Here’s the index page. Let me know if anything strikes your fancy and I’ll throw it in on Bonus Sunday.
“Walt Disney’s Mechanical Wonderland” is a detailed and somewhat technical look at, what else, the Mechanics of Disneyland circa 1957. It’s a total of 7 pages, and it's an easy paced read. Enjoy.
Look what I found on page 119, "Alweg Monorail Train Makes Experimental Run”. Maybe someone famous will see it and build one in the United States? Nah…
An interesting article on the upcoming “jet age” and how Los Angeles International airport would be built to handle the large jet planes. If you’ve ever been to LAX you know it came out very much like these designs and despite its massive crowds, it still functions well today.
The new cars for 1958, tons and tons of USA Steel. And of course fiberglass for the Corvette, “The only American production car that is taken seriously by the sports-car set”.
Now for a few ads. Buick was so proud of the 164 individual free floating chrome squares in its monster-grill that it took out a two page ad. It’s hard to argue that its not a “Fresh, Bold Look”.
A Bold Look, but maybe not so Fresh. You gotta love those floor tiles!
Perfect Circle rings. You don’t want to be the embarrassment of your neighborhood! If you missed my post of the “Magic Circle” magazine from June 1956 check it out here (link).
That’s really about it for interesting full pages ads. Most of the ads pages (at least 75 pages) are like this one; these old Popular Mechanics are stuffed with these cheesy little ads.
The back cover is a little beat up, but hey at least its in color!
7 comments:
So much great stuff (love the Corvette)!
The Alweg Monorail ad is interesting too... their version looks more like a bus; probably more practical, but it doesn't hurt to make your monorail look cool!
Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, the two greatest magazines ever published. Its TRUE!
Fantastic post Tim. I am going nutz over this stuff. Thanks.
Major: I seem to recall that Bob Gurr didn't think much of the styling of the prototype monorail either. He said it was about as "exciting as a loaf of bread" or something like that.
Another marvelous magazine Monday!
Oh man! I hadn't seen this one before. Another super post!
Tim - Excellent post, and I love the additional material you always include along with the Disneyland articles to give a feel for the times. The Evinrude ad is great - a number of outboard motors of that era were true works of "industrial art", with many Evinrudes being designed by Raymond Loewy and other heavyweights.
One other thing - I believe Google Books has the complete runs of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science available for viewing for free. I used to scarf these up when I was a kid!
2x what Dave said re. the Evinrude outboard and industrial art.
The timing on this is funny, cause I was looking at old photos from outboards from the 1950's and thinking how classy they looked. Now they have all the styling of an oil derrick.
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