I feel like this past week has been a bit strangely, well, not exactly negative, but maybe a bit negative. The whole Tesla Roadster with it’s impressive demonstration of being able to do a backflip once a day, hypothetically, for one person, if it’s legal, if it ever comes out, and all of the resulting fawning/backlash/whatever from that has just sort of made the whole automotive world feel, I don’t know, just a bit off. So how about a nice clean palette cleanser about some beautiful midcentury car brochure illustrations?
It’s always good stuff. Good for the auto-loving soul. You take it in through your eyes, where the illustratic goodness absorbs into your, um, limbic system and from there spreads throughout your body, filling your cells’ Golgi apparatuses with raw optic-seratonin, which makes you happier and a better person. So let’s start that process!
This brochure is for the 1964 Ford Taunus 17M/20M Turnier, which just means that it was the wagon version. These cars were also known as the Taunus P5, and were the first postwar European Ford to feature a V6 engine, along with the novel V4 that was introduced in the previous generation.
That engine is the only visual in the brochure that gets a photograph, as the rest of the images are all those wonderful illustrations I want to focus on. That one I used up top is a part of a larger illustration, for example, that looks like this:
So many more birds! Now, I can’t find a signature of the artist on any of these illustrations nor a printed acknowledgement of who did them, but I strongly suspect it was Walter Gotschke, who was working for Ford around this time and was a fantastically talented illustrator who worked in a style much like what we see here.
The thing that really gets me about these illustrations are the contrasts between the cars, the people, and the backgrounds, which get progressively looser and more expressionistic in that order: the cars are wildly detailed and naturalistic, with very controlled, precise lines and intricate details. The people (and animals, like all those birds) are turned down just a notch, still beautifully detailed and rendered, but with the linework loosened just a bit, giving them a bit more life and dynamism.
And finally, we have the backgrounds, which are beautiful and evocative and very loose, almost expressionistic. You can see all of this really well above, and also here:
The car’s crisp detailing makes it pop off the page, and the people are close, but clearly not the focus; Ford’s not trying to sell you a family, after all. And that background is absolutely recognizable, but rough and impressionistic, the motion of the artist’s hand clearly recorded in those brush strokes.
But that same hand that suggested sand with a coarse cross-hatch of yellows and ochres also did this:
Crisp and clean and wildly precise. Also, we can see the very German idiosyncratic preference for two-door (fine, three with the hatch) station wagons. Remember, Volkswagen didn’t have a true four-door wagon until the Passat/Dasher in 1974! The Type 3 and 4 wagons were all two-door!
Look at the background on this one! It’s stunning, it makes me feel funny in my bathing suit area with its bold economy of strokes and its perfect use of color. That ancient-looking brick wall to the right; holy crap is that well done. The sun-splashed area left white, with just the tiniest little dabs of paint here and there to suggest the brickwork, dear lard that’s good.
No outlines needed, just rough brush strokes and your mind doing the work. It’s so good. And that city in the background! Three colors, just the right areas left unpainted, hints at minarets and domes – evocative and powerful, looking like it’s bathed in dawn or dusklight. So good.
And look at this one! That odd saffron-colored forest the trees a lighter tone than the negative space, a counterintuitive idea that works so well I want to put it in charge of my finances.
And the details of the car, by contrast are just perfect. That bumper, the chrome reflections, the matte rubber of the bumper guards, and I think I recognize that Hella reverse lamp, under those little reflectors.
Also, that Hasselblad in the cargo area.
How is this artist so good? How do you make a perfect expressionistic forest like that and then render a column shifter with such wild accuracy on the next page? I can feel the texture on that horn ring.
Also, not that there’s no D setting, just the 2,3, and L. That’s interesting. I suppose 3 is the equivalent of D.
The talent shown in this brochure is intoxicating. Sure, it’s applied to a crass commercial purpose, but that doesn’t detract from how beautiful this work is. Was medieval religious art any different, really? The goal was to advertise salvation instead of a nice family wagon, but it’s still art applied to a specific goal beyond simply being a beautiful or meaningful visual, after all.
Top graphic image: Ford
In a semi-related thread, why didn’t V4 engines catch on in the car world? I could see them being part of a V6 and V8 family.
I have a motorcycle with a V4, and it’s actually pretty good! Doesn’t vibrate and it’s pretty powerful for the displacement.
So is there some sort of technical reason there is a plethora of inline 4 cylinder car engines, but very few V4s?
A 2 door estate. Like the Squareback I had. Just lovely. Nope, it doesn’t have thrusters, 4 wheel drive, gun slit windows, or resemble the set of Alien. It does however have colors, imagination, and the artwork has the added benefit of lowering your blood pressure when viewing it instead of ramping it up like an overdose of dexedrine. Good stuff, but in truth the mid century era, for all its creativity was pretty dang miserable for most people who were not WHCM (white hetero sexual christian males). The wonder of the past is picking the good stuff and bringing that into the present.
My first thought was more women and birds. What is this site becoming?!? /s
Given the era, I have to respect the inclusive nature of featuring a female serial killer. A still-bloody head and shoulders is not subtle and the hat box has me asking: What’s in the box?! What’s in the fucking box?!
Take your damn star.
The illustrations are inspiring, to be sure. Another thing to love about this brochure is that the rear end of the car gets larger glass in its droopy tail, so you can actually see out the back―unlike so many of today’s cars masquerading as tanks.
The Taunus was a great car! It’s sad that Ford never attempted to sell this in the states.
I wonder how many automatics they actually sold? This was Germany in the ’60s after all.
Indeed, the 4-door versions seen here were the first West German 4-door wagons (the “West” doing real work here since the Wartburg 311 Camping had appeared a few years before).
They call him lysozyme cause he runs so fast, just like a junkyard dog with a brain of brass.
Also VanFitz.
https://www.fitzandvan.com/
The book is gorgeous.
Flitz und Kastenwagen?
But seriously, Fitz and Van’s contract with Pontiac allowed them to do side jobs with GM’s overseas divisions and they did indeed illustrate some Opel brochures into the early ’70s. Ford was right out, though, so this was someone else with the same style.
The city behind the red one reminds me of Istanbul. The minarets are a close match to the Blue Mosque, with one less level.
I’m thinking the art is collaborative effort, an illustrator solely focused on the car with another (or maybe even 2) on people and backgrounds due the complete stylistic and technique differences.
I think that it is intended to be Istanbul. I love these ads.
Constantinople!
Mmmm…you’re spot on with mid-century art being a palate cleanser. All of them feel like a cool ocean breeze for the senses
Ohh yes, much needed in these chaotic times.