1965 Cadillac Supercoupe

1958 Lincoln Continental - Lincoln In-Continental?

The English language is stupid. This is mostly because the prefix "in-" can mean two things which are exact opposites: "very" and "not at all". Something that is "insoluble" is the opposite of something that is "soluble", and yet "inflammable" means "very, very flammable". This is completely stupid and needs to end.

So, bearing this in mind, please realize that a "Lincoln Incontinental" would be a car that should be "not at all like a continent", meaning "shorter than one".

The 1957 Lincoln Continental was almost nineteen feet long. That seems pretty big, but in 1958, Ford would come to their senses and realize that the car could achieve perfection with the addition of more bigness, to the tune of five additional inches. That's the one in this ad.

Perfectioned!

...or was it?

Yes, it was.

...until now.

This car wasn't about lugging around back seat passengers. It was about you, your tuxedo, and your wife dressed like a lamp, stepping through a dimensional gateway into an achromatic void, where you are gifted with a gigantic carboat, with a grand piano nestled in the trunk. Lincoln Incontinental Supercoupe - Everything you need, and nothing your neighbors don't know you need. The automobile, re-perfectioned.

You're welcome!

Here's a PNG of the Lincoln Incontinental Supercoupe, with transparent background, so you can drag it all around your documents with your mouse, making cool motor noises with your lips. Just be sure you make it stop for gas every two hundred pixels. You're welcome!

And, if you're boring, here's the original big-as-a-continent one. You're still welcome.

Body by Fisher - More less, please.

Body by Fisher. Just in case you never got the reference that personal trainers love to make, like "Body by Jake", that's the reference.

If you're expecting incisive wit and savage cleverness from your personal trainer, prepare to be disappointed. See what Jake did there? He took "Body by Fisher" and put his own name in there, because "body" can also mean "body", get it? I know. No wonder he was on TV!








Anyhoo... gosh that's a long car! This ad is just for Fisher, an independent coachbuilder who had a long relationship with GM, so you won't find anything urging you to rush down to your Cadillac dealer and test drive the new 1960 Cadillac De Ville, but that's the land yacht you're looking at. Jeez. It was a different world.

Maybe you really really like a car like this, but can it be even better? Yyyyyep! Less longness and more wheelness, please. Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade, ASSEMBLE! Pkshowww!

Background delete - COMPLETE!
Nose separation - COMPLETE!
Nose nudge - COMPLETE!
Tail separation - COMPLETE!
Tail nudge - COMPLETE!
Wheels isolate - COMPLETE!
Wheels duplicate - COMPLETE!
Windows select - COMPLETE!
Windows opacity alter - COMPLETE!
Barely noticeable badge isolate - COMPLETE!
Barely noticeable badge move - COMPLETE!

That's a lot of "complete"s, but this one wasn't too hard. The straight, tapered lines of the De Ville just fall into place when sliding sections around, with only minor scaling needed to make the edges line up again after. Here's a pro Photoshop tip for you: When you're copying a wheel to put right next to itself, don't be lazy. Use the wheel from the other end of the car so you won't have two exact copies of the same wheel sitting right next to each other, looking all samey-samey. You'll probably need to scale it a little to keep the perspective right (because cars are usually shot from a 3/4 angle), but the result will hide your tracks just a little more, and it won't take but a couple of seconds longer to do.

Get your rude finger ready to right click this silly little confection into growing the multi-car pileup on your hard drive in three, two, one... RIGHTCLICK NOW!

There. Isn't that better? Aww, thanks. You always say the perfect thing, sweetheart.

Click for big.

Gulfpride Oil - Your short woody.

Hey! Nice ad for.... "Gulfpride" oil? When did they drop the "pride"? The Google isn't easily forthcoming with the story on that. Maybe one of our Alert Readers has this information contained in-brain?

Nice rendering of the car. It still puzzles me why they so often use a painting for old ads instead of a nice simple photo. Anyway, the car's too long. Here, let me get that for you...

Click for big.

1959 Lincoln - Fab one and a half.

Zoinks! Has the world gone crazy? This Lincoln ad features an endorsement from a decidedly non-honkyish person! This goes against my understanding of mainstream America as willfully ignorant xenophobes. Hey, nice car.

Hm! general Carlos P. Romulo. Never heard of him, but apparently he had an impressive resume', including president of the UN General Assembly and best pal to General MacArthur. Well doesn't that beat all?

What the hell is a "chancery"? The research and Googling team says it's a government office where records are kept. Another definition suggests something about a court of law that considers fairness when making decisions, and not just existing laws. Sounds like a nice idea. I wonder if anyone's ever actually tried basing a government on fairness? Novel idea.

Anyhoo, not much to make fun of here. The car's nice. 1959 was showing us the beginning of a more rational and tasteful era in car styling where mile-high tail fins were going away and long, elegant lines were coming into fashion. About time!

hey, you know what would make this Lincoln about a million percent cooler? Fewer seats and more wheels. Most cars look appropriately absurd when 'shopped into supercoupe form, as we have demonstrated time and time and time again. Pen tool, don't fail me now! Big and small, left and right. Click through each for the big version. You're welcome. Rude finger graphic gift right-clicky-save, engage!

The Lincoln makes a fine companion to Lady Penelope's six-wheeled Fab 1, from the old Thunderbirds TV show (and the source of this blog's name). This would, of course, be driven by the lucky "Mr. Penelope", whoever that was. Lucky guy. Six-wheeled Lincoln and married to a pretty hot puppet. Also, some kind of joke about hand jobs.


