Dayton, Ohio 1958 -- Free Cokes at the Shell Station in Celebration of the Opening of Hills and Dales Shopping Center

Hitchcock's "Suspicion" (1941) and a 1936 Lagonda LG 45 4.5 liter drophead coupe

From Ed --- We often don't associate the film corpus of Alfred Hitchcock with automobiles however, today, I was in a University of Dayton Learning in Retirement seminar focused on the films of Hitchcock and viewed one of the first films he made after he moved from England to Hollywood -- Suspicion (1941) -- with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine.

Suspicion

Hitchcock supposedly had a life-long fear of police that ran so deep he refused to get a driver’s license on account of the possibility that he might someday be pulled over and ticketed. Instead of the driver’s seat, Hitchcock preferred the director’s chair where he often used fast cars and cliff-top roads to build suspense. Enter Suspicion. This 1941 romantic psychological thriller (starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine) features a cliff-top climax with a 1936 Lagonda LG45 4½-litre drophead coupé.

A beautiful '36 Lagonda -- like in this film -- can see seen in the attachment to this message.

Here's a nice website from the Historic Vehicle Association (HVA) that looks at a few of the many automobiles found in various Hitchcock films:

https://www.historicvehicle.org/on-the-tube-the-cars-of-hitchcock/

Zen and the Art of Doing Automotive History Fast and Furiously

 Zen and the Art of Doing Automotive History Fast and Furiously

Ohio Academy of History Distinguished Historian Lecture

March 22, 2019

John Heitmann

Professor of History

University of Dayton

300 College Park

Dayton, OH 45469-1540 

            It has been said that the automobile is the perfect technological symbol of American culture, a tangible expression of our quest to level space, time and class, and a reflection of our restless mobility, social and otherwise. Open questions remain as to the place of the automobile in American life, and how it transformed business, and life on the farm, and vice-versa.In a complex transition between the 1890s and the present, the automobile experienced adoption, diffusion, and then became an object of social criticism.   It remains a chief driving force within the American and global economies. In sum, the automobile transformed everyday life and the environment in which we operate.  It influenced the foods we eat; music we listen to; risks we take; places we visit; errands we run; emotions we feel; movies we watch; stress we endure; and, the air we breathe.[1]In exploring the automobile and mobility we possess a key to understanding of the 20^thand 21^stcenturies.

            While it has been fashionable over the last twenty years to interpret the history of technology through various social constructs and increasingly in a global or Atlantic context, it remains true that to mid-20th century individuals played a critical role in automotive history.  The usual suspects for such a discussion would include Henry Ford, Billy Durant, Alfred P. Sloan, Walter Chrysler, and Harley Earl, and a mountain of historical work has appeared on these innovators.[2]For the purposes of this evening’s lecture, however, I want to focus on four other individuals with deep roots in Ohio and with a profound impact on the world-- Barney Oldfield, Charles Kettering, Richard Grant and Ned Jordan. This group is reflective of Ohio’s significance in American automotive history.[3]Even further, this story is how a handful of “Ohio players” contributed to the shaping of recent modernity in terms of speed, science-based industrial research, sales, and advertising. 

*****

To this day, the history of automobile racing remains a neglected academic subject. Indeed, in 2014 David Lucsko asserted that one can count the number of scholarly works on the finger of one hand. He went on to say that “on balance, you are likely to encounter a greater depth of scholarship on just about any other subject in the history of the twentieth century United States.”[4]  Indeed, early racing was more about speed than a utilitarian demonstration.  Consequently, speed was at the center of early automotive history, and racing resulted in the widespread perception that outright speed was transformative. Racing did more than spread the word about the automobile; it was the word. In sum, as Wolfgang Sachs argued in For Love of the Automobile, competition was at the heart of the public’s dream of car ownership and their expectations for experiencing driving’s breathtaking exhilaration. [5]And while early contests were fostered by the efforts of wealthy amateurs including William Vanderbilt, it was Barney Oldfield, born in 1878 near Wauseon, Ohio, who symbolized every American male’s desire for speed.  In contrast to the wealth and privilege that came with being a Vanderbilt, Oldfield was a brash and hardscrabble outsider who beat the elite at their own game[6]Oldfield lived through an impoverished childhood while working a host of manual jobs before he began racing bicycles towards the end of the 19^thcentury. His big break in automobile racing came in 1902, when he agreed to pilot Henry Ford’s 999 racer, and winning a highly publicized match race against Alexander Winton. The first driver to go a mile a minute in a closed course, he doubled that speed a year later. And while he never won the most prestigious of events – the Gordon Bennett Trophy, the Vanderbilt Cup, or the Indianapolis 500, Oldfield, more than any other driver of his era, shifted the focus of auto racing from the car to the driver. His cars were memorable – the “Green Dragon,” “Blitzen Benz,” and “Golden Submarine.” But his face was so publically recognizable that he could truthfully exclaim that “You Know Me!”   A mythical hero and the product of his clever and persistent media presence in film, big city newspapers, and magazines, he also had a sold-out ten week run in the Broadway musical “The Vanderbilt Cup” featuring a mock race set on treadmills between Barney and Tom Cooper.

