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Automotive
Popular Science
Issue: Jun, 1940
Posted in: Automotive
Posted: 07/12/2006
1 Comment
New Patents Forecast Your 1942 Car (Jun, 1940)

New Patents Forecast Your 1942 Car

THAT car you’ll be buying in 1942—what will it look like?

Will it have the engine in the front or in the back ? Will it be heavier or lighter, longer or shorter, more or less expensive

than the car you’re driving now ? Startling is the only word for the answers to these fascinating questions, as disclosed by an automotive survey just completed by Popular Science Monthly. Whispers of radical changes and innovations in motor-car design are in the wind, and the recent granting of a series of important automotive patents, every one of which covers a car having its power plant in the back instead of the front, heralds the dawn of a new era in automotive transportation.

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Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: Aug, 1950
Posted in: Ahead of its time, Automotive
Posted: 07/08/2006
1 Comment
Are These GM’s Cars of Tomorrow? (Aug, 1950)

Wow, this one comes with a robot!

Are These GM’s Cars of Tomorrow?

By Bernard W. Crandell

PROBABLY you’ll never see any of the fanciful sketches on these pages coming down a production line or in your dealer’s salesroom. Nobody at GM intends that you should. The sports car designs here are an important phase of automobile styling done by the General Motors Styling Section and the sketches fulfill a function of professional car designing for which there is no substitute—uninhibited creativeness and daring imagination.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Jul, 1932
Posted in: Automotive, Personal Appearance
Tags:
Posted: 07/08/2006
4 Comments
Glare-proof Glasses Aid Drivers (Jul, 1932)

Glare-proof Glasses Aid Drivers

HEADLIGHT glare from approaching cars is practically eliminated by the cup-shaped aluminum shields shown on the left, which fasten onto regular spectacle frames.

Holes are cut a little to the right of the apex of the cones, which are one inch deep. When meeting a car, driver turns his head slightly to the right. This automatically cuts off the glare from the lights and enables him to watch the side of the road.

Holes in the sides of the cups aid wearer in watching cars at intersections.

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Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: Sep, 1949
Posted in: Automotive, Sign of the Times
Posted: 06/30/2006
9 Comments
Auto Fuel From Cow Manure (Sep, 1949)

Auto Fuel From Cow Manure

Germans are being forced to search everywhere for new sources of power—even in their own pastures.

By Heinrich Hauser

THERE’S an old European proverb which says you can measure the extent of a farmer’s prosperity by the height of his manure pile. That saying is closer to the truth today in Germany than it has ever been before.

A German inventor named Harnisch has developed a simple device which converts manure into fuel. And this fuel is used to drive autos and tractors as well as provide household power.

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Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: May, 1954
Posted in: Automotive, Toys and Games
Tags:
Posted: 06/29/2006
No Comments
Seven Year Old has Pimpin’ Trailer (May, 1954)

TRAILERETTE built by Charles Rucker of Flint Mich., for his seven year-old son, Billy, is 32 inches wide and 40 inches high. Billy hauls it around with his battery-powered “hot rod.”

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National Geographic
Issue: Apr, 1918
Posted in: Automotive
Posted: 06/13/2006
No Comments
LOCOMOBILE (Apr, 1918)

LOCOMOBILE

THE UNUSUAL AND ESSENTIAL POINT OF LOCOMOBILE CONSTRUCTION IS THE STRICT LIMITATION OF THE NUMBER OF CARS BUILT
THE RESULT AIMED AT IS NOT QUANTITY BUT QUALITY

THE LOCOMOBILE COMPANY OF AMERICA
MAKERS OF FINE MOTOR CARS

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Mar, 1933
Posted in: Automotive, Impractical
Posted: 06/13/2006
No Comments
New Propellerless Plane Flies Forward or Backward and Goes Straight Up (Mar, 1933)

New Propellerless Plane Flies Forward or Backward and Goes Straight Up

ANEW type of plane which can rise vertically and fly forward or backward, or hover in the air was successfully tested the other day in New York. It is the invention of William Rahn, right, in photo below, who constructed the craft with the collaboration of Gus Miller, left, formerly with the Zeppelin works in Germany.

The strange looking sky hopper is powered with a Wright Whirlwind motor and is said to be capable of a speed of 135 miles per hour.

While this is a news flash and no further details are at this time available, the principle seems to be sort of an “autogyro on the flat.” The wings are disposed about a central axis and apparently change their incidence so as to produce both lift and negative drag which hops the ship along. Possibly the tests were not successful, for nothing further seems to have startled the world from this source, although a plane of these characteristics would certainly set the world on its ear, so to speak.

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Popular Science
Issue: Dec, 1946
Posted in: Automotive, War
Posted: 06/06/2006
No Comments
NEW TRICKS for FIDO (Dec, 1946)

FIDO stands for (Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operations) and seems to consist of using giant flame throwers to burn away the fog…

NEW TRICKS for FIDO

Gliding out of a fog and into fair visibility, a C-47 prepares to land at the Navy’s Landing Aids Experiment Station, Areata, Calif. The flames burning off the mist are part of a new fog-dispersion system called ELMER—a refinement of Britain’s wartime FIDO.

At a central control board, an operator turns on lights and fog-chasing burners at Areata. ELMER has cut the costs of landing a plane in a fog to $150 as compared with the $4,000 average expense of using FIDO.

ELMER, in full glory below, is a line of tri-nozzle heads that atomize Diesel oil under high pressure and shoot curtains of flame into the air on both sides of the runway to vaporize the fog. A hot-wire setup provides instantaneous ignition of the oil.

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Apr, 1935
Posted in: Automotive, Scary
Posted: 06/03/2006
4 Comments
Baby Bounces Through Window in “Safety” Chair (Apr, 1935)

This seems like a REALLY bad idea. Put your baby on the end of a spring, right in front of the windshield… bright.

Baby Bounces in Safety Chair

A SAFETY chair which combines the enjoyment of a spring ride for the baby with assurance to the mother that he will not get hurt provides a solution to the problem of baby tending for the busy housewife.

The chair is built high to support the baby’s back and is set on a strong steel spring leaf fastened to a slot in the floor. The baby’s legs straddle a hobby-horse head which prevent him from falling out of the front. Stirrups provide a natural rest for the child’s feet.

The spring of the safety chair may also be slipped into a slot in the auto floor, and it will eliminate all heavy shocks to provide baby with a smooth, comfortable ride in spite of rough and rutty roads.

Related:
Auto Seat Gives Infant Comfort – AKA “Kiddie Catapult”

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Modern Mechanix
Issue: Apr, 1936
Posted in: Advertisements, Automotive
Tags:
Posted: 06/01/2006
No Comments
Happy Days are Here Again (Apr, 1936)

Happy Days are Here Again

SPRINGTIME is get-together-time — out of doors! You enjoy old friends more — make new friends — and pack every outdoor hour with pleasure — when you own a 1936 Harley-Davidson. . . It’s some motorcycle! You’ll marvel at its wind-piercing lines and perfect balance — its airplane-like speed and snap — and above all, the amazing performance of its up-to-the-minute motor with new and exclusive features. Many sparkling color combinations— every one a beauty. Streamlined sidecar or chummy “Buddy Seat” for get-together rides—available on the 45′s, 74′s and the new 80 cubic inch Twin.
See your nearest Harley-Davidson dealer—PRONTO! Ask him
for a FREE RIDE—about his EASY PAY PLANS
— and send in the coupon.

Ride a Harley-Davidson

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