Chinese Rail Road

As recently as 1980, the Chinese were rocking this locomotive in their system. Now, they are rocking the bullet trains. Although not without grief--corruption and graft marred the building process and three folks just got canned for not taking care of an electric train that had been laying dead on the tracks due to being struck by lightening, and was run into by another train, resulting in loss of life.

Photo is from National Geographic.

And Now For Something A Little More Practical

Oh you need room for a couple people and groceries? Datsun had you covered there too with these wagons. They certainly are not as pretty as a 280-Z . Wagons were still pretty common in 1980. Although it seems they've been around forever, the minivan was still just a germ of an idea that Lee Iaccoca had stashed away in the back of his head in 1980...

Luxury In the Fast Lane

280-Zs are just pretty cars! Every so often you will see one out and about but they've gotten kind of rare out on the streets. Let's face it, we love the roadster--two seater car, completely impractical, designed to look (and if you are lucky, be) fast, a little macho, a little edgy. From the Mercedes 190SL through the early T Birds; Corvettes, BMW 3 series, Mazda Miatas, MGs and the rest--even Dodge Vipers--the tradition is carried on much to the pleasure of those of us who enjoy a fine ride .

Film Development By Mail

Getting one's film developed when you lived in a very rural area was not a simple thing. Few towns had stores big enough to have one hour developing and many did not even have the connections to send film out. So you sent it yourself, from home to Kodak or another developer. You would send your 126 cassette, or 35 mm film and it would return to you all developed, your photos and negatives in tidy envelopes and sleeves. It was an exciting day to go to the post office and find your prints waiting for you!

It might be worth exploring sometime how some things today have fallen into our hands to do--in the age of digital, we make our own prints, either at home or at a place like Kinko's. Some other things we have passed on to others to do. What sort of quality and time use implications are in that?

Ad is from a National Geographic mid 1960s.

Wordy Plymouth Ad

Ads back in the day seem like they were wordier--although that may have depended on the audience. It probably made a difference that this was in a National Geographic. NG readers would probably read it!

Checker Cars

Checker is probably most known for its iconic taxi cabs. I rode these while I lived in New York, both the larger version that had seats in the floor you could unfold and sit on, giving a capacity of six or more, and the smaller version. This ad, a column ad from a National Geographic shows that Checker tried to sell cars to the general public. I am not sure how successful they were as I can not recall seeing a Checker that wasn't a taxi.

Wagoneer: Faithful 4WD

Mid sixties ad for the Jeep Wagoneer--a vehicle that eventually became the cutting edge of the SUV revolution. I am not sure of the actual vintage of this ad--it would be early to mid 1960s as it was still Kaiser Jeep. The magazine is a National Geographic.

Interesting to note that Jeep is rendered in semi quotes--'Jeep'--I wonder why.