This is another one of those nights where I need to crank out a top-quality Cold Start before getting my ass to bed so I can get up stupid early to make a flight. This time I’m going to meet Matt and David in Vegas, where they are either at SEMA or laying this month’s payroll on the craps table; I don’t think they’ve completely decided which path to take yet. Oh and we’ll have a reader meetup in Vegas!
Anyway, from there we’ll be all driving in the CrossCab to Los Angeles, to prepare for the big Galpin/Autopian car show on Sunday, and I’m hoping I’ll get to see you there!
But before that I need to provide you with the high-grade Cold Start content you crave, you need, and I understand the gravity of this situation. Cold Start is like a drug, and the withdrawal is brutal, just brutal. I’m told it’s not dissimilar to quitting ketamine cold turkey. We can’t have that, so let’s make sure you get what you need.
And I think what you need is to see some old Volkswagen brochures that feature dogs and a person who I think looks oddly like Pedro Pascal, seen here in a 1974 Passat:
The French text says, basically, two up front, three in the back, and that seems accurate. But at the moment it’s more important to point out that, at first glance, I read the driver as Pedro Pascal:
You can kind of see it, right? Should a major studio decide to make a movie out of this old VW brochure, I think Pedro there is a shoe-in for The Driver. I’m not sure who I’d cast for the rest, exactly. Maybe Marisa Tomei for front seat passenger, and I can’t cast the kids in the back because that front kid’s hair is unsettling me.
Also, and this has to be some sort of illusion, but it looks like that kid with the unfortunate haircut has weird tiny arms in rust-colored sleeves? They must be the arms of the smaller kid by the window, right? I can’t quite figure out what’s going on there.
I do rather like these first-generation Passat wagons; we got them here as the Dasher – and there was a nearly identical Audi Fox version, too. These were among the first front engine/liquid-cooled cars VW sold (after the NSU-based K70) and differed from the later, more popular Golf/Rabbit in that the Passat had a longitudinal engine layout.
I promised you dogs. Let’s find some! We can go back to the air-cooled era and find three dogs in the back of a Type 3 Squareback, sitting atop the underfloor engine:
I love packed station wagon rear cargo-area shots. The floral setup is nice and lush, and the beach-equipment tableau and extensive groceries are also handled artfully. But, again, we’re here for dogs:
Look at these three big fellas! What are they, boxers? Something like that. That one on the left looks like he or she isn’t really crazy to see us there, while the other two seem to be tracking something with great interest. Maybe someone dropped a tray of meatballs?
There’s a decent amount of room for three good-sized dogs back there! And with the front trunk Type 3s had, all your luggage won’t end up smelling like dog.
There’s another nice cargo-area dog diorama in this 1977 Polo brochure. Look right above, second from right. I guess I can just show you here:
That’s a good-sized dog for what is really quite a small car. And he’s sharing that space with a big bale of hay and a saddle? Does a horse own this car? I guess horses may want to drive sometimes – what if it’s cold or rainy? Wouldn’t you rather drive than canter?
These shots of this Polo are also interesting, taillight-wise. Note how the light clusters are divided into three sections, but only have two colors, red and amber:
I believe this is because this Polo is a base-spec model that lacks reverse lamps, which would normally be in the smaller amber area. You can see a Polo with reverse lights, in action even, right here:
I guess it’s just as cheap to make a different lens for the non reverse-lamp equipped cars, instead of just leaving the clear section void of any bulb or wiring? I have to hand it to VW; this is a better way to have anon-functional section, because it would be confusing if there was the reverse lamp lens and it did nothing, The way they chose to do it isn’t so bad.
Okay, I need to get to sleep. I hope you enjoyed your four dogs and one non-Pedro.
Volkswagen Pascal would make a nice name. Along with VW Descartes, VW Huygens and VW Fermat.
Pedro Passat o–o
You said Marisa Tomei. My brain wandered for a few minutes. He does look like Pedro Pascal. That’s a fantastic car.
The more I look at it, the more disturbing the whole back seat becomes. Red-armed kid’s body position makes sense – sort of leaning up against the front seat – but the head is way too big, probably having been pasted in as others have noted. Overalls kid looks alright, just maybe positioned a bit too high (assuming this one was pasted in like the others). The Supercuts kid is the one that really bothers me…I guess the kid is meant to be crouched in the footwell? But then they would sort of be leaning sideways. Maybe this is the head that was originally on the red-shirted body? And why are they biting at the trim?