Wearing little protective gear so that spectators could see his expression and demeanor, Oldfield became the human face to a sport where drivers were now recognized as being at the heart of competition as much or more than the cars.  He could be seen chomping on a cigar as he waved to the crowd while taking the checkered flag, or coming out of the dust on the outside of the track. He excited the public imagination with thoughts of speed, exhilaration and courage. And if you are from my generation, you may remember a father’s exclamation, while being passed by a hot-rodder, blurted, “Who do you think you are, Barney Oldfield!” 

*****

Speed is the consequence of power. The achievement of power by scientific and technical organization precluded satisfying the masses with production. Biographer Stewart W. Leslie has said this about Charles Franklin Kettering and his technological style:  “He made corporate bureaucracy work for him. Within the largest private organization of his time he fashioned a managerial role that proved technological entrepreneurship could flourish, and one man could still make a difference.”[7]Kettering had remarkable personal qualities that distinguished him as one of the leading industrial scientists of his and any other era in American history. He was sharply inquisitive, and this trait led to an intimate knowledge associated with the problem at hand, the result of close observation and direct experience. Kettering was equally comfortable in both theory and practice, and he usually focused his attention on a commercial bottleneck where improvement seemed possible rather than striking out into completely unexplored areas. Yet he had little use for high-powered scientific theories and abstruse terminology that usually had little applicability in an industrial setting. He once said that “Thermodynamics is a big word for covering up our inability to understand temperature.”9

Kettering and Knudsen, testifying on monopoly in Washington, mid-1930s

            Kettering’s major successes occurred early in his automotive career, with his electric self-starter and followed by an integrated ignition system. His self starter neither “accidental” nor “inspired.” Rather it was a deliberate, calculated attempt to bring forth a definite device. Building on the work of others before him, Kettering finally succeeded in producing his starter, and the Cadillac for 1912 came out with complete electrical equipment. Other cars soon followed. The next year, 48 manufacturers provided starters for their machines, and in 1914 there remained only five companies, or about 8% of all companies, that did not offer this feature. Thus, what would have been regarded as a luxury before 1912 became a necessity by 1914.  A little later, electric starting was offered even on the Ford. And with that device women in increasing numbers got behind the wheel, profoundly altering American society. 

            He subsequently sold this ignition coil design to Henry Leland at Cadillac, and this success would not only form the basis of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) but also further work leading to an integrated electrical system. That technology involved a self starter, generator, voltage regulator and lighting units, which were also first sold to Cadillac before being marketed to other companies.¹¹By early 1913, Delco occupied three floors of a rented factory building in East Dayton, Ohio, employed 1,500 workers, and had sold a total of 35,000 starting, lighting, and ignition systems. Despite the catastrophic Dayton Flood of 1913, Delco continued to grow, and thus by the end of that year the firm tripled its annual output, to more than 45,000 units. Profitable and innovative, it would be purchased by Billy Durant at General Motors in 1916. 

Kettering’s successes at General Motors as head of research would far outweigh his failures. Yet he once said, “You must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.” After a discouraging failure in 1924 involving the development of an air-cooled mass-produced vehicle, success came to Kettering when a General Motors reorganization rationalized research with manufacturing, marketing, and design. 

All that was left to be done, in the words of Kettering, was to “keep the customer dissatisfied.”[8]It was a different kind of challenge, one demanding a series of enhancements rather than revolutionary change. Technological changes related to automotive lighting, paint, suspension, the engine, and drive train were made incrementally during the 1930s. To achieve those innovations a new 11-story brick building was opened in Detroit, where by the late 1930s a staff of 400, including 100 degreed scientists and engineers worked in an interdisciplinary fashion. 

But the looks of the vehicle became increasingly critical to the annual model change, in advertising copy, and consequently in attracting consumers. It was a strategy of planned obsolescence. The result was technological stagnation. After the introduction of strip steel in 1932 and the adoption of the all-steel body, the industry experienced no further watershed innovations. The post-WWII era saw a new Kettering overhead valve V-8 engine introduced with the Oldsmobile Rocket 88 in 1949, afterwards European manufacturers and suppliers became the innovators, of everything from front wheel drive cars, torsion bar suspension, disc brakes, and fuel injection. 

