Vintage shots from days gone by!

Maggie, BIG THANKS for trawling up these RARE Jordan ads! Very, very RARE Jordan model!!! Even the ads are rare. There's at least one more full-color ad from the series, showing a young, obviously affluent woman (target demographic of the Little Custom) and her equally well-dressed children in an idyllically contrived rural scene. In the foreground, they wade in a stream, while their Little Custom sits up on the road, waiting to bear them safely home after their outing. (Crowd: "Aaaahhhh, isn't that sweet?")

The Jordan "Little Custom," the car that single-handedly destroyed Ned Jordan's company. Riding high in the late-'20s, Ned must have thought that, like Midas, anything he touched would turn to gold. The Little Custom had much the same appointments (note the headlamps), flashy color and every other feature of quality, reliability AND LUXURY as did any senior models. Ned even directed the ad campaign, down to writing the ad copy himself (just as he always had; the "West of Laramie" ad is considered one of the best EVER by advertising historians).

Problem was, Ned Jordan mis-forecast his buying public's reaction to a small model sedan, even though small sporty Jordans had done okay. Most people who bought Jordans did so for the same reasons people loyally sought Caddy's, Lincolns and Pierce's -- namely, status and exclusivity. The Jordan Little Custom was a huge FLOP! It was apparently just not what people expected in a "Jordan" product. It put the company in a financial bind and eroded the Jordan aura of prestige, hurting senior sales, too. (Note, this was well BEFORE the Stock Market Crash, so that was not a factor.)

Ned and his wife quietly sold off their stock in their own company. Though Ned continued to try and recapture customers (the Speedway Ace Z, e.g., was an AWESOME early factory hotrod!), the last Jordan models were late-'31 -- maybe early '32, by one account I read (clearing up leftover parts, maybe?).

Ill-planned models -- before and after the Little Custom -- fatally hobbled their companies. The Hudson Jet and the Henry J come to mind. The Chrysler and DeSoto Airflow models almost did the same to that house, except the corporation (bouyed by scads of conventional Dodge and Plymouth sales) was big enough to outlive the setback of a major model rejection.



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Here's another classic.

 

Ft. Myers Fl.

 

The late great Miss Janis Lyn Joplin, the worlds greatest woman 'Blue eyed' Blues singer ever! Sitting in her 1965 Porsche 365c with her dog 'George' who was stolen when Janis was living in S.F. and never seen again!
The Dave Richards psychedelic paint scheme is still looking good on her car, I believe it is sitting in the Lobby of the GRAMMY Museum.

Doc.

 

I love the look of the Playboy - what a cool car that must've been to tootle around in, and that they marketed these cars to women back then.

 

How I rembember SoCal as a youth...

 

A few more memories...

 

I love the detail in the Jordan ads ~

 

"Oh Lord, won't ya buy me a Mercedes Benz"
"My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amens"
Yes, she was one of the best...

 

The Jordan ads remind me of the descriptions in the J. Peterman Company clothing descriptions - You feel exotic and special just wearing them!

http://www.jpeterman.com/

 

I love the awnings, they make the stores so charming.

 

Speaking of exotic, if I buy one of these cars, will I be more traveled as a result?

 

I hope these photos fit into this magnificent thread. Old LAFD fire apparatus...


1923 Seagrave ladder truck


1923 Stutz triple combination


1926 Seagrave triple


1926 Seagrave hose wagon


1929 American LaFrance triple


1936 American LaFrance ladder truck


1938 American LaFrance triple


1938 American LaFrance duplex pumper (V-12 engine and 1500 GPM pump, front and rear)


The duplex pumpers carried no hose, except for the short hose to connect the hydrant to the pump inlet.


In action, sucking a couple of hydrants dry.


1938 American LaFrance hose wagon. This rig carried only hose and the fireboat-sized monitor, no pump. These hose wagons were always teamed up with a duplex pumper.


Hose wagon in action. Water coming in from the rear inlets, 2 1/2" hose stretching out from the cross mounted hose beds on the sides.


Typical "engine company" in the old days, seven guys and a captain (lucky to get four guys on an engine today in LA). These units were stationed througout the city in the "high value" areas of downtown LA and Hollywood. That monitor on top of the hose wagon could punch holes right through the outside brick walls of most commercial buildings in less time that the guys could get those old steel roll-up doors open.


