Japs Greet Midget Car
This startled MP has seen everything. Luckily there wasn’t any traffic to snarl up when the Jap inventor drove his tiny, electric-powered car down a Tokyo street. Named the “Baby Star,” it is about one-fifth the size of an ordinary automobile. A 400-watt motor, developing one-half horsepower, runs it for three hours at 25 miles an hour before the batteries need recharging. It can be converted to use gasoline. A homemade job, the wheels of this bantam auto were taken from dismantled airplanes. It is supposed to be a two-seater.

Show of hands, who thinks this car looks like a wooden clog?

THE HIDROMOBILE

A Los Angeles corporation is preparing to put on the market a remarkable combination of the automobile and motor boat, invented by W. C. Mazzei, E. E., of New York City. This machine, which will sell for the same price as a high grade automobile of the usual type, is intended particularly for use by travelers, who must cross streams and flooded areas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blinders for Learners Teach Driving Dangers

To demonstrate how defective vision and dirty side windows on an automobile can affect the driving efficiency of motorists, students of a traffic school drive a special car equipped with dual controls while they wear glasses that distort their eyesight and blinders that narrow their field of vision, making them unable to see to the right or left without turning their heads. An instructor accompanying each student takes over the duplicate set of controls whenever driving conditions become dangerous enough to justify it.

AUTOMOBILES NOT POPULAR IN HOLLAND
There is a bicycle to every 2-1/2 inhabitants in Holland, but automobiles have failed to win great popularity in the low country. Holland is a country without hills, and the popularity of the bicycle is attributed to this fact. Separate bicycle roads running parallel to the regular highways are provided by the authorities.

Off to Prison Convicts Ride in Rumble Seat “Jail” Cage

Oklahoma has a jail on wheels to take its convicts to prison. Instead of a rumble seat, the prison transfer car has a barred steel cage mounted behind the coupe body. Alex Watson, in charge of the transfer of prisoners, can watch his wards in the cage by a mirror from the driver’s seat. The traveling jail accommodates four convicts, having a padded seat on each side. The floor is carpeted and the back door is covered by a drop curtain of heavy duck for protection from the weather.

Mobile Home Expands to Form Three Rooms

Light and compact enough to be drawn behind a motor car like a trailer, a movable type of house can be expanded to form three rooms at its destination. On the road it is supported on two wheels with drop axle and is sixteen feet long and six and one-half feet wide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monster Bus Is Equipped to Serve As Traveling Movie Theater

A black and silver thirty-four-foot juggernaut of the road, just completed in California, will bring talking movies to country dwellers, in towns too small to boast theaters of their own. The huge bus carries a complete talkie theater in its spacious interior. When the bus is drawn up at the side of a road and two doors at the rear are opened, a screen is disclosed. An audience of 2.000 can see and hear the pictures that are projected upon it from inside the bus.

Read the rest of this entry »

view additional pages

This Automobile Is a Complete Airport

TWELVE-TON TOOL BOX ON WHEELS TURNS ANY LEVEL COW PASTURE INTO A SERVICE BASE WITH ALL EQUIPMENT FOR REPAIRING PLANES.

ROLLING swiftly down highways on ten oversize balloon tires, a revolutionary airport-in-miniature for use by passenger air lines and military air forces now provides quick and complete assistance to stranded airplanes. This curious “twelve-ton tool box” is the invention of Kibbey W. Couse, of East Orange, N. J. It is capable of turning any level cow pasture into an airport complete with machine shop, repair parts, floodlights, and radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

I hear that genuine zebra hide upholstery is making a comeback.

view additional pages

Lady Docker’s Golden Chariot

English milady designed $50,000 car to help cheer up the toiling masses.

BIRMINGHAM Small Arms Co., the owner of the famous Daimler auto works, has among its assets what might be called the world’s most second-hand car. This ivory and gold confection, the only one of its kind, was dreamed up by Britain’s Lady Nora Docker, built to her specifications and forever stamped with her personality. Whoever drives it now will hear people saying, “Look who’s driving Nora’s car!”

Read the rest of this entry »

NEW KIND OF AUTO EYES MAKES NIGHT DRIVING Safer than Day!

Fits Any Headlight. . . Ends Dangerous Dimming . . . Doubles Roadlight!

AT LAST! An amazingly queer yet simple invention lifts the curse of night driving from the motoring world. This altogether new discovery called “Perfect-O-Lite,” replaces old glass “bulbs” in your automobile headlights with truly amazing results. Road illumination is instantly doubled yet glare is absolutely banished. Ordinary objects in the road, ruts, animals, obstructions, etc., are made clearly visible at least three times as far. Instead of ordinary “direct” light, this beam is composed entirely of double-reflected or “infused” light. This new kind of light cuts right through the other fellow’s headlights. Even shoots through fog, mist, rain and snow.

Read the rest of this entry »

Automatic Food Cooker Runs by Exhaust Heat of Car

MEALS can literally be cooked on the run through the use of the automatic cooker shown in the photo above. The cooker is mounted on the rear bumper of the motor tourist’s car and an extension from the exhaust pipe connected up with it, as shown in the insert. The cooker contains a steam pressure kettle which is heated by the hot exhaust gases. An hour’s drive is quite sufficient to thoroughly cook meats and vegetables. Total weight of the unit is so slight that running qualities of the car remain quite unaffected. Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip.

I think this is a great idea. Though I’m sure that Bruce Schneier could explain to me why this is a bad idea, I’d still love to have one. I can never remember my license plate number! Here is an awesome gallery of similar key chains.

This guy sells them, but they don’t look nearly as nice.

License Tag in Miniature Identifies Auto Keys

A metal tag stamped out as a miniature reproduction of your automobile license plates is attached by a chain to a novel key ring designed to hold car keys. Tiny copies of any individual license plate of any state may be obtained. The identifying tags are especially useful where a number of sets of keys to different cars are kept in one place, as in a public garage.