 Without Kettering, Dayton would not have become the city that it was prior to the 1970s, nor would GM. Next to Flint, Michigan, and perhaps Russelheim, Germany, no city had been influenced by GM’s success more than Dayton, Ohio.[9]With a history in agricultural implement manufacture and the birthplace of the National Cash Register Company, Dayton was home to a large number of skilled machinists who subsequently found employment in the rapidly-growing automobile-related firms established by Boss Kettering and his associates. According to Fortune,in 1938 approximately 100,000 of the 200,000 residents of Dayton owed their economic livelihoods directly to General Motors. Not all of these activities were strictly involved automobile manufacturing. Frigidaire employed 12,000 workers making refrigerators, beer coolers, air conditioners, electric ranges, and water heaters. Nearby, in central Dayton, Delco Products made electric motors not only for Frigidaires, but also for Maytag washers, Globe meat slicers, and DuPont rayon spinners. It was estimated that some 10 million motors worldwide could be traced back to Dayton.  Additionally, Delco made coil springs and shock absorbers for GM, Nash, Hudson, Graham, and Packard automobiles. Finally, Delco had a brake operation, making hydraulic brake assemblies and brake fluid while housed in perhaps the only flop to bear GM’s corporate name, General Motors Radio. Often overlooked, GM’s Inland Manufacturing in Dayton had its origins in WWI and the Dayton-Wright Airplane Co. After the war, its woodworking department formed the basis of an enterprise to make wooden steering wheels and later rubber-based ones. Product diversification followed, so that the firm made everything from rubber cement to running boards, motor mounts, and weather strips. To borrow a phrase from a book boosting the city during the 1950s, truly GM’s Dayton operations were at the heart of was “dynamic Dayton.”

*****

            Brought more to GM than just technical expertise. Kettering brought talent that made crucial contributions to GM’s efforts to surpass the Ford Motor Company during the Interwar years. One of his closest associates at Delco was Richard H. Grant, who drew on his experiences at National Cash Register and the sales philosophy of John Patterson to teach GM to sell – first Chevrolets and then the entire product line. Known as “Dynamic Dick” as well as the “Little Giant,” Grant was one of America’s great salesmen. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Harvard, Grant learned to sell at NCR, became its general sales manager in 1913, later moved to Delco and Frigidaire, and in 1923 joined Chevrolet as sales manager. In 1929, Grant became a GM vice-president and was one of the top four or five executives of the firm during the 1930s, with memberships on six policy groups.

            The “Little Giant” played a major role in reorganizing the distribution system at GM, eliminating distributors who previously held large territories and had control over local dealers. He was an orator and showman, but beneath the surface Grant was a careful, systematic thinker who implemented market research, accounting, and training procedures throughout the corporation. Grant had learned seven fundamentals of sales from NCR’s John Patterson that were subsequently instilled into GM personnel:

1. Have the right product.

2. Know the potential of each market area.

3. Constantly educate your salesmen on the product, making them listen to canned demonstrations and learn sales talks by heart.

4. Constantly stimulate your sales force, and foster competition. among them with contests and comparisons.

5. Cherish simplicity in all presentations.

6. Use all kinds of advertising.

7. Constantly check up on your salesmen, but be reasonable with them and make no promises you can’t keep.¹⁵

Grant further refined Alfred Sloan’s notion of using R. L. Polk Company’s monthly state registration data to closely monitor subtle shifts in consumer demand. By the late 1920s, this information would be relayed to William Knudsen’s production group, thus ensuring that the automobiles made would be the kind that customers would quickly buy off dealer’s lots. After the Depression hit, Grant responded in 1932 with an aggressive strategy of reorganization and renewed energy centered on the formation of the Buick-Olds-Pontiac Sales Company. Grant’s legacy included: the use of roadside billboards and radio for advertising Chevrolets; the mailing of postcards informing owners of new models; and at the tail end of his career the first sponsored TV show (“The Dinah Shore Show”). 

*****

            The Jordan automobile presents a different story but with a similar ending. The Jordon was the result of the vision and energy of Edward S. “Ned” Jordan.[10]Born in 1881 and educated at the University of Wisconsin, Jordan’s career included a stint in advertising at the National Cash Register Company in Dayton and in a similar position with the Jeffery Automobile Company, located in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1916, Jordan organized his own automobile company in Cleveland, Ohio, with the idea that the firm’s vehicles would manufacture cars that cost not quite as much as a Cadillac but more than a Buick. Always relatively expensive and assembled from parts, engines, and bodies made elsewhere, about 80,000 units were sold between 1916 and 1931. At $2,000 plus, the Jordan was marketed at the well-to-do.

            The Jordon was noteworthy for several reasons. Ned Jordan had an uncanny understanding of fashionable American consumers from the point of view of color. His cars could be ordered in a number of unusual shades, long before the color revolution of the mid-to-late 1920s. As early as 1917 Jordan cars could be purchased in colors such as Liberty Blue, Pershing Gray, Italian Tan, Jordan Maroon, Mercedes Red, and Venetian Green. And when the “True Blue” Oakland was introduced in 1923, Jordan quickly followed with its 1923 Blue Boy model. Secondly, Jordan understood the post-WWI youth market and responded with the marque’s most famous model, the Playboy. Supposedly, the Playboy idea was the result of Ned’s dance with a 19-year old Philadelphia socialite, who quipped, “Mr. Jordan, why don’t you build a car for the girl who loves to swim, paddle and shoot and for the boy who loves the roar of a cut out?”[11]Ned would later refer to this as a million dollar idea, and the Playboy was born. Jordan had a gift for writing advertising copy; in 1920 a Jordan Playboy ad suggested a visit to a local bordello:

            Somewhere far beyond the place where man and motors race through canyons of the town – there lies the Port of Missing Men.

