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Category Archives: Automotive
Breathe!
Glory Days
Noir City
While attending this year’s Noir City Film Festival in Hollywood, I was reminded of a photograph I took last year: the interior of a vintage Los Angeles Police Department patrol car.
The Making Of The New Vespa Primavera
The Vespa Primavera is one of the world’s most iconic motor scooter models. It originally appeared in 1968 with a 125 cm³ 2-stroke engine. It derived from the “new” 125 of 1966, but with considerable differences in the engine, which raised the top speed by 10 km/h to over 100 km/h. Great attention was paid to details, which included the classic, practical bag hook.
Piaggio, the maker of Vespa scooters, has decided to revive the Primavera name for one of its latest models, taking design cues from the original. Here is how the new models are made. This is not your grandfather’s assembly line!
Ground, Air, And Water
(click to enlarge)
This 1936 advertising motif for Mercedes-Benz shows a 540 K Roadster model beneath the Zeppelin LZ129 Hindenburg. The giant airship was as long as the ocean liner Titanic and powered by four 1,050 hp Daimler-Benz diesel engines. The Hindenburg and its sister ship Graf Zeppelin II (LZ130) were able to cross the Atlantic in two days, offering passengers unparalleled speed, convenience and luxury. The three-pointed Daimler-Benz logo stands for “motorization on ground, air, and water”.
BMW Motorcycles: 90 Years in 90 Seconds
Feast Your Eyes: The Mercedes-Benz 540 K
The glorious Mercedes-Benz 540 K (Type W24), made from 1935 to 1940. Designer: Friedrich Geiger. A total of 419 cars were made at the Mercedes Untertürkheim plant in Sindelfingen (near Stuttgart), which was destroyed during WW-II bombing raids. Shown below are the Autobahn Courier of 1938 (top) and the Cabriolet model. (Click to enlarge.)
