I'm stumped. I'm sure that many (perhaps most) of you have seen this e-mail that's been going around. Look at the 6th pic down and tell me what is the car behind the hot dog vendor. If this has been posted before please forgive me; one person just can't keep up with all the posts nowadays. The Way Things Used To Be… High School Dance 1950 Chiropractic Beauty Pagent, 1956. “Miss Beautiful Spine” A Supermarket In 1964 Boulder County in 1890. They all lived in that cabin together Phone from Car (1959) Hot dog stand 1947 A street in New York City, 1915 A baby suspended in a wire cage attached to the outside of a high tenement block window. The cages were distributed to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London who have no gardens” 1930′s Breaking all the rules… 1950s Popular hair styles from the 50′s Summer on the Lower East Side, 1937 Segregated seating at the Orange Bowl, 1955 The “Jackie Look”…1961 Women wrestling in the 50s Applicants to Paramount Motion Picture School, 1925 A rejection letter from Disney, 1938. “Women do not do any of the creative work…” For city kids the street was your playground…. Swimming with inner-tubes in the 1920′s 1948 Los Angeles, street car chaos Irish Schoolboys get their Dose of Castor Oil Travelling First Class Prom night, 1957 Nice sales pitch… 1953 Crowd at a high school football game, 1944 A grocery in Vancouver, Canada; sometime between 1940 & 1948 Buying a car in 1950 The classic lunch counter… 1960s A new suburban housing development opens, Bellflower California, 1953 Tattoo parlor in the 1920′s NYC street near Central Park, 1900 Mobile school… classroom on a rail car, Ontario Canada 1932 Picking up the US Mail, early 1900s. Doing homework… 1944 Daytona Beach in the 1950s…
No, I disagree, far to many things different here. I say its a Jeep customized to look like a Bantam... American Bantam has a smooth hood and a solid windshield , an Austin Bantam has has a louvered hood but a folding windshield with stanchions.... Look at the depth of the cowl and the shape of the windshield, early Jeep...
I got so distracted with the pics, that I forgot the question. Thanks guys for keeping us on track! There is one of those for sale in my area, interesting looking vehicle. Thanks for sharing!!!
I thought Bantam at first, too, but don't think that's it. The cowl and the back of the hood top are different. I looked at a lot of pix on the web and didn't find anything that matches. Here's one link. i looked at some others, too.
Ah,but a customized one may not Arkie....lol. Absolutely, definitely not a Bantam of any description though.
I disagree,but you are entitled to your opinion. I don't know whether you are aware but AB built both a roadster & a convertible,,roll up windows and fixed windshield frame. Another little tid bit of information is that American Bantam built the first Jeeps,,so in the end we all might be right to a certain extent.HRP
I did find out that the photo was taken by Stanley Kubrick (age 18 or 19) in a series of photographs of Mickey the Shoe Shine Boy
No wiper or place for one, pancake hood that is really strange but looks like it fits and belongs, curve of cowl shoulder looks a bit off. Hints of home-madeness, but hood stuff looks like production while remaining entirely unrecognizable! Vague references to Bantam and Topolino, but not. Can it defeat the HAMB ??!?
Definatly different than the picture HRP posted, Bruce is right, it all looks factory done but I'll be damned if I have any idea what it is... Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Look at the shape and depth of that cowl lads, I still stand that it's a war era Jeep, steering column stands up tall and looks to have that same military three spoke wheel even...
Neat pictures. I am surprised the xrays were shown back then since you can see some private parts. That was about at shocking as naked pygmies in Nat. Geo. back in the day.
And this is a 1939 Ford four door convertible, I don't see your point. I had already said it was customized,did I not?
well, since YOU say it's customized and YOU say it's a Jeep, therefore it MUST be a Jeep? Why? Because YOU say so? The only way you or I could know that the '39 Ford on the cover of Rod & Custom IS a '39 Ford is because the magazine article identifies it as such. Now, how is it that you KNOW the vehicle in question is a customized Jeep? The answer is, you DON'T know. You are merely speculating, even insisting, that you are right. I posted the photo of the '43 Jeep because YOU said it was a war-era Jeep. I posted a picture of a 'war-era" Jeep without comment in order to let readers make up their own minds. If the car in question was originally a Jeep before it was "customized," someone went to a lot of trouble to not only completely replace the windshield frame but also to do away with windshield hinges, not to mention extend the windshield width beyond the edges of the cowl. Was it originally a Jeep? Who knows? Is it a Jeep just because you say it is? Definitely not.
While I am at it, American Bantam steering wheels were also three spoke and stood up tall which makes sense since Bantam designed and built Jeeps.
There are jeep-like proportions and features, but some of those are misleads. Windshield has the general look and stance of a jeep windshield...but in 1947, jeeps would have been MB/GPW types, so if someone used a jeep windshield there he had to change frame to a more rounded edge system, glass, and gaskets before replacing the mounting system... This is one weird vehicle. Hood stuff is entirely unfamiliar, but fits together and is rather complicated... not really homemade looking.
I don't know what it is, but if you use "ctrl+" and zoom in on the front wheel you can tell it is 4wd.