            It may be in the valley of our dreams of youth, or the heights of future happy days.

            Go there in November when logs are blazing in the grate. Go there in a Jordan Playboy if you love the spirit of youth.

            Escape the drab of dull winter’s coming – leave the roar of city streets and spend an hour in Eldorado.[12]

            As a flamboyant advertising copywriter, Jordan’s Playboy ad copy written in 1923, “Somewhere West of Laramie,” transformed American automobile advertising. [13]The early days of automobile advertising often emphasized specific features of an automobile.  This style of advertising was swept aside by Jordan in the mid-1920s.[14]

            While traveling on a train across the flat and monotonous Wyoming plains, a tall, tan, and athletic horsewoman suddenly appeared, racing her horse toward Jordan’s window. For a brief moment the two were rather close as the woman smiled at him; then she turned and was gone. Jordan asked a fellow traveler where they were: “Oh, somewhere west of Laramie,” was the desultory reply. Within minutes he composed an immortal ad that later appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. Beneath an illustration of a cowgirl racing a sporty Jordan roadster against a cowboy straining to push his fleet-looking steed to catch up with her, there appeared these words:  

Somewhere west of Laramie there’s a bronco-busting, steer roping girl who knows what I am talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that’s a cross between greased lightning and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he’s going high, wide and handsome.

The truth is the Playboy was built for her.

Built for the lass whose face is brown with the sun when the day is done of revel and romp and race.

Step into the Playboy when the hour grows dull with things gone dead and stale.

Then start for the land of real living with the spirit of the lass who rides, lean and rangy, into the red horizon of a Wyoming twilight.

The Playboy sold like hot cakes, and this ad galvanized the auto industry. Soon Chevrolet and Rickenbacker responded with ad lines “All outdoors can be yours,” and “The American Beauty,” respectively.[15]Previously ads mentioned the features of the car, but with the Jordan ad new parameters came into play – freedom, speed, and romance. Emblematic was the fact that the practical Model T's life had come to an end. Now art and color would be the keys to auto sales. Advertising was ultimately directed to influencing the human spirit, as modernity now worshiped things with promises.

*****

In closing, I have told the story of four Ohioans whose contributions within the American Automobile industry were transcendent beyond it. Modernism means many things to scholars, but it seems rather obvious that speed, scientific and technical industrial research, the art of selling and advertising had a profound impact on modern life and what it means to be human. With the closing of the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly complex, the demands of economies of scale, the shift in markets, and labor dislocations are again front-page news. Yet the stories of Barney Oldfield, Boss Kettering, Richard Grant, and Ned Jordan are timeless and encouraging. Their stories demonstrate the possibilities attached to personalities and new ideas. 

---

[1]A number of recent essays and books have taught me to think differently about the history of the automobile. They include Gijs Mom, Atlantic Automobilism: Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940(New York, 2015); Cotten Seiler, Republic of Drivers: A Cultural of History of Automobility in America(Chicago, 2008); Sally H. Clarke, Trust and Power: Consumers, the Modern Corporation, and the Making of the United States Automobile Market  (Cambridge, UK, 2007); Bernhard Rieger, “Fast Couples’: Technology, Gender, and Modernity in Britain and Germany During the Nineteen-Thirties,”Historical Research, 76 (August 2003): 364-88; Rudy Kosher, “Cars and Nations: Anglo-German Perspectives on Automobility Between the World Wars,” Theory, Culture, & Society, 21 (2004): 121-144; Wolfgang Sachs, For Love of the Automobile:  Looking Back into the History of Our Desires(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992); Sean O’Connell, The Car and British Society:  Class, Gender and Motoring 1896-1939(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).

[2]Definitive histories on Ford include Allan Nevins,Ford, 3 vols., (New York: Scribner, 1954-1963); Robert Lacey, Ford, the Men and the Machine(New York: Little, Brown, 1986); John Bell Rae, Henry Ford(New York,: Prentice-Hall, 1969); Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903-2003(New York: Viking, 2003); Steven Watts, The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century(New York: Knopf, 2005); Anne Jardim, The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Leadership(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970). On his early years, see Sidney Olson, Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1963). On Durant, see Axel Madsen, The Deal Maker: How William C. Durant Made General Motors(New York: Wiley, 1999); Lawrence R. Gustin, Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1973). On Sloan, see David R. Farber, Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). Among Sloan’s writings are Adventures of a White Collar-Man(New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1941); My Years with General Motors(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964). For a contemporary look at Sloan, see “Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., Chairman,” Fortune17 (April 1938): 72-7. See also Stephen Bayley,Harley Earl and the Dream Machine (New York: Knopf, 1983); Harley Earl(New York: Taplinger, 1990); Anthony J. Yanik, “Harley Earl and the Birth of Modern Automotive Styling,” Chronicle: TheQuarterly Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan, 21(1985), 18-22; Sally Clarke, “Managing Design: the Art and Colour Section at General Motors, 1927-1941,” Journal of Design History12 (1999): 65-79.

