Before video games and social media and TiVo-ing “Top Gear”, there were only really two ways of seeing your dream car every day. The first was to buy and keep a magazine. The second was a single piece of print. Although many of us rarely saw real Lamborghinis and Ferraris and whatnot often while growing up, we did put them on our walls, where they served as a gateway drug of sorts. The ubiquity of the term “poster car” proves how impactful a sheet of paper can be. Today on Autopian Asks, I want to know what car poster was on your childhood bedroom wall, because they’re often fond early memories of our enthusiasm.
While I did grow up right as gated manuals gave way to single-clutch automated transmissions, the iconic poster car for me was something older. An ’80s archetype, a pure object of speed and greed. We’re talking about a Guards Red Porsche 930 Turbo, but not just any 930 Turbo. Oh no, that simply wouldn’t be excessive enough. Instead, it’s a 930 Flachbau, a pinch of 935 inspiration for the road. To boldly bend a rule around fender flares, Porsche once lopped off the doe-eyed 911 headlights in favor of a wedge-shaped front in the pursuit of pure endurance racing pace. These flat-nose 930s quickly became so dominant that people wanted a little bit of their magic for the road. Thus, the Flachbau was born.
Then, because nothing says excess quite like inappropriate use, it was possible to pair these racing aesthetics with the decidedly touring-focused configuration of a cabriolet. Keep in mind, the 911 had been around for dog’s years even in the ’80s, and the cabriolet had about the same torsional rigidity of damp vermicelli. Still, put all this together and you have a want-one car. The sort of thing that normally makes you want to work a bit harder in school so you can get into a good college and get a good job. Adverse side effects include attempting to make a living out of car writing, who knew?
That 930 Flachbau poster cemented a fascination with this strange little company from Stuttgart while expressing a love for sports cars in general. Whether a humble MGB, a brutally effective Consulier GTP, or a Jano-engined Ferrari 335 S, cars meant for driving rather than mere commuting have always been close to my heart. However, childhood always has to end, which meant I had to say goodbye to my beloved 930 Flachbau poster. More of a framed print than a poster, its likelihood of surviving an upcoming move was dubious. The frame was starting to give up and the glass could indeed shatter in transit, so off to Goodwill it went. While I kept watch for similar prints on eBay, I’d essentially given up on having this poster again.
That is, until Yuri Tereshyn of The Straight Pipes posted on his Instagram story about moving some car art on. I couldn’t believe it. There, among other posters including one of a Callaway Corvette, sat the print I imagined whenever someone said “Porsche Turbo.” Since the Greater Toronto Area automotive universe is surprisingly small, picking up the print was only a matter of taking a jaunt across town. The most memorable car poster on my childhood bedroom wall is effectively now on display in my grown-up apartment, and I reckon younger me would find that pretty cool.
So, what car poster did you put on your childhood bedroom wall? Was it a Ferrari from the Scholastic book fair, the famous “Justification for a Higher Education”, or something else? As ever, let me know in the comments below.
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
I had a first generation Acura (Honda) NSX. My dream car as a kid, still my dream car many decades later.
I don’t remember where, but I found an unused billboard of a green 1970 Ford Maverick. Took up my and my brothers’ entire bedroom wall. I wasn;t a Ford person at all, in fact I bought my first new car in 1972 when I was 17, a 1972 Fiat 128. But having a huge poster was so unique it had to go up.
Ferrari 288 GTO, viewed from the side, gray background.
As a kid, none as my parents were unenthusiastic about pushpin holes in the wall, but in college, I had a dramatic monochrome style yellow and black poster of Steve Mcqueen standing next to his Jaguar XK SS.
Came across it at a Tower Records, carried it back on the train – flat, not rolled – and it adorned my walls for years. Also took a fair amount of research (pre-mass-internet) to determine just what this fantastical vehicle was.
In 2019, I’d get to actually see it in person, stick my head in the cockpit, and even witness it fired up and driven. It sounds exactly as amazing as you’d expect.
You know how I know you are old? You went to Tower Records lol! I miss that place.
And I even always rifled through the free postcards at the door as I left!
Good news!
“On November 13, 2020, Tower Records announced that it had returned as an online retailer with plans to open future physical locations”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records
Unfortunately despite five years having passed since then the closest thing I know of to a B&M Tower Records today is the original Tower in Sacramento.
My parents too, hated pushpins.
So we hung stuff with that blue putty sticky stuff. That if you left on the wall too long, would just end up taking paint with it.
McLaren F1 LM!
I had two posters on my wall: The futuristic Vector and a Farah Fawcett poster. Little did I know how those two images were going to shape the rest of my life.
