Guys,
Here are a few old advertisements from New Zealand that I came across while surfing:


Advertisement from 1923:


Advertisement from 192?:


Advertisement from 1935:


Hmm,
Not actually an advertisement, but haven't we come a long way in workplace safety rules?.



Un-believeable!.

{Message edited to correct bad tag}

{Extra edit to insert dates}


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-09-2005).]

Mike, is this NZ? One of them blokes is the right way up!! Lookit that daft bugger stripping the insulation with his teeth! In any case, they are both up the pole- those shorts with braces are soooo outre.

Alan

Alan,
Yes it is, it's from when the first single circuit 110kV lines were run.
And yes, you'd sort of have to hope that the guy that was the right way up, was the fella on the bottom set of cross-arms.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-07-2005).]

Just a little question.
Did the Detroit Electric Car ever have much of a turn-over in the US?.
Reason I ask that, is because, goods were never sent here from the US unless they sold well there, we had the Model A and the Model T here, but this?.

Electric cars were popular among well-to-do women until about 1930. Women did not want to deal with hand-cranked starters, pre-synchromesh gearboxes, manual chokes, and the like. Most of their driving was local, so range was not an issue. As internal combustion technology improved (electric start, better gearboxes, automatic choke, etc.) electrics faded from the scene.

Electric trucks were used to some extent for local delivery during this same period. Having fewer moving parts, they were more reliable in the earlier years. A company whose delivery routes could easily be planned within the limitations of the batteries might have found this an attractive option. As internal combustion became more reliable in the late '20s/early '30s, these too were phased out.

I think I remember reading that Jack Mack, the founder of Mack Trucks, was killed when he stopped to help a woman start her car. Manual starters were famous for breaking arms when a cylinder would backfire. In Mack's case, the crank hit him in the jaw and broke his neck.

1924
In the early afternoon of March 14, Jack Mack was enroute to a business meeting in Weatherly, Pennsylvania in his Chandler coupe. His car became involved in an accident with a trolley car of the Lehigh Valley Transit Company, which was crossing the road diagonally. Jack was killed almost instantly when his light car, being pushed off the road ahead of the trolley, was caught against a heavy pole and crushed like an egg shell. His body was interred in Fairview Cemetery in Allentown, just above the former Mack plant on 10th Street.

OK, no wonder I couldn't find it on Google. All I found is that he died in a car accident in 1924. I read that story about somebody. I don't know how I thought it was Jack Mack.

BTW, if you Google him, you have to "-heart attack".

Happened to my grandfather when he tried to crank up a tractor some time during the 1950ies.

Regarding that accident: until today trolley cars are much stronger in accidents than ordinary cars... from the trolley car accidents we had here in the last 20 years I can say the only things that are really dangerous for trolley cars are snow ploughs, trucks and members of their own species.
About a year ago a bus driver crossed a red light, got hit by a trolley car and the trolley drove almost right through the bus. The bus was scrap metal and two people died (even worse, two children, a 4 year old boy flew out of the window and a 16 year old boy was decapitated by sharp metal edges), the trolley was repaired pretty soon and is in service again... the worst injury in the trolley was a bruise...

Not to mention the manual control of ignition advance/retard which was common back then as well.


It's interesting to compare how certain features became accepted as standard in some places while still regarded as luxuries in others.

For example, British cars with a normal carbureted engine still had manual chokes decades after automatic chokes became standard in Detroit.

As for automatic transmission, it's still only a tiny proportion of vehicles which are so equipped in the U.K.

As an extreme example, the East German Trabant had a manual choke until 1990.

Ludicrous to even think of installing an automatic choke in a car with a cardboard body and a 36 cu. in. 2 cylinder two-stroke smoke-generator. That'd be like fitting sat-nav on a tea trolley. They were and still are popular, heaven knows why. Perhaps BMW will bring out a 'retro-model', like the new Mini!

Alan

I've owned 2 vehicles with Automatic Chokes and I must say that an Automatic Choke is ok, but if it ever turns faulty or fails, watch out!.
Personally, I'd sooner have a manual choke any day.
Alan,
You mean yours hasn't got one?.
Boy, you're just so old-school!.

Ok here come the trabi jokes(from the ol' east german days):

Q: know how you triple the value of a trabi?
A: put a bananna in the back window

Q: why does a trabi have twin exhaust pipes?
A: so that when it breaks down you can push it like a wheelbarrow

Trumpy is dead right about the manual chokes too. As I recall it was also a feature of Datsun (now nissan) Z cars in the early years too. And god help you if the thing ever sticks..

Of course, 'chokes' don't exist any more on cars. The computer works out the required fuel-mix from the sensors' data, and via the fuel injectors, adjusts the air/fuel ratio and the advance/retard accordingly. The only difference from the old way of mixture-control, is when it goes wrong: $1500 for a new Engine Management Computer vs. $1.99 for a bit of bowden cable and a clothes peg. Anyone remember that trick?
The 'cardboard' body was actually quite a good idea. It's a resin composite using cellulose wood fibers; it's light and won't rust, and they gotalotta trees in East Germany! Downside is in a slight bump, you're driving a naked shopping-cart. But, nobody laughs today about modern flimsy plastic fenders/bumpers which collapse if you hit a wasp at speed, now do they?

Alan

Actually that car has more metal to it than anybody would believe... I've seen rusted Trabants! Basically only the outer sheathing is plastic. They're cool though... it was the first car I got to drive when visiting relatives in Eastern Germany... beware of the weird stick shift! It can compete with Citroen 2CV and Renault R4!

Speakin' of French voitures, 'Top Gear', a 'cheeky' BBC motoring show, ( I hesitate to call it a programme ), just completed a 'customer satisfaction survey'. Gess wot cum larst? You got it, mostly the French.
159th= Peugot 806; 158th= Peugot307; just behind the Renault Espace, R.Laguna, Mercedes M. Class, Fiat Stilo, Rover 25, R.Megane, P.205 Citroen Xsara. Peugot refused to let them have an 806 to take the p155 out of on air, so they had a large galvanised bucket of steaming horse-droppings in the studio instead. I don't know how they get away with it.
Top? Honda, Lexus and Skoda. http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/survey/last_10.shtml

Alan

One thing that I find strange from the first advert is the fact that we imported electric motors from the US??.
General Electric is not really a name that you associate with appliances and stuff here.
I'm not sure wether they would have been custom-made for our 230V system here or our system had a different voltage at the time.

HMV means His Masters Voice. I don't really remeber, I guess the dog on the pic hears his master's voice, that's why it became this.

The other thought: I have never thought I would find a Trabant on ECN LOL

(You know 15 years ago we only had Trabant, Wartburg and Dacia here as a part of the economical community. Well some rich people could bring her Alfa or Rolls home after leaving in '56)

Yes, and the dog's name was "Nipper."

In the U.K., the symbol became the trademark of The Gramophone Company Ltd., and appeared on the H.M.V. record label for decades. Here's an example from the 1940s:




It became somewhat less prominent in later years, however, as this example from the late 1950s shows:



(H.M.V. became part of the giant E.M.I. group in the 1960s.)


In the United States, however, the symbol was the trademark of RCA Victor:



When RCA started issuing British pressings of records over here in the 1950s, they had to use a completely different label as "Nipper" was already the HMV Trademark.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-20-2005).]

Here's a 1952 ad for Hoover washing machines:




P.S. Note the purchase tax at the time for such a "luxury" item -- Over 41 percent!




[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-20-2005).]

I received an email regarding the Detroit Electric Ad:

Do you know what that car reminds me of?
I always have to think of Grandma Duck...