[3]On the history of the automobile industry in Ohio, see Robert R. Ebert, “From Garfords to Fords,” Automotive History Review, 53(Autumn, 2011), 4-18;Richard Wagner, Golden Wheels: the Story of Automobiles Made in Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio 1892-1932(Cleveland, 1986). Steve Meyer, “An Economic Frankenstein”’: UAW Workers’ Response to Automation at the Ford Brook Park Plant in the 1950s,” Michigan Historical Review, 28 (March, 2002), 63-89; David A. Hounshell, “Ford Automates: Technology and Organization in Theory and Practice,” Business and Economic History, 24 (1995), 59-71; Gregory D.L. Morris, “When Cleveland as Motown,” Financial History, 114 (Summer, 2015), 32-5; Frank E. Wrenick, Automobile Manufacturers of Cleveland and Ohio, 1864-1942. (Jefferson, NC, 2016). 

[4]David N. Lucsko, “American Motorsports: The Checkered Literature on the Checkered Flag,” The most important question related to the history of auto racing is often raised but remains to be carefully and systematically answered. Namely, what is the influence, and vice-versa, of racing on the technical development of production vehicles? This rationale was used frequently in justifying the horrific death toll that took place on tracks and circuits to the 1970s. What has been far better demonstrated are the connections between advertising and racing, and utility and reliability trials, starting with John Rae Bell’s The American Automobile (1965). Of the work I would consider “academic,” one of the best was written by a non-academic, Griffith Borgeson, The Golden Age of the American Racing Car(New York, 1966). See also W. David Lewis, Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in he Twentieth Century(Baltimore, 2005); Robert C. Post, High performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing (Baltimore, 1994); Ben A. Shakelford, “Masculinity, the Auto Racing Fraternity, and the Technological Sublime: The Pit Stop as a Celebration of Social Roles,” in Roger Horowitz (ed.), Boys and their Toys? Masculinity, Class, and Technology in America(New York, 2001).

[5]Sachs,For the Love of the Automobile; Tom McCarthy, Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment(New Haven, 2007); Brian Ladd, Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automobile Age (Chicago, 2008).

[6]Timothy Messer-Kruse, “You Know Me: Barney Oldfield,” Timeline, 19, no. 3 (2002): 2‑19; William F. Nolan, Oldfield; the Life and Times of America’s Legendary Speed King(New York, 1961); Mark D. Howell, ‘“You Know Me!’ Barney Oldfield and the Creation of a Legend,” Automotive History Review, 36 (Summer, 2000), 26-30.

[7]Stewart W. Leslie, Boss Kettering(New York: Columbia University Press, 1983). In addition to Leslie’s fine biography, see Sigmund A. Lavine, Kettering: Master Inventor(New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1960); Rosamond McPherson Young, Boss Ket: A Life of Charles F. Kettering(New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1961). “General Motors: Boss Ket, Vice President and Distinguished Head of the Research Laboratories Division,” Fortune19 (March 1939): 44-52.

[8]Leslie, pp.182-205.

[9]“General Motors,” Fortune18 (December 1938): 40-7, 146.

[10]On the Jordan Motor Car Company, see James H. Lackey, The Jordan Automobile: A History(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005).

[11]Lackey, 24.

[12]Literary Digest(November 13, 1920): 94-5.

[13]My understanding of advertising and history was shaped by the following sources: Pamela Walker Laird, “ ‘The Car Without a Single Weakness’: Early Automobile Advertising,” Technology and Culture(1996): 796-812; Peter Roberts,Any Color So Long as its’ Black . . . the First Fifty Years of Automobile Advertising(New York, 1976); Yasutoshi Ikuta, American Automobile: Advertising from the Antique and Classic Eras(San Francisco, 1988); Helen Damon-Moore, Magazines for the Millions: Gender and Commerce in the Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post(Albany, 1994); T.J. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York, 1994); William M. O’Barr, Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising(Boulder, CO, 1994); Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising(New York, 1984); Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising (London, 1978); Claude Hopkins, My Life in Advertising(New York, 1927); Richard Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America(New York, 1990), Chapter 3; Julian L. Watkins, The 100 Greatest Advertisements: Who Wrote Them and What They Did(New York, 1959).

[14]On the Jordan Motor Car Company, see James H. Lackey, The Jordan Automobile: A History(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005).

[15]“Automobiles II: The Dealer,” Fortune(December 1931): 43.

The Last Ride Before Cremation

From Ed -- THE LAST RIDE BEFORE CREMATION

Last year I took a seminar in the University of Dayton's Lifelong Learning Institute called "There's Nothing Wrong in Talking About Dying" -- various speakers including a prominent funeral director here in the Dayton area.  Might as well know these things.