Growing up in the 80s, I loved the Timex tv ad that featured the Vector. I had no idea what it was at the time, but I knew it meant THE FUTURE.
There is a certain je ne sais quoi in that phrase.
I don’t remember any posters, but have very fond memories of a partially disassembled 70’s nova in the driveway that served as a fort/clubhouse for years…
I had the “Compromise Is For Politicians” Porsche ad, which is a sunset silhouette of a 911 sliding in gravel. In fact I still have it-it was a fold out brochure for Porsche that I got at the Chicago Auto Show in, probably, 1989, because the back side shows the Porsche lineup, which includes the 944, 928, and the 964 but as the Carrera 4 only. It’s fuckin’ awesome, I’m glad I still have one.
I also had a full size poster of the early Mazda Miata ad, the one that showed a nice red NA over a grainy, ghosted image of a couple of people goofing around in a Porsche 356.
the thing I really had a lot of were two page spreads out of Road & Track. Anyone remember when they’d have a monthly feature called “Salon”? It was a nice story and photo spread about a really good vintage car, always with a two page spread photo of the car. I had a bunch of those, carefully cut out of the magazine and taped together, them mounted to poster board, on my walls. The one I really remember is the Scaglietti Corvette, but there were like ten on the walls then.
1966 Batmobile. The only Batmobile that matters. Fight me, you filthy criminals.
It was the original, after all. Before it, I think he maybe took the bus.
Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.
I liked to draw a lot and the drawings that made the wall were mostly lead sleds and street rods. Everyone one of them had a flame-job. Otherwise actual posters were mostly limited to the fold-outs from CARtoons magazine. Those things covered an entire wall.
The only large-format poster I ever put up was this Oldsmobile Aerotech poster . I don’t even remember where it came from, but thought it was about the coolest thing ever at the time.
Very specifically, a red gen 1 Dodge Viper. Purchased through the Scholastic Book fair for 50 cents, if I recall correctly. Actual poster is gone, but it’s in my mental bedroom for “one day”.
I think I exclusively had car posters in the 80s. One, my mom would have killed me if I had Tawny Kitaen spread out across a hood (same for Farah), and as ‘a good Christian household’ Judas Priest/Metallica would have invoked something akin to an exorcism.
I think there was a Countach, BMW M1, likely a Porsche 959. And a sweet exploded/cutaway view of the US Space Shuttle. And likely a stack of C&D.
” my mom would have killed me if I had Tawny Kitaen spread out across a hood (same for Farah), and as ‘a good Christian household’ Judas Priest/Metallica would have invoked something akin to an exorcism”
Weird how those would have gotten you in trouble but a graphic image of a starved, stabbed, beaten, nearly naked dead man nailed to a cross?
Well THAT’S A-OK kid!
1968 Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Junior. Not really a poster, but a photo of my car. It was a $2100 car. I just looked up the price today Holy S**t! It was this just like this one same color but stock with bumpers and the crease at the leading edge of the hood.
https://www.classic.com/veh/1969-alfa-romeo-gt-1300-junior-ar1292627-4aKolBW/
I hate to be mean, but that picture is of a GT 1300 cosplaying as a ’68 Giulia GTA Corsa. The real thing would be worth a lot more. A college buddy had a ’67 GT 1300 while I had a ’74 GTV 2000 in the late 70s (fast acceleration/depreciation). I always thought his was a nicer, better balanced car. I’d take mine unmodified.
Agree Marc, Just wanted to get that Pumpkin color right! Mine was just a stock GT Junior, still miss it 52 years later.
Ferrari ‘Decisions, decsions’ poster. Still on my office wall many years later.
https://www.weidmangallery.com/product/ferrari-decisions-decisions/
A Rustic Green FJ40. A mid-run model 73-79* with the larger marker lights, wiper motor cover on the windshield frame, and a rounded bezel.
*derp. Brainfart. They went to the final-gen rectangular bezel design in ’79 and discontinued them outright in ’83.
I wasn’t much into cars as a kid sadly. I got into it later in life.
I had a 1994(?) Dodge Ram poster that was a pullout in a motor trend magazine.
I had a BMW M1 and a Countach poster. I also had the movie one sheet for John Carpenter’s Christine, so I suppose that counts to.
White Ferrari Testarossa Monospechio.
Great case of don’t meet your heroes when I got chances to drive them. Don’t get me wrong, they’re fine as a GT car experience. Though maintenance costs and the need to really be meticulous with them is something I decided I’d never want to deal with.
I also learned I at least wanted something more involving, and something far more experiential. There’s still few V12 engines I’d actually want to own and have to deal with maintaining. The easy ones aren’t exciting, and the exciting ones need $ and vigilance