Old gas stations

[2jakes]

⇧⇧⇧⇧
Ahhhhh...the name Raymond Loewy rings a bell!

Someone once described my bicycle light as having a “Raymond Loewy Look”.
I nodded in agreement but had no idea what they meant.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Coolness on the road!”

The first Corvette was a blue 1960 Chevrolet Corvette C1.
Every year Chevrolet would give a brand new model for Tod and Buz to drive.
The series mostly scripted by one of my favorites, Stirling Silliphant.

They weren't pulling off that level of cool in a androgynous Thunderbird.

And the gloves on the hood are pitch perfect. These photographers know what they are doing.

 

[Fading Fast]

1947 Studebaker, designed by the well-known industrial designer Raymond Loewy. He didn't expect it to become the butt of jokes, but it did, and he was not amused.

Loewy was also the Boy From Marketing who put a red square behind the Shell logo in the 1960s based on the "controlled background" theory: that a viewer remembers a logo better when the background behind it never changes.

Not discussing the larger social-polical context, but from a pure design perspective, I love the work of Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss.

 

[2jakes]

They weren't pulling off that level of cool in a androgynous Thunderbird.

Hmmmmm..I dunno about that!
I thought she was cool....or hot actually!

A good candidate for “name the actor, movie”.

 

[Fading Fast]

Hmmmmm..I dunno about that!
I thought she was cool....or hot actually!

A good candidate for “name the actor, movie & year”.
And double gold stars if you know the actor starring at her!

Suzanne Summers "American Graffiti"

It's not the car that makes the girl hot in that scene: It's the girl that makes the girl hot.

And no shock they put a girl in a T-bird and the boys get the Corvette.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Not discussing the larger social-polical context, but from a pure design perspective, I love the work of Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss.

I'm a Dreyfuss fan myself. The 300-series Western Electric telephone may be the single most perfectly designed item ever manufactured in the US.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm a Dreyfuss fan myself. The 300-series Western Electric telephone may be the single most perfectly designed item ever manufactured in the US.

You'll get no argument from me on the 300 series or on Dreyfuss. The single biggest reason I tilt Dreyfuss (but still think both are awesome) is because in the closest thing to head-to-head competition they had, I give Dreyfuss's 20th Century Limited design a big nod over Loewy's Broadway Limited.

 

[2jakes]

Since we’re on the topic of telephones, here’s a rare scene of Supie
waiting for the phone booth to change back to a mild mannered reporter.

 

[1955mercury]

Hope the cigarette wasn’t lit.

What is this guy doing? The gas tank on these Ford trucks was behind the seat and the filler cap on the side of the cab behind the door.

 

[2jakes]

What is this guy doing? The gas tank on these Ford trucks was behind the seat and the filler cap on the side of the cab behind the door.

If you look closely, he appears to be grinning either as a gag photo or
was asked to pose with the obvious, "No Smoking-Stop Motor” sign.

Personally, I think he’s got that smirk on his kisser because he knows that
you know where the filler cap is actually located.
The fact that it took many years before this was pointed out is irrelevant.
He’s probably somewhere in gas station heaven giving you
a wink!

Good eye on the details!

 

[Ghostsoldier]

I'm a Dreyfuss fan myself. The 300-series Western Electric telephone may be the single most perfectly designed item ever manufactured in the US.

I agree...I own 3 of those phones myself.

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Austin, TX 1955

Rob

 

[vitanola]

Not discussing the larger social-polical context, but from a pure design perspective, I love the work of Loewy and Henry Dreyfuss.

As far as telephone design is concerned, I much prefer stuff designed by engineers rather than by stylists. The Western Electric D1 handset mounting is my idea of perfection, though I really have a soft spot for the venerable 20 AL desk stand.

As far as actual "designers" are concerned, I'd pick Bel Geddes over Loewy or Dreyfus any day.

Here is a rather famous Bel Geddes design from 1931. Modern, elegant, yes, but not freakish. It would look well in any nicely decorated orated home of the day, I think.

