Unpopular Science

First the imagination then someone steals your idea and makes it big...sometimes 50 years later...

I recall many Real deal Vehicles that look to be those in the Art...perhaps they were inside as reality at that time or someone made them after the fact...

 

And after reducing from monthly to quarterly then digital they announce the cessation altogether. I guess imagination can be curtailed by economics.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/27/23978042/popular-science-digital-magazine-discontinued

 

This is a sign of the times...it's taken a while...but they can still survive in a digital world. It takes thinking minds just as it did to get them to where they are...I wish them good fortune.

Update...I just read the article at the link, you are correct in that it even in it's digital being it is perilously grim it seems...from an enterprise to less than a cleanup crew...

 

But in spite of your parents best efforts you still turned into one of them irresponsible hot-rodders. That'll learn 'em!

 

Here's a H.A.M.B. friendly article from the December 1949 issue:

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Here's another H.A.M.B. friendly article from the September 1952 issue:

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Here's yet another H.A.M.B. friendly article from the December 1959 issue:

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My dad had stacks of magazines in the attic, I learned how to read on them. As the twig is bent... so grows the tree.

Now nobody likes to read, even looking at pictures is passe. Publications are bloated with ads. Nobody wants to build those crafty items that the magazines had plans for. My dad made some and they were cool. Today, everything is instant, people do not like to work for cool things.

 

The poor dog's owner apparently got bounced out of the car just second before, left some garments behind . . . perhaps this is a bad dream? That could happen to you. Imaginative, you bet!

 

I liked it,enjoyed both, along with also Popular Mechanics. Dad got both,so I'd read what ever looked the most interesting. A lot is being lost now days,an being old (81) like me,seems sad from my point of view. !

 

I have a bookshelf full of Popular Science magazines, mostly from 1945 to 1965 but also some going back to the 1930s. I once brought the issue posted by Rolleiflex with me on an airplane flight; I left it on my seat when going to the restroom and when I came back the guy in the row behind me was reading it. My dad had subscriptions to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics when I was a kid, I loved reading them. My favorite part was the monthly stories from Gus Wilson's Model Garage.

Fortunately, Google Books has every issue of Popular Science as well as Popular Mechanics available for reading (all the way back to May 1872 for Popular Science, January 1905 for Pop Mechanics.) However, reading them online just isn't the same as holding one in your hands, feeling (and smelling) the aged pages.

 

Gus Wilson's Model Garage can be found on the internet here, https://www.gus-stories.org

 

Damn man. There was always a stack of those around my house and my grandpas house when I was growing up. I learned about all kind of stuff from them and Popular Mechanics.
that is where I learned about the experimental SR-71 that might exist, complete with drawings, and the X-15.
hate to know its going.

 

Making kustoms the traditional way - with lath and plaster!

 

I think I read a number off them off the bookmobile when I was in 5th and 6th grade along with reading every issue of Hot Rod that they would let me check out at a time as I think they had a limit on how many you could check out at a time. There was a big stack of Mechanix illustrated in a house we rented on Bainbridge Island in 1959/60 and I pretty well wore those out reading them.

 

I found a copy in Dad's workshop, may have been the first photos of Hot Rods I ever saw, cut them out and taped them to a scrap book. Found a full issue but I'll save the time looking for it, a HAMB member will post it. I've seen two of the featured cars, restored to their former glory.