1938 Seagrave ladder truck

 

1938 American LaFrance water tower. The LAFD had only this one tower, used it with mixed results. Worked great on lumber yard type fires, but the first time they put it to use in a six-story building, it put so much water into a sixth floor window, the floor collapsed down to the basement, taking all the other floors with it.


1942 Kenworth tractor, earlier Seagrave ladder trailer with the old wooden aeriel ladder.


1943 Kenworth triple


1944 American LaFrance ladder truck


1955 Segrave ladder truck

 

Right you are, Maggie. The Playboy -- ad promotion aside -- had a sleek, low stance and a VERY able Continental 6.

Maybe Dodge was thinking of their success when they came up with the La Femme for '55 and '56. It didn't resonate then, I imagine because the women saw the car as being pushed by a male-centric ad department (it WAS pink and white, ya know?). We can just search THIS THREAD and find examples of the Dodge ads and brochures. (Not many of those sold, though!)

 

The use of PINK body paint was rather more prevalent in the gaudy, "Fabulous Fifties" than in any other decade. Many makes offered pink in their color pallets. Off hand, I recall seeing pink on Packards, DeSotos, Edsels and Nashes, among others.

But, the '55 and '56 Dodge la Femme was an entire car specifically themed and devoted to the American woman. Though there were no focus groups in that era, the impetus to offer the la Femme seems rooted in public approval of the female-themed 1954 Chrysler la Comtess bubble-top show car. Writing for Jalopnik.com, Murilee Martin wryly observed: "It's hard not to love some of the stuff Detroit thought up in the days before focus groups told them we really wanted cup holders and plastic cladding." Another source called the la Femme the first attempt to market a car directly to women. However, that observer must have been unaware of Ned Jordan's famous 1923 "West of Laramie" magazine ads!

But we do know that many American families could afford a second automobile by the mid-'50s, and Dodge decided to aim for the "Riveter Rosies" who now wanted their own personal cars. Though it had its own distinctive gold scripts, the la Femme was based on the Royal Lancer, rather than standing alone as a model. Aside from pastel two-tone paint to appeal to women, the la Femme could also be ordered with some standard -- and many optional -- items intended to attract female customers. Notice, I said optional, since many today (if they've heard of la Femme at all) think that every la Femme came fully loaded -- not so. In fact, white-wall tires, deluxe wheel covers and automatic transmissions were optional, among numerous other items.

That said, a la Femme edition could be had with la Femme-specific interior fabrics and carpeting and color- and pattern-matching niceties such as rain hat and cape, umbrella, and a shoulder purse full of lipstick, compact, cigarette case, lighter, etc. -- again, all fashion-coordinated. MoPar's earliest Highway Hi-Fi could be fit into the glovebox area.

Because the la Femme was a Royal Lancer option package, specific production numbers were not maintained. But la Femme collectors estimate that 2,500 la Femmes were built, at best, though the consensus is for a significantly lower number yet. Only 40-plus '55s and 20-plus '56s still exist, as well as three known la Femmes based on the hi-performance Dodge Royal lancer D-500 platform. That, of course, makes the latter an exceedingly rare car!

The failure of the la Femme to catch on with consumers may have had several contributing causes, lack of advertising promotion, for one! In a time when other MoPar special editions like the DeSoto Adventurer, Chrysler 300 and Dodge D-500 were widely advertised, there was, oddly, little to no promotion of the la Femme. One aficionado has been searching since 1986 for a la Femme magazine, TV or radio ad -- without success!

Despite a large Dodge dealer network nationally, many dealerships received NO la Femme demonstrator models for their showrooms. Instead they got copies of the one-sheet promo piece shown here, and the la Femme was depicted in artists' concepts, rather than in actual photos. Sort of like asking people to buy the car without seeing it or touching it, eh? Shades of Infiniti.


la Femme promotional piece
For more go to dodgelafemme.com


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Source, FlickR Sincere thanks is
expressed.
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If a car maker presented a pink special
model for women today they probably
get the feminist lobby chasing them

 

2 minute film clip from the mid-30s. Pretty amazing quality for the era. Just found it, hope it isn't a repost.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=42a_1360248193

 

Cool. Notice there are no lines painted on the street, not even a center divider!

 

You guys have the best thing going on the internet right here. What an enjoyable thread! I'll offer up a few Buick related photos and apologize if any of them have been posted before (it takes FOREVER to go back through this thing! )

These are from a promotional in 1915.

 

Reynolds Buick in West Covina, California.

 

More Reynolds.

 

Ingenue. 1967 Buick funny car.