Lyon Aftermarket Wheel Accessories - Gorandupa dorifto!

Hey, tuners! I bet you're sitting there assuming you invented the idea of buying stupid geegaws to stick on your car, pretending it makes it faster or something. I have two words for you. Nuh uh! Allow this 1949 ad to bitch slap the cluelessness right off your clueless face.

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Back when Detroit was a manufacturing powerhouse and not just a potential war zone, Lyon was HQ'd there, inventing lots of (mostly) decorative stuff for your car's wheels (mostly). Wheel covers seemed to be their meat and potatoes, as we see in this ad, but they also invented the bumper! Hm! Hat tip to the inventor of the bumper, George Albert Lyon.

Back in '49, tires were narrow and sidewalls were tall, but check out the fender gap on that Oldsmobuick. You think your Integra is stanced? Grampa's whip is hella flush, yo! Country Buffet Dorifto!!!

There's a thing I say, and that thing is this: Ahem. "Nothing is too stupid to become popular." Adhesive Ventiports. The bafflingly popular "I have just shat my trousers" look. Paying two dollars for ten seconds of a song to use as a ringtone when you could have bought the whole song for ninety-nine cents. The worship of hillbillies driving rapidly in a circle. Fifty inch chrome wagon wheel rims that cost more than the vehicle that wears them, with a rubber band of tire stretched around them. You see now that this is true.

Well, apparently, Lyon made snap-on metal whitewalls. I'll give you a minute to retrieve your monocle from your tea, where it fell (in slow motion) after reading that.

This is a slightly conical ring of stainless steel, painted white. It snaps to your rim, and makes it look like you have shiny, bright whitewalls. My dad liked whitewalls. I grew up in The Seventies, a little after the heyday of whitewalls, and I looked to my dad for guidance regarding whitewalls. "Father, why are whitewalls good? What, precisely, the fuck?" I asked him. In his ineffable wisdom, my father said "They look nice". I have never seen the point of whitewalls, but apparently some people were so into them, they wanted shiny metal ones that could potentially outlive the tire. I'd be interested to see how nice they looked when they inevitably got bent and dented, and the paint chipped off.

And now, a prediction. Ahem again. As global warming creates crazier and more brutal winters, cities will continue to fail to devote enough time and resources to pothole repair. So, potholes will become bigger, more numerous, and will be a problem year-round. In the spring, a "repaired pothole" will consist of a lining of asphalt in the bowl of a car-swallowing crater. This part is already becoming true. Okay, time for the prediction: There will be available for purchase, special "pothole tires". These will be specialty tires that are extra thick and extra expensive, claiming to protect you from pinchfats. Maybe they'll have kevlar belts. Maybe they'll just have thicker carcasses or a ridge that prevents the rim from cutting the tire when the tire compresses under force. But they'll be heavier and more expensive than normal tires. Just like winter tires, they'll be another type of specialty tire for people in certain climates to consider.

Anyway, I hope you like halftone pattern, becuase here are the clip art guys from today's Lyon ad. Isn't it ironic that, in an ad for automotive products, the image of the smart, happy customer looks exactly like he's hitchhiking? You're welcome in three, two, one, YOUREWELCOMENOW!!!

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Oh, you know.

Really no need to explain how to see the big one at this point, is there?