But I actually much prefer the "Designed for Application" ethos of, say, Jim Millennials, who was an absolute prince!

The famous National HRO, the mechanical design for which Millen was responsible.

 

[Stearmen]

I am not a "car" guy but was "into" them as a teenager in the '70s like just about every boy was.

My impressions were formed then and the general feel was the Corvette, especially the ones from the '50s and '60s, was a fast, performance car (with the exception of its first two years of production, if memory serves). I grew up in a "Wonder Years" (the TV show) environment and foreign sport cars where, well, foreign to us. It was Vettes, Camaros, Mustangs and Firebirds and most of the '60s muscle cars that we knew about. And a '60s Vette was king of that hill.

T-birds, to us, were a joke. Especially since, by the '70s, it was something your mom drove if the family had a little bit of money (as it came in "fun" color packages). To be sure, I understand your point about "real" sports cars versus Vettes and how those deep in the game feel, but that's not the perspective I have as noted above.

Or let me go to what really, really counted at 17 in the '70s. The girls would have thought you were cool in Corvette but not so much in a Thunderbird.

Like I said, T-Birds were never called sports cars! I owned a 69 SS Camaro, worst handling pile ever, looked cool standing still and the girls loved it, but I don't miss it for a second! Now my 65 Mustang, that handled better. You can see why 65-66 Shelby GT350s are considered sports cars.

 

[Stearmen]

Here's the important part: We Corvette owners don't care a hoot what "real sportscar drivers" say or think.

Actually, Corvette drivers argue all the time over whether their cars are real sports cars, just read the comment section in any car magazine after a negative article comes out. Plus. the real snobs always tell me, the last Corvette was built in 1967! The latter has always put me of from buying a Vette, I don't want to be labeled a snob for no reason other then the car I drive. My taste in cars run all over the place, if I was rich, I would out Jay, Jay Leno!

 

[vitanola]

I agree...I own 3 of those phones myself.

Rob

I still have boxes of 302, 304, and 5302 sets in my telephone shed. In the house we are using a couple of 151 AL desk stands, a couple of B1 Handset mountings, a bunch of D1 handset mountings, a lonely old D-08 Danish handset instrument, and a couple of those Western Electric 553 wall sets, all operating behind an AT&T Partner II hybrid key telephone system, which operates as a private branch exchange (PBX) and inferentially converts the pulse output of the telephone dials to tone for accessing the bank and getting through voice mail systems.

 

[2jakes]

Detroit. 1936

 

[2jakes]

 

[2jakes]

General Petroleum station. Los Angeles.
Note the early style General “flying horse” signs.

The "flying horse” or Pegasus was first colored in red in the ‘30s.

 

[Fading Fast]

As far as telephone design is concerned, I much prefer stuff designed by engineers rather than by stylists. The Western Electric D1 handset mounting is my idea of perfection, though I really have a soft spot for the venerable 20 AL desk stand.

As far as actual "designers" are concerned, I'd pick Bel Geddes over Loewy or Dreyfus any day.

Here is a rather famous Bel Geddes design from 1931. Modern, elegant, yes, but not freakish. It would look well in any nicely decorated orated home of the day, I think.

View attachment 75056

But I actually much prefer the "Designed for Application" ethos of, say, Jim Millennials, who was an absolute prince!
View attachment 75057

The famous National HRO, the mechanical design for which Millen was responsible.

The first one is, as you said, elegant and very, iMHO, iconic as it or a version of it pops up in so many of the pre-code films of the time.

The second, the National HRO, is simple, functional, elegant and unfussy in such a successful way that it has been copied an uncountable number of times.

For example several years back, I bought super girlfriend a radio for the kitchen and, owing to a few reason I didn't go vintage (always my first choice), instead I picked up the Tivoli Audio Model One ⇩ because I though it echoed a classic design. Which I now see that it does - it echoes the Nation HRO.