It was September of 1948 and the City of Chicago was fed up with the dangerous Jalopies roaming their streets. They gathered as many death machines as they could, dressed them in banners declaring their crime, and paraded them around the city. The pa... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Man if they destroyed hot rods and jalopies publicly today I believe there would be a riot for sure. That just makes me angry. Fortunately I dont know of anyone now adays who would take there drivable Hot rod or jalopy or even Rat Rod to purposly be destroyed. that is insane! It would be a hell of an auction though. People buying up these cars at incredible prices instead of burning them.
''These event were sort of common across the country during this period and most were sponsored by new car dealers. Now thats marketing '' Only to be replaced with Shiney new Death Machines ! . .
Government intervention knows no timelines. There wouldn't be riots, look at the Clunker program. I saw lots of solid cars going to scrap. Not any different than these in the 40s.
... I doubt that anyone will EVER be nostalgic for a '94 LeSabre that was 'thoughtlessly' scrapped by the Clunkers program.
It looks like they just took cars that had already been involved in accidents from the junkyard and used them for advertising... but still best not to give the idiots any ideas they can use today, they'll get it all wrong and end up just costing us a bunch of money... nevermind, too late. I want the tow truck that was carrying the one car completely off the ground, that thing was tough!
We never know, you or I sure won't but I saw several Camaros and Firebirds here in town that SOMEONE would like.
For more of these photographs, be sure to checkout Harms Way's 1953 Battle Cry "DEATH TO ALL JALOPIES !!!" thread.
All politics. Martin Kennelly was just elected mayor of Chicago the year before. His one line mayoral bio would read "Kennelly is best known, however, as a rather ineffectual mayor. He was never comfortable with the style of Chicago politics, and generally refrained from intra-party politics and controversy. Instead, he preferred photo opportunities and ribbon cutting to actual governance. " Martin H. Kennelly (1887-1961) served as the mayor of Chicago from 1947 until 1955. Before embarking on his political career, Kennelly was a successful Chicago businessman, serving as the first president of Allied Van Lines starting in 1928. Just another political move to stir up the masses. But, unfortunately, it was a wide brush that painted "jalopy"-anything with a bad image that stuck.
Sponsored by new car dealers, eh? Now they’d get the Federal Government to pay for it. Pretty sad to see. Isn’t that Hudson nearly new? -Dave
It is a sad sight for sure. But I agree, that now the gov't would be volunteering to pay for this kind of thing. Sad, Sad, Sad.
it's a good thing we have government agencies to protect us from ourselves, otherwise we would be a bunch of tree climbin' crap slingers.
seems like alot of them killers were sittin without wheels and various other parts then were plucked from weedy fields and tree groves ... good they got rid of them fourdoors and pushed the duece 3 winders in the barn
Surprisingly, maybe some people were just as dumb back then as some are today. Maybe not much has changed after all. But, clearly, that is pretty thinly veiled disguise for trying to get people to buy some new cars and transfer some money into other people's pockets. It is not like the new cars they would have been buying were seriously and safer than many of those on the heap if they were maintained or easily fixed properly. Most of those cars aren't even drivable as far as I can tell. So, they did nothing to make anything safer. Total bogus marking stunt. And that certainly hasn't changed much. Yesterday's Sham-Wow character.
If you aren't consuming, the government will regulate you until you do buy buy buy buy buy buy buy.......
Thats why I,m a card toteing nra guy their trying to do it with guns heck bill of rights means nothin they want all are god givin rights
Idiots - then & now. There is no way to measure the impact of an event (I wouldn't legitimize it to the point of calling it a "program") like this but it would be interesting to know what it was. I'd be willing to bet that NO new cars were sold as a result & NO "jalopy" owners were moved to make improvements. I'm sure it made the idiots that sponsored it feel better about themselves though. JH