My favorite thing to do at the Mecum Spring Classic vintage-car auction, which is held for a week each May in Indianapolis, is to move in close to the cars’ details with my camera. If I were to see these cars in museums, they’d be well behind velvet ropes and out of range from my macro lens. At the Mecum, you can get close enough to the cars to touch them! (But please don’t; they don’t belong to you.) I leaned over the hood of a 1968 Plymouth Belvedere GTX to photograph its Hemi badge.
The Mecum is primarily a muscle-car auction, with acres of Mustangs, Chevelle SSes, and Hemi Chargers. But plenty of non-muscle is always present, including cars that hit our sweet spot here at Curbside Classic. I’m working on a handful of posts covering just those kinds of cars; stay tuned. My personal favorite car at this year’s Mecum was a 1950 Hudson Commodore convertible, the hood ornament of which you see here.
I go to this auction every year with my digital camera and lots of extra batteries not just so I can see these cars – it is one of the happiest days of my year – but also so I can get close and photograph all the great design details. Like this rocket atop the front fender of a 1957 Olds Ninety Eight.
When cars moved away from round headlights, a lot of graceful front ends suddenly became impossible to design. As I stopped to photograph the headlight of this 1957 Lincoln Mark II, the fellow who owns the car said to me, “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Yes, even and especially this one detail.
I think this 1964 Studebaker GT Hawk’s headlight binnacle is just as lovely. The ridging is a very nice visual detail.
But for something truly wicked cool, consider this fuel-filler door from a 1969 Dodge Charger 500 SE. I love how the fuel-filler door on the current Dodge Challenger evokes this one.
I am amused by the stuff automakers used to tack onto cars – things that could easily be broken off, like this period Plymouth logo on a 1966 Belvedere.
I really love vintage automotive badging. I wrote a whole post about it last year; read it here. Lightning and gears, baby, that’s what trucks are all about. Seriously, I just like the colors in this photo.
The strong typography on this 1956 Studebaker Commander’s decklid drew me right in.
And finally, okay, so this isn’t a close shot. But I enjoy this perspective on the 21-window 1965 Volkswagen bus experience.
That bus is sweet!! The small details of the vintage cars are over looked. I had “Gunsites” on the fenders of my 58 Ford Country Sedan Wagon. I love stuff like this.
Great write up.
Oh! You mean these.
your link to vintage badging is inoperative
It’s fixed now.
While unlikely, I’ll ask anyway. Is that an AC unit in the ceiling of the VW Bus?
Love the close ups. The detail gives new perspective.
That’s the factory air vent box that takes in air under the roof.
Please forgive my lack of knowledge on this vent. Is it a passive device that pulls outside from above the windshield and directs it into the bus? Was there an option for heat in the air cooled microbus? When I was a kid and just got my first car (65 marlin) a friend had a 1960 bug without a gas gauge, it had a lever to the right of the the gas pedal to switch to the reserve fuel. And the heater was
very poor even in Miami, sent engine cooling air in the side rockers to floor vents and up to the windshield for defog. Didn’t work even in Miami.
There is an air vent inlet under the “hood” of the roof over the front windshield, which traps the pressure of air from the front of the car while in motion at speed (such as there is with these). The pressurized air can be let into the passenger compartment by turning the handle on this interior vent.
I’m not quite sure why it was there, as the VW bus also had lots of opening windows, and I doubt it was used very much, but that’s what its purpose is.
The trick to getting decent heat in a Beetle was to crack open the vent window, since the body was rather air-tight. If the vent wasn’t opened, the heat never really flowed. A Beetle with the vent open could flow a decent amount of heat, contrary to popular myth.
My first car was a red 1966 VW Type 1 (Beetle) and oh how I wish I had kept it. Actually as Paul says, the heater worked pretty well. As I recall there were two levers on either side of the parking brake, one topped with a red plastic ball and one with white. Pull one and and air heated by the cylinders was diverted into the cabin via two outlets at the base of the rear seat. Pull the other and some of this air was diverted to vents on either side of the lower corners of the windshield for defogging, unless . . .
. . . as happened to me one November night in 1977 (well, morning actually) enroute from Columbia Missouri to St. Louis. Along with a friend I had attended a Saturday night event known as an “ice kegger” and we departed around one am. We had tickets to see the then up and coming comedian Steve Martin Sunday night at the Kiel Opera House (a 3,500 seat venue, his next St. Louis appearance the following summer was at the Arena which held about 18,000). Come to realize one of the two cables that diverted air to the windshield had broken (not an unusual event) and of course it was on the driver’s side. Somehow, despite this and the beer consumed we made it home safely.
” air heated by the cylinders ”
Close, but the ’66 had a “fresh air” heater that used heat exchangers on the exhaust manifolds.
The bus had such a large interior volume that the optional gasoline-fired heater was a must in colder climates. Even with the electric booster fan,
my ’72 bus was an icebox on ski trips.
Jim, love these detail badging photography posts of yours.They’re a great complement to all the other things we have here.
Thanks! I really enjoy sharing these photos.
When dual headlights came in, the styling with round headlights changed. The dual headlights did not work quite the same way with the front fender styling.
Nice picture of that VW bus, it looks like you’re in a small Amsterdam touring boat.
Another fan of JG’s photography here. Every year, something in my life conspires to keep me away from this event. Perhaps next year.
It is amazing how certain cars drip with details that make you want to photograph them, yet others (more modern ones) lack that kind of eye candy. I had no idea that the Plymouth insignia stuck out so three-dimensionally on that Belvedere.
I am particularly excited at the possibility of a couple of Studebaker posts coming. Please be kind. 🙂
They just don’t make them like they used too. Some of that is for the better, but most is for the worst.
Really great shots. You could (really!) make quite a nice calendar of those.
I was amused by the halogen sealed beam in the Lincoln.
I especially liked the Hudson hood ornament shot and the Belvedere side panel. The use of depth of field seems to be something of a lost art with point-and-shoot digital cameras.
I shot all of these with my Canon PowerShot S95, which has automatic macro mode and an f/2 lens. It brings the blurry backgrounds all day long.
I noticed the halogens on the Hawk too. It could indicate that somebody expected to actually drive these at some point.
Ain’t that what vars are made for?
Awesome photos Jim. You are an accomplished photographer, even if you are very humble about it. lol As others have said, you’ve done great justice to some automotive icons here. I especially like the cleanliness and simplicity in capturing these famous styling elements.
Aw, shucks. The secret: move in close and fill the frame.
Beautiful photographs. That 21 window is almost surreal.
“1957 Lincoln Mark II”
Minor nit: I believe this car is technically a “Continental Mark II”. While they were sold through Lincoln dealers and were effectively part of Lincoln’s model lineup, the 1956-57 Mark IIs and the 1958-60 Mark III/IV/Vs that followed were not badged as Lincolns, just as “Continentals”. Ford even set up a separate Continental Division within its corporate structure, though the extent to which it truly functioned as a separate division is probably debatable.
Very nice work.