Here Torch, a present for you! My BMW wagon doing what Euro wagons do best, hauling a whole bunch of IKEA home:
https://flic.kr/p/bW1rCF
Tall Billy bookcases fit just fine – I am pretty sure they are designed around Eurowagons, or Eurowagons are designed around THEM.
We had the Dasher/Passat wagon shown there! I actually learned to drive stick on that car. But Jason, your eyes aren’t deceiving you; riding in the back seat could make your neck disappear and your arms shorten into floppy little Muppet arms. The effect was temporary and not painful.
The catering for the photo shoot is a wheelbarrow of shrimp, and the pissed off dog has a shellfish allergy.
I’m pretty sure that’s Britt Lower from Severance, a show chock full of vintage cars, in the passenger seat. Season 3 spoiler much?!
“anon-functional section”
Q?
Doing its job without revealing its name.
I’m removed enough from comtemporary culture to have heard the name ‘Pedro Pascal’ before, but still be unable to name a single movie or show that he’s appeared in.
Being male and straight and of a certain age, of course I know more about the lovely Marisa Tomei and her oeuvre.
That red Polo looks a lot like a (US) Rabbit.
I think at some point in summer, he had three movies in the theatres at the same time.
His mother skits on SNL are legendary.
Was watching a Law & Order rerun recently. Looked the episode up online and was stunned to discover the murdering, abusive drug dealer was played by young Pedro Pascal.
Passat family is one of those photos. You know the ones.
You saw them at your friend’s houses on side tables and curios in the living room.
A window into the very recent past, but an entirely different lifetime, clad in tartan sportjackets spun from petroleum and complemented by matching pants that were too tight in the leg and flared too much at the ankle.
A shaggy, nay, hirsute era when you started to have memories, but you were mostly only physically in attendance, too young to remember when the Georgia Pacific paneling was new and unstained by thick clouds of cigarette smoke.
A photo, captured quickly when gramps slid the slim Ektralite out of his hip pocket to memorialize the end of that last visit indelibly on a small frame of 110 cartridge film. The limited resolution of the format is just like the memories of that frozen second – a little soft. Blurry but vibrantly colored.
The last time they were all happy. When mom and dad were still together. When there was still promise in what was to come. Before the ’80s, but JUST before.
A photo that wasn’t yours, but spoke volumes right into your frontal lobe, and unlocked an understanding of your friend, their family, and what they carry that you didn’t even know.
And you have your own at your house, too.
All I remember are those giant tubs of potato chips. They were brilliant when you were high. Some genius figured out that combining snack food and a bongo drum would be so perfect.
Man, that was dark.
It’s gotta be tough to let your mom cut your hair, only to end up looking like Tina from Bob’s Burgers. Tough, though probably predictable.
As for the cars, they all look fantastic.
It was the 70’s. Having your mom cut your hair and patch your jeans was all the fashion.
Oh I totally get it. Even in the 90’s I got a number of bowl cuts. And one totally botched haircut from my mom that led to me having my entire head shaved.
Never got the Tina though.
Super cuts wasn’t much better.
Fantastic Sams!
Basically the same thing.
One of my favorite pictures of me and my son is right after a trip to supercuts. My face shows just how displeased I was with his haircut, and he’s in my arms smiling with a chipped tooth. He looked exactly like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber.
It had to be better than hair cut from a vacuum operated flowbee! Am I the only one that remembers that late 80’s infomercial?
Remember them? Heck, I have relatives who used those things, and continue to cut their own hair now (I guess they use scissors?).
Stagflation helped us remember everything we thought we’d left behind in the ’30s.
We should never have forgotten most of those lessons. Unfortunately they’re opposed to a consumer culture.
Which is funny, because my mom (born in ‘53) was teased in school because she wore clothes that my grandmother had patched up. Fashion changes fast.
In the very early 80’s I was mercilessly teased for having a Fjällräven backpack I had brought back from Sweden when Jansport was de rigueur. Now those Fjällräven backpacks are EVERYWHERE. Why? I have no idea.
10 bonus points for Bob’s Burgers.
Pedro Pascal is The Highlander.
Clearly, Pedro Pascal is a time traveler, and he picked up Shelley Duvall shortly after completing filming of The Shining. Jack Nicholson is of course no where to be seen, having frozen to death in a hedge maze.
“And with the front trunk Type 3s had, all your luggage won’t end up smelling like dog.”
Initially it looked like you have to open the rear hatch to access the gas cap so if you spilled gas while filling up your luggage would end up smelling like gas which may or may not be worse than dog or even wet dog. However, there’s a label next to the cap that says “Oil” and the cap does indeed to be in about the typical spot for the oil filler tube for air-cooled rear-engined VWs. Good, as spilled oil usually doesn’t smell as bad as spilled gas.