But yesterday, I had an interesting conversation.  You see, the place where I "work out" most days of the week is located just around the corner from a funeral home.  I've often driven by and around back noticed a dark blue Dodge Caravan  with dark tinted rear windows.  Its always parked near the rear garage doors of the funeral home.  My assumption was that this was the vehicle that was used to pick up the body of a deceased person from his or her home.  

Indeed, a little research on my part suggested that one of the preferred vehicles that funeral homes used for this "first chore" was a Dodge or Chrysler Minivan with after-market tinted side and rear windows.  A nondescript vehicle that wouldn't raise eyebrows as its parked in someone's driveway early in the morning.  

In the "trade" these vehicles are known as "first call cars."

So as I was rounding the corner headed to my daily exercise, I saw the funeral home's garage door go up, the rear door of the Dodge Caravan pop open, and a young woman driver (perhaps no more than 25 years old) jump out, go into the garage, and wheel out a gurney with a corpse wrapped in a "vinyl blanket."  The young woman was petite and struggled getting the cadaver-laden gurney into the van.  She picked up one end of the gurney, jostled it to the left and to the right and then gave a nightly shove.  No joke.  But the occupant felt nothing I'm sure (or mostly sure).

Then she stood outside the van and made some calls on her cell phone.  But me being me, thought,  "what an opportunity to have a brief conversation with a person who picks up dead bodies."  So I parked, walked over to her, and we chatted for a couple of minutes.  She told me that her job was only to take bodies to the local crematorium (which she was doing that day) and two other "big guy" employees were the ones who actually went to homes with the Dodge Caravan.  

"So do you enjoy this work I asked?"  I doubt if she'd ever been asked that question and she hesitated for a moment, looked me in the eye and replied with a smile: "Well, its a job.  Somebody has to do it."  I then concluded with a final question: "So how's the Dodge Caravan working out for you?"  She smiled, again, and replied: "We'll keep using it until it dies."  Then she laughed.

Porsche at Sebring, March 13-16, 2019

Porsche faces a huge sporting challenge. From March 13-16, the GT teams of the sports car manufacturer from Weissach field four works vehicles in two long-distance races at Sebring (USA).

Two of the Porsche 911 RSR will race over more than 1,000 miles at round six of the Sports Car World Endurance Championship WEC, with another two identical vehicle models tackling the twelve-hour IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race. The so-called #SuperSebring race weekend requires a massive effort from Porsche in terms of personnel and logistics – comparable to Porsche’s largest ever GT mission at Le Mans in 2018.

“The Sebring weekend is a massive undertaking for Porsche Motorsport. We have to transport our entire WEC crew including the cars and all the equipment over the Atlantic. That alone presents a logistical challenge,” says Fritz Enzinger, Vice President of Motorsport. “On top of this, our IMSA team competes at the same location on the same weekend. Two factory cars have to tackle each of these two important endurance races successfully. Everything has to be right.” The Sebring weekend also serves as preparation for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Porsche will again field four works cars against five other manufacturers in the fiercely competitive GTE-Pro category. 

Almost 24 hours of racing

“This will undoubtedly be one of the most intense race weekends of the year. The schedules of both series are so tight that we can only use few personnel on both sides. Basically, the two races add up to a marathon of over almost 24 hours. That’s definitely on a par with Le Mans, especially on this extremely demanding racetrack. We’ll have a 30-strong crew for each of the WEC and IMSA series, plus an additional 15 people for the GT3 and GT4 customer sport programme in the USA,” says Pascal Zurlinden, Director of GT Factory Motorsport. “The combination of both works teams is already working brilliantly. One example of this: While the IMSA team was testing in Sebring, the WEC squad used Core Autosport’s workshop to set up the two 911 RSR. They have everything that’s needed there. That’s how teamwork should be.”  

“The cooperation between the two teams, the exchange of data and information, and not least the perfect organisation of spare parts are fundamentally important,” says Fritz Enzinger. “When we contested Le Mans in 2018 with four works cars we finished up with a double victory. So we know how it works. Now “across the pond” we aim to demonstrate the perfect synergy between the teams – in a race over twelve hours and another over 1,000 miles.” At the race weekend in Florida, dubbed #SuperSebring, a total of 17 drivers from Porsche’s 25-strong driver squad will share driving duties in the factory cars and customers’ 911 racers. 

Comments before the races

Fritz Enzinger (Vice President Porsche Motorsport): “The race weekend in Sebring is very special for us. With the WEC and IMSA series being run as a joint event, the effort is huge. Like at the major Le Mans outing last year, optimal teamwork is essential. We’re not the only manufacturer to field factory cars in both series. The communication and exchange of information between teams will be key factors. The fact that we’re obviously good at this was clearly demonstrated by our success at Le Mans in 2018. I’m certain that we’ll also be in the fight for victory in Sebring.” 

Pascal Zurlinden (Director GT Factory Motorsport): “Thanks to the excellent results from the first five races of the current season, we’re travelling to Florida as leaders of the manufacturer’s and drivers’ championships. We want to continue this great run. Our victory last year at the IMSA race in Sebring has clearly shown that the Porsche 911 RSR is very competitive on this special racetrack. We are eager to turn this into another win and expand our championship lead in the WEC.”

