I wonder about the abbreviated words... Some of the ads (maybe in other magazines) must have charged by the line. A word would still count as 1 whether it's spelled out or shortened.... Abbreviations would net more words in fewer lines or characters though. And how about the rear radius job on that sectioned '50 Ford with GTO power?
I'm pretty sure I've seen the A roadster (#3) and the turbine powered 32 in semi-recent pictures. I bet they would cost a bit more now.
And many abbreviations were forced on you. I once tried to get an ad I wanted posted verbatim. They flatly refused. They insisted on abbreviating several words (that I knew would make the ad difficult to understand)... even though I was willing to pay whatever was appropriate for unabbreviated. Crazy.
I need that turbine powered roadster! OTOH that last one looks like a waste of a perfectly good nailhead. 1967 must have been about the end of the line for all that crazy stuff. Before the No Hot Rods Allowed rules.
Never mind the abbreviated words... How about those abbreviated prices!!! I remember those days well but everyone was interested in whatever muscle Detroit was coming out with next I'll take the '34 for $1100...
1967. Gas was less than 25 cents a gallon. I was 13 and three years away from my first "real" job - and it's $1.60 an hour compensation. $1600.00 might as well had been a million bucks. But I read those ads each month and lusted over many of them. Thanks, Joey, for letting me relive my pain!!!!!!!
The turbine-powered '32 was bought by Harold LeMay in the late '70s at the Puyallup swap meet and is now in his museum...
For all my life, toy money hasn't (couldn't) come out of the household budget so the lasting impression from those adds was XXXX invested, sell for XXX.
#3 was sold to Bob Gorby back East The next owner changed the car and it is unrecognisable. It is Red with a Duvall style windshield and was in Colorado
When I was in my early teens I studied those adds for hours on end every month. a 50 cent allowance sure wasn't going to get me one though. On the Turbine powered 32 I am pretty sure that it showed up at the Henry's Hauler's run at Marymoor park in Redmond one year. With an old white paint job with enough rust showing to send a patina freak into a frenzy. That may have been after Harold bought it.
I saw this car #20 in Auburn at the hill climbs in the early 90's, was standing there telling my buddy Mike, I'd seen the car when I was twelve years old, at the Sears parking lot in Fresno Ca. in 1958. When a guy standing behind me says, what did you just say, turns out to be Richard Harmon. Richard never sold the roadster, and it was featured in Hot Rod Oct. 1959, then again in Street rodder, with the cars family history. Richard was glad he didn't sell his car!
Just finding out. After 43 years of marriage my wife and I bought our (her) first new car 6 years ago. Before that it was 3 year old, 30K mile cars for half the price of a new one. In 2012 those cars were 75% of a new one so I bit the bullet And before that it was cheap sweat equity cars.
You look at the prices, like $1100 for the 34, and think, Wow, that was cheap, but a new car was only about $2500 back then. $1 back then is $7.49 today, so that $1100 is $8239 today, nowhere near what that car would sell for. That car could bring $35,000 today easily, which is about half or a little better than what a full sized comparable vehicle would be today [think large SUV, Tahoe, Expedition, etc]. So the more things change, the more they stay the same. It was outta my reach in 67 [I was only 8 years old], and it's still outta my reach.....
It costs money to drive- period. Here's how I look at it and explain things to people on the fence. You could go on a nice yearly vacation, have a great time and spend a bunch of money. When it's over you have have some pictures and maybe some incredible memories hopefully not a bunch of credit card bills. Build a car and every time you open the garage you still have it, take it out and have an incredible time and make some incredible memories. Tomorrow it's not gone and you can do it all over again. When you get tired of it, you can sell it and get at least some of the money back. How much can you sell that vacation you took for?