Yeah, dog, especially wet dog, is just a different matter altogether, lol.
It takes about two weeks leaving my car out in full sun, baking, to break down all of the organic molecules left behind from when I transport my dog. The outgassing is a very slow process, on animals and humans alike. Hence the invention of perfume as a cover.
Perfume embodied as a cardboard tree.
Ha, yeah, in the 90s a coworker had three large dogs, all of who were shaggy rescues, that she would drive around in her lovely vintage red manual Volvo station wagon; she also had a lovely vintage red manual BMW two-door for her daily driving and while she did much of the work herself she had a mechanic who would work on the BMW but refused to work on the Volvo because of all the eau de canine & the dog hair, lol.
Wet gassy dog takes it to yet another level.
Type 3 has a fuel-fill flap on the right front quarter panel. At least the later ones did.
The one in the photo is an earlier one as ’67 and earlier had low back seats. One had to open the frunk to access the gas cap to fill the tank.
“…if you spilled gas while filling up your luggage…”
I’m sure that would smell bad, but why are you filling your luggage with gas? Everyone knows you carry extra gas in a garbage can.
I am totally stuck on back seat Prince Valiant’s impossible arm.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH THAT ARM?!?! It’s orientation makes it seem like maybe it’s mom’s arm. Like she’s reaching from up front to caress/backhand barely visible kid. But it also appears that it bends around Valiant’s neck. But that only works if it’s front kid’s arm, and his shoulder is all kinds of weird. Or maybe girl kid has some seriously messed up elbows.
That arm is going to haunt my nightmares…
Thanks a lot, Torch.
look at the light sources – that’s some careful x-acto work. Kids were an entirely different photo dropped into the window and then covered by a tiny piece of blue-tinted translucent plastic to simulate tinted window glass. Guaranteed phantom arm guy had a kid riding on his back in the original. Weird group. Like, is he an uncle or something? Too old to really be a sibling. Or like, half-brother from the first marriage?
Yeah, I hadn’t been thinking of paste-up, but yes.
The lighting on the front seaters looks like it could have been natural, in situ — but what the hell happened to Pedro’s hand?? His pinky (and to a lesser extent, ring finger) is tapered to a conical gray point like a tent stake, or a heron that’s going spearfishing.
There’s an endless well of entertainment to be had looking closely at vintage advertising and product imagery. Lots of manipulation, even though the tools they had were a lot blunter than today.
I think, actually, looking at it again (and again, and again), that the two younger kids were in the original shot, and they jammed headless arms guy in there for whatever reason.
My mind went somewhere when I read that the French caption says two up front, three in the back. I’m not proud of it. The internet has ruined me.
Bow-chikka-bow-wow
Shocking!
I was also going to reply that it was a Shocking description… but I see my work has already been done.
As usual, three in the back is a pretty tight fit.
I thought the “four dogs” were the mom and 3 kids in the Pedro Pascal picture and I was like “damn, going for blood this early in the morning huh?” and then I saw the actual dogs. Well played for my coffee starved brain.
I’m just glad that lady and her kids decided to be brought in warm.
Disturbing Hair Guy actually looks like a grown man’s head pasted onto a child’s body. Maybe they suddenly had to swap out the original kid for some reason while they were laying out the page. So they grabbed the most youthful-looking face they had laying around, and the X-Acto’s went to work. I would check the rest of the brochure to see if there’s a match. Get on it, Jason, your plane will probably be late anyway!
That family looks like the least of us.
At least that VW should be easy to keep running as you flee from the mushroom people.
If one of the show’s characters had a relationship with one of the infected, would that be considered doing ‘shrooms?
Is the driver in the final Polo photo doing a even more exaggerated version of the tv & movie reverse, where you stick your head out the drivers window and look back, rather than looking through the rear window?
Guy in the back is Donny Osmond with an unfortunate genetic disorder.
Looks more like Wagner Moura, you know, the Pablo Escobar guy:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0609944/mediaviewer/rm3928623360/
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/cs_dogspedro_2.jpg
Mom is smiling for the photo, but she’s still upset with young Arnaud’s butchered bangs from SuperCuts.
I don’t know, man. To my eye she and the kid got the same cut.
She found a two for one coupon in the thrifty nickel!
I believe those are home hair cuts.
That is the favored kid, and only mom knows who the real father is.
Wait, this is France. It’s like “Ne plus ultra ciseaux”