The Porsche works cars and drivers at Sebring

WEC #91: Gianmaria Bruni (I), Richard Lietz (A)

WEC #92: Kévin Estre (F), Michael Christensen (DK)

IMSA #911: Patrick Pilet (F), Nick Tandy (GB), Frédéric Makowiecki (F)

IMSA #912: Earl Bamber (NZ), Laurens Vanthoor (B), Mathieu Jaminet (F)

Porsche successes at Sebring 

With 18 overall victories, Porsche is by far the most successful marque at the twelve-hour race in Florida. The sports car manufacturer dominated the storied event, which was contested for the first time in 1952, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1976 and 1988, Porsche netted 13 outright victories in a row. Racing legends Hans Herrmann and Jo Siffert scored the first win for Porsche at Sebring in 1960. The most recent overall win was in 2008 thanks to Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France) and Emmanuel Collard (France) at the wheel of a Penske Racing Porsche RS Spyder.

The Porsche vehicles

For its third racing season in North America, the Porsche 911 RSR was further optimised primarily in the setup. Depending on the size of the restrictor, the engine, which is positioned in front of the rear axle, puts out around 375 kW (510 hp). The large rear diffuser combined with a top-mounted rear wing provides aerodynamic efficiency and significant downforce. The 911 GT3 R was newly developed for the 2019 season. Improvements in the areas of aerodynamics and kinematics were systematically implemented from the insights garnered from the many race outings of its predecessor. The six-cylinder engine in the rear of the GT3 customer racer produces over 368 kW (500 hp).

The Sports Car World Endurance Championship WEC

In the Sports Car World Endurance Championship (WEC), which was first contested in 2012, sports prototypes and GT vehicles compete in four classes: LMP1, LMP2, GTE-Pro and GTE-Am. They all compete together in one race but are classified separately. The Porsche GT Team contests the GTE-Pro class, while the customer teams Dempsey Proton Racing, Project 1 and Gulf Racing fight for honours in the GTE-Am class.

This is the IMSA SportsCar Championship

The IMSA SportsCar Championship is a sports car race series that has been contested in the USA and Canada since 2014. The series originated from the merger of the American Le Mans Series and the Grand-Am Series. Sports prototypes and sports cars start in four different classes: GTLM (GT Le Mans), GTD (GT Daytona), Dpi (Daytona Prototype international) and LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype 2). The Porsche 911 RSR runs in the GTLM class, and the Porsche 911 GT3 R contests the GTD class. 

Schedule

FIA WEC
Round six of the season at Sebring gets underway on Friday, March 15, 2019, at 16:00 hrs local time (21.00 hrs CET) and is contested over a distance of 1,000 miles. 

IMSA
The race takes off on Saturday, 16 March, at 10.40 hrs local time (16:40 hrs CEST) and can be viewed live outside the USA and Canada on www.imsa.com. 

Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz

An outing with the “Benz Patent Motor Car”, the first automobile of the world. Carl Benz (2. November 1844 to 4 April 1929) is on the right hand side, next to him Josef Brecht one of his employees.

Gottlieb Daimler (17 March 1834 to 6 March 1900), coloured portrait photo.

Gottlieb Daimler (17 March 1834 to 6 March 1900) Gottlieb Daimler enjoying a ride in the back seat of his “Motor Carriage”, driven by his son Adolf. (1871-1913).

Carl Benz (25 November 1844 to 4 April 1929)

In 2019 Mercedes-Benz celebrates the birthdays of company founders Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz: Daimler was born 185 years ago on 17 March 1834 in Schorndorf. Benz was born 175 years ago on 25 November 1844 in Mühlburg, near Karlsruhe. Today, Daimler AG is using memorial sites to bring the life's work of the two automotive pioneers to life.

Stuttgart. The inventors of the motor car were born in the middle of the 19th century in South Germany. Gottlieb Daimler was born 185 years ago on 17 March 1834 as the son of a baker, Johannes Deumler (which is the way their surname was written in those days), and his wife Wilhelmine Friederike in Schorndorf, about 20 kilometres to the east of Stuttgart. 175 years ago, that is, ten years later, Carl Benz was born in Mühlburg near Karlsruhe as the son of Johann Georg Benz, a locomotive driver working for Baden's grand-ducal state railway company, which had been founded in 1840, and the maid Josephine Vaillant. The parents got married in 1845. Carl Benz's father imbued his young son with enthusiasm for mobility, but died of pneumonia very early in 1846.

From baker's son to cosmopolitan engineer

A thirst for knowledge, a cosmopolitan approach and foresight shaped the biographies of Daimler and Benz from early childhood. Gottlieb Daimler attended the grammar school and on Sundays additionally the drawing school in Schorndorf. He then gained great experience in precision mechanics as an apprentice to a gunsmith. After passing his journeyman's examination in 1852, Daimler attended the Technical College in Stuttgart. A Württemberg government councillor, Ferdinand Steinbeis, then arranged a job for him in Alsace, where Daimler also received theoretical instruction in preparation for his studies. After the successful graduation the young engineer first worked in Paris in the early 1860s and then during his stays in Olham, Leeds, Manchester and Coventry he became acquainted with the British mechanical engineering industry. As a workshop inspector in Reutlingen, he then met his later companion Wilhelm Maybach in 1864. In 1867 Daimler married Emma Kurtz from Maulbronn. In 1868 he became foreman of the workshop in Karlsruhe.