If you simply MUST have the more boring version of the Lincoln, here you go. You're still welcome.

Click for big.

'66 Dodge Monaco - No unboxing video.

I likes me some station wagon. They've been replaced by something stupid and childish - the SUV. Why has it become unfashionable to drive a useful car that is only as large as you need it to be? How is it better to drive a massive off road vehicle that will only ever drive back and forth to the mall? Aah yes, because fashion has everything to do with self image and nothing to do with reality. People want to feel tough and free, so they buy a car that canyon dwellers use, instead of buying what makes sens for where you live. Don't get me started.

Dodge wants us to think of the 1966 Dodge Monaco wagon as "not boxy-looking". Well, it's not boxy compared to an actual box, I guess.

As is usual for car manufacturers, Chrysler named the Monaco after a city famous for a race that takes place there, which has exactly nothing in common with the car bearing the name. This station wagon is about as racy as a cardboard box with a spoiler. Maybe the Chrysler wizards would argue that Monaco is also a famous vacation spot, full of glamour and whatever. We know perfectly well that they'd like you to think of racing cars when you think of Monaco. Nice try, guys. A station wagon by any other name would still be designed to haul groceries.

Do not misunderstand. I like wagons for their honesty. I also dislike advertising for it's profound dishonesty. The Dodge Monaco is not a race car - even less so in wagon form.

Anyway, this wagon sure is long. You could keep a smaller car inside it, to help you get around. Gotta get something from the cargo area? Jump in the car and drive out to the tailgate. If you're not back by nightfall, send out the bloodhounds. The long lines of the Monaco look good enough, but I think it would also look good if it was a bit shorter...

Much better! This way, when you fill the back with groceries and flat pack furniture, you can wheelie all the way home. Call that boring if you want, because I sure don't.

Click for big

Click for big, but shorter.

1953 Chrysler - Mesh warp factor nine.

Here's a nicely painted ad for the 1953 Chrysler. No model name. Just The 1953 Chrysler. Again, we find a car featured in a rather fecal shade of brown or "rich caramel", depending on your point of view.

Actually, with the tan roof, I could actually begin to like the butter cream tonality of this car, but I'm not telling YOU that.

Nice lines on the car, too. It seems that not all cars in the fifties were tail-finned and bat-winged monstrosities (one man's opinion).

Comparatively speaking, this Chrysler shows a great deal of restraint. No whale tails on the rear quarters. No chrome boobs on the bumper (but it's close). It's almost as if a grownup designed this thing (another one man's opinion).

In fact, it looks so creamy smooth that it's almost worth peeling off the background and saving out as a PNG on a transparent background. Add it to your P.A.G. multicar pileup. Click through the pictures for biggerness, as always. Rude fingers ready in three, two, one.

I do have to find one little thing to complain about or it wouldn't be the internet, right? As usual, the designers of this car made it too darn LONG. In 1953, Chrysler offered a soccer field as an optional extra in the engine bay. The very well-moneyed could also get it with a vineyard in place of the spare tire. All that unnecessary longness is easily fixed with some deceptively complicated Photoshopping. Nose and butt shoved inwards. Midsection cut out and both ends shoved together. Also, lots of mesh warp all around to keep the parallel lines parallel. That was the tedious part. Please enjoy your stubby brown Chrysler that no one in their right 1953 mind would buy.




UPDATE: Here is the aforementioned AMC Metropolitan, along with my Chevy Nomad, My Gremlin, my Pacer, My Citroen DS, garbage truck, highway maintenance truck, etc etc. I hope Craigf approves! Sometimes the desk is so crowded, I can hardly run my media empire.I'm sure you know how it is.

'59 Rambler Wagon - Are hue sure about that color?

Car ads are generally nice to look at. Sometimes hilarious, but sometimes a little odd, like today's ad for a '59 Rambler.

First, I had to look up this "Dedini" person. Apparently, he was such a "get" for Rambler that they proudly posted his name on their little comic. Eldon Dedini was an American comic strip guy, whose stuff tended to the ribald, but not pornographic. Swing, baby! So there's that. Moving on...

Rambler is now a dead company. First it was just Rambler, from 1900 to 1914. Then nothing for 76 years, and then Nash revived the brand in 1950 (that's weird). Then AMC merged with Nash in 1954, at which point we see this ad for their  awkwardly styled wagon, whose looks we've reviewed in the past as "blowy". Although, it's maybe not as bad as all that. The "big car" fins on a small-ish car are kind of charming.

The weird decision they made in this ad was to shoot a blue car against a sky of nearly the same color. As a result, the things that pop out of the picture are the red and pink clothes on the models. Few things in ads are mistakes, so this must have been somebody's decision. Maybe that's the only car they could get for the shoot and nobody could foresee that the sky would be blue that day?

Here's a down and dirty Photoshop of some different colors that I think may have served them better in this picture.

Changing a color in Photoshop is never a simple matter of rotating the hue around the color wheel. To do it right would take a few hours. A quickie job results in this silly pastel-y fake look, but it serves well enough to make the point. Almost anything would help avoid the polar-bear-in-a-snow-storm look of blue on blue.

Thinking about the lines on this car again, I kind of want to see this car sectioned to be a coupe, with a wheelbase so short as to be undriveable.

Much better.