It’s one thing for these magazines to have been endlessly extolling flying cars and other such amazing contraptions that were just around the corner. But this?
Vintage Science & Mechanics Magazine Cover: Always Accurate or Click Bait In 1968
– Posted on May 7, 2021
We’ve always had cancer proof cigarettes. The problem arises when people chose to smoke them.
Exactly! Cigarettes have been exceptionally resistant to coming down with cancer. For one thing, they don’t live long enough. 🙂
You had that idea about ten years too late, John Green beat you to it.
Joe Gutts looks ornery.
I remember Joe Gutt!
I vaguely remember Joe Gutts. I preferred Uncle Tom’s wordplay.
The picture fits a long-term pattern. Most auto writers, from Uncle Tom to Uncle Paul and Cousin Ed, are big and tall men. They have trouble fitting into small cars, and always complain about it. Most readers are smaller than the writers, and sometimes have more trouble stretching to reach pedals and steering wheels in big cars.
That continued with David E. Davis and Jean Lindamood Jennings. A lot of people buy magazines, including tall ones. Knowing you don’t fit in there is good to know for a buyer.
Yes, there are any number of cars that I think I would love but then when I try them on for size I don’t fit. I’m not abnormally tall even if somewhat above average. It should be a basic thing to include that info in a test as an inch can make all the difference if it’s close to begin with. Pedals and wheel can often be adjusted, but there is a finite dimension between the base of the seat and the roof.
When I was a kid I had a recipe for fireproof cigarettes (dip the end in sodium silicate solution and let ’em dry). Had an opposite-effect recipe, too, but I don’t recollect what you dip cigs in to make ’em burn to the filter in a matter of seconds. It was one or another oxygen-bearing solution.
I recall Joe Puffs was their cigarette tester. It seems he passed in May of ’68.
I started smoking at 30. Bright side is I’m not particularly concerned about retirement past 75. Yes I’m a genius…
“Almost no one starts smoking after age 25. Nearly 9 out of 10 smokers started smoking by age 18, and 99% started by age 26. Progression from occasional to daily smoking almost always occurs by age 26.”
– U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
You, sir, are an outlier.
I used to work with a guy who smoked non-stop, would start shaking if he went more than a minute or two without a cigarette. Five packs a day just at the job. It was fairly amazing. I asked him quite a few questions regarding his Salem 100 consumption. Two surprising things: he started smoking in his late twenties, and he lived to be about 75.
I once spoke with a man who was smoking 6 packs of cigarettes a day. He had a stressful job with the DoD as some kind of analyst. I did the math. Allowing time to sleep, eat and take an occasional shower and calculating 20 butts per pack for 120 total daily with an average time per cigarette smoked (I forget how long, somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes each), I determined that this man would commence smoking as soon as he woke up. He would smoke nonstop all day except for the 3 exceptions.
He would be smoking constantly unless he was unconscious, submerged or filling his mouth with something else.
He probably had at least one burning in an ashtray while he ate and maybe going on the bathroom counter while he showered.
Urinating, driving, talking on the phone, sitting on the toilet, taking a walk hugging his wife, throwing the ball for the dog, coaching the kid’s little league team. Church maybe? Going to confession, sure thing.
(Imagine a cigarette commercial that takes place in a confessional…
“5 Our Fathers, 4 Hail Marys and try these Chesterfields, they’re mild.”)
You have really got to be working hard at it to smoke 6 packs a day. I don’t think it’s possible to smoke more and maintain a reasonably functional life.
I started smoking at age 49 when I was undergoing Interferon chemotherapy. I was smoking Pall Mall non filters because they tasted good, I enjoyed them and they helped me cope with all the side-effects. I started in 2007 and because I enjoyed them, continued until New Year’s Day 2011 when I smoked one last and then quit cold turkey. For me it was easy and I haven’t smoked since.
I’m definitely an outlier. I was getting a full load of nicotine for 4 years but it didn’t result in habituation or addiction. I fully understood how tobacco kills you so the first time I felt it in my lungs I knew it was time to stop.
ho
It’s true that people who start very young seem to have the hardest time quitting. At one time smoking was completely accepted and having your behavior reinforced by society in general would tend to psychologically complicate trying to quit, I tend to think.
i attached a Camel Cigarette character that they finally ditched. In this ad, he even has some sensual suggestions. No cancer here! Camels, I guess, do not get cancer. They are known to get Oasis Itch, Sand Fleas, Dessert on the desert. Despite the end of the Muscle Car Era, is it? Look at what we can do with our automobiles according to the ads for them! Yes, we can kill ourselves and other people performing those stunts. Hard Boiled Eggs is right on the mark! Speaking of camels, research “camel spiders.” Yes, it is gross but that’s life in Afghanistan for the unlucky camel.
I happened to walk close to the locked cigarette case in my local supermarket yesterday and noticed that a pack of those Camel non-filters was priced over $11. I know much of this is tax but wow, what an incentive to not smoke. I remember buying a pack of Parliament 100s for 31 cents back in my senior year in college (1972). Good thing I quit that year. Better health and all that money saved for retirement.
A few years ago I went on one of the national anti-cigarette websites [I think it was the Heart Association], and they offered a free program to see how much money you could have saved if you stopped smoking at a certain age.
Since I never started smoking, but the program started at age 14, I listed that as the day I stopped. The program asked where I lived [state], and worked out how much money I saved. It was well over $250,000.
I guess I wasted it on old cars, parts, club dues, car magazines, etc., ’cause I sure don’t have that kind of cash today at age 70!
Am I the only one more appalled by those cheesy base wheel covers on a AMX clearly equipped with the go package? Weren’t those supposed to come standard with Magnum 500s?
Agree. Dog dishes would be more appealing.
IIRC Ramblers (we didn’t use the AMC tag here) assembled by AMI in Australia, all used these cheesy-looking wheel covers for a few seasons – pretty sure I remember seeing them on Rebels or Matadors or whatever they called them back then.
A friend’s mum got him a subscription to this mag one year. What he really wanted was Popular Mechanics. He felt S&M had no credibility. Sixties equivalent of clickbait.
That is a handsome car, I always liked the the rocker panel moulding combined with the lack of wheelarch trim on these, sometimes its what a designer leaves off that makes it special.
The fact that it still looks good even with those wheelcovers shows what a good design it was, of course the colour helps too.
Love those tyres as well.