Enthusiasm for technology paved the way to early studies

Josephine Benz made it possible for her son Carl (Christened Karl Friedrich Michael, but he decided later to spell his name with a "C") to attend grammar school and then financed his studies. At the early age of 16, Carl, who was fascinated by technology, advanced to the Polytechnic College in Karlsruhe where he studied mechanical engineering. After completing his studies, he worked as a locksmith, draughtsman, master craftsman and designer of iron bridges. In 1871 Benz founded his own company in Mannheim together with August Ritter.

The first motor car

With the help of his fiancée, Bertha Ringer (they married in 1872), Benz was able to buy out his partner after business differences. From 1878, he occupied himself with a gas engine as a stationary drive and as a power source for a future horseless carriage. Founded in 1883, the "Benz & Cie. Rheinische Gasmotoren-Fabrik Mannheim" successfully marketed a stationary two-stroke engine called the "System Benz". However, the inventor was already working on a lightweight four-stroke engine as a drive unit for a motor car. The holistic design of the engine and vehicle as a coherent overall system was a groundbreaking innovation. This is how the motor car came into being, which Benz submitted to the Imperial Patent Office on 29 January 1886 as a "Vehicle with a Gas Engine Drive" for a patent. Patent specification DRP 37435 can be considered to be the birth certificate of the motor car.

Daimler and the four-stroke engine

At the same time as Benz in Cannstatt Gottlieb Daimler is working on the mobility of the future. In 1872, Gasmotoren-Fabrik Deutz AG appointed him Technical Director. Daimler and Maybach who followed him to the Rhineland establish at Deutz a profitable large-scale production for stationary engines and develop the four-stroke-engine of Nicolaus August Otto to production maturity. However, there were differences of opinion with founder Nicolaus August Otto, and Daimler left finally the company in June 1882. In the spring of that year, he had bought an expansive home in Cannstatt near Stuttgart. He had the greenhouse enlarged with a brick-built extension to set up an experimental workshop. It was here that he, together with Maybach, developed his high-speed four-stroke engine for driving carriages, rail-mounted vehicles, boats and airships. There then followed patents for an engine with an unregulated hot-tube ignition system and valve timing gear (both in 1883). The Daimler engines soon reached speeds of up to 600 rpm, more than three times the usual speed range. The famous single-cylinder engine, nicknamed the "grandfather clock", was built in 1884, and in 1885 was submitted for patent as a "gas or petrol-powered engine" and, in the same year, fitted to the "Reitwagen" (riding carriage), a motorbike with a wooden frame. 1886 finally sees the birth of the motor carriage, the world's first four-wheel petrol car.

The Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) was founded in Cannstatt in 1890. One of its most important markets is France, where two-cylinder V-engines are built under a Daimler licence. Daimler himself was forced out of the company in 1894, recalled in 1895, and became Chairman of the Supervisory Board of DMG in 1897. He died on 6 March 1900.

Carl Benz continued to develop the patent motor car. He, too, experienced the greatest initial interest in his invention in France. Benz ended his active employment with Benz & Cie. beginning of 1903 and becomes member of the Supervisory Board. In 1906, he founded the "Carl Benz Söhne" company at his new residence in Ladenburg. Carl Benz died on 4 April 1929 in Ladenburg, 90 years ago.

Places of remembrance

Various places recall the lives of these two automotive pioneers:

• Gottlieb Daimler's birthplace in Schorndorf was acquired by the then Daimler-Benz AG in 1979 and after a costly restoration opened it to the public in 1981. An exhibition there shows models, documents and other exhibits on Daimler and his work.
• The Carl-Benz House in Ladenburg became the family home in 1905. It was bought by Daimler-Benz AG in 1985. Since 1986 it has been the seat of the “Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation”. 
• The experimental workshop in the greenhouse of the garden house at the Daimler home in Cannstatt was opened as a place of remembrance in 1940 and restored in 1984. Today, the Gottlieb-Daimler memorial site houses a small museum.

A 1947 Citroen HY "Pig Nose" or nez de cochon

From Ed --- Attached is a photo of the only interesting vehicle we saw while in Spain two weeks ago -- a completely restored 1947 Citroen HY.

1947 was the first year these French delivery vans were built (I confirmed with the owner, who spoke English, the year of the van).  The HY was a postwar replacement the Citroen TUB (Transport Utilitaire Bras) and important to France's post-war reviving economy.  

The 1.9 liter four-cylinder and the monocoque construction came from the Traction Avant.

The HV had many nicknames but the best one was nez de cochon or "pig nose."