Voitures Anciennes

[RobertArthur]

The future of motoring, 50 years later.

[Hotrodder]

In 1900 a French engineer named Gérard Lavergne (1854-1948) published his book about the future of motoring. Title: Manuel théorique et pratique de l'automobile sur route. Vapeur - Pétrole - Électricité, 732 pages. What will it be? Steam? Too heavy. Gasoline: smelly, inflammable, noisy. Electric power has the future: reliable, easy to drive and quiet, a perfect city car. More about the early electric cars.

Around 1900 this photograph of a woman charging her electric car, in a promotional campaign by General Electric.

I make no apology, I hate electric cars. But I would truly love to own an early 20th century electric car. A Detroit or Baker Electric like the one in Jay Leno's collection. So sensible as a city car. If it hadn't been for the sudden availability of cheap petrol and the changeover from DC to AC power supplies in the cities the development of electric cars would be miles ahead of what it is today.

[RobertArthur]

@ Hotrodder, second best this one, a 1959 Chevrolet Corvette? With you in the driver's seat?

[Hotrodder]

You have stirred up a few memories there. My encounter with Corvette ownership was in 1966/67 before I left California to embrace poverty in the real world. The sound of the factory issue side exhausts made the output from the radio a waste of effort. A different story with my previous car, a '65 Impala SS. Took it to the lowrider style, quite suited to the song "Lowrider" by the band War some time later. (I first heard it in the Cheech & Chong film "Up in Smoke".

[RobertArthur]

Now that the term “city car” has been mentioned and the future of urban transport, it reminds me of many drawings by artists, architects, film producers and stories by science fiction writers. Below is an example with the caption: 'In città gireremo cosi? (Are we going to walk around town like this?). l'imagination au pouvoir?

[RobertArthur]

Definitely not a small city car (Fiat 500) that is easy to manoeuvre in Italian city centres, which often have steep, very narrow and winding streets. Parking? A real desert car.

[Hotrodder]

With room for a Fiat 500 in the back for when it runs out of gas (or charge).

[RobertArthur]

....or a Fiat Multipla.

Not a stroke of Italian creativity and genius as the narrative goes in one of the youTube videos. Post war facts: on 23 April 1947, Ben Pon, car dealer from Amersfoort (Netherlands), visited the Volkswagen factory in Germany. With a simple sketchbook under his arm and with this quick, simple sketch.. He got inspired when visiting the VW works earlier by a so called 'Plattenwagen' for inside factory use, driver seat above the little VW engine, rearside of that transporter. In March 1950 they started to appear on the streets in Germany and the Netherlands. The launch of the Fiat 600 Multipla was in 1956.

[RobertArthur]

Ford’s “American Icon": A Mustang Immersive Experience.

[Hotrodder]

At the very end of the article they get close to the truth. You have to get them to "put the phone down".
The promo may well be cheaper than a national TV ad but it looks totally boring to me. There's more excitement shown on Youtube if that's what it takes to sell cars to the younger market. Or take them along as a passenger in a single quarter mile blast in a Dodge Hellcat to get their juices flowing. Whatever way you do it, the cars need to be a lot cheaper. Even well off middle America sees new cars as too expensive when they have little more to offer than their older car gives them.