. At all. Until the day they died. They took it all with them.
ReplyDeleteMy father bought a beautiful powder blue Mercury Monterey very similar to the Mercury pictured above. Except it wasn't a two-tone. Man, he loved that car! Big enough for a family of 5 comfortably, too.
All of your stories, everyone, give me chills.
Mare, come see me. I'm an hour from Manhattan by train. We'll spend a day "in the City". :)
Katie