Category Archives: Automobile photos with children
Essence of the Essen Techno-Classica
Today we have coverage of another great European show from our young friend Pavel Novitski from London, England. You might recall seeing some of his earlier work here on The Old Motor (scroll down) of both the 2012 Windsor Castle Show and Regent Street Motorshow. This time our intrepid correspondent traveled to Essen, Germany to cover Techno-Classica, the next big show of the year over there after Retromobile.
Said by it’s organizers to be the largest event of it’s kind in the world, it’s unlike any indoor show seen in this country. Exhibits include not only cars from private museums, but from manufacturer’s historic collections as well, 25 of which contributed this year, the 25th anniversary of the event. Dealers in antiques and classics also occupy floor space cheek by jowl with the others.
Last year’s show attracted something like 180,000 spectators over the five day run. They were treated to an incredibly diverse group of automobiles. A small sampling of the magnificent and significant prewar cars on exhibit this year can be seen in Pavel’s accompanying photographs (below). Excellent examples of Bentleys, Bugattis, Delages, Mercedes’ and Talbots were amongst the hundreds on display, including many from the great collections of the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands and the Mullin Automotive Museum in California. You can read more about the Techno-Classica here and also see more of Pavel Novitski’s work at PavelNovitski.com.
Look Ma – No Hands – Baby Vanderbilt Racing Cars
This batch of photos shows some of a group of small racing cars that were run on the West Coast, in the mid-teens in a series. The name of the organization that sanctioned this racing was called ”The Junior Racing Series of America” and the cars ran at various different tracks on the west coast including at Ascot, in San Francisco at the 1915 Vanderbilt races (called the “Baby Vanderbilt”) and also in Tacoma, WA.
The series served as a training ground to a few drivers who then went on to very sucessful careers. Many of the cars were powered v-twin motorcycle engines. The staged photo (above) is of an unidentified car and driver in California.
The photo on the left (above) is courtesy of Walter Gosden and came with the caption: “Percy McFadden in a baby Stutz: Ascot Park, L.A.” This car appears to be a twin to another Stutz, that you can see photos of here on The Old Motor, which were also taken at Ascot and in another location. The photo on the right (above) is from California and unidentified.
The photo (below) is one of our favorites and shows a very interesting under-slung machine with belt drive, it was also taken California and is unidentified. If any of our readers can ID any of these cars or drivers, or has more photos of these little pint-sized cars please let us know.
You can also see Harry Hartz in another photo of here on The Old Motor in his Baby Mercer and read an article about this racing, which was in The Horseless Age Magazine in 1915.
Were there “Helicopter Moms” back in 1961?
This photo leads us to believe that “Helicoptor Moms” might not be a new phenomenon as we have observed fairly recently. The location of this photo, which is dated Feb. 24, 1961, is unknown. Information with it states that parents were clogging the streets, picking up their kids at school and it had been an ongoing problem.
Regardless of the problem shown, today some fifty plus years later, it gives us a great view of the average American iron on the road at the time. The oldest being a pair of 1953 Chevrolets and possibly the newest, being the big Chrysler with the eye brow style bumpers creating its own lane on the right middle of the photo. What is the lone import seen in the middle? Do you see anything remarkable or rare here? Photo courtesy of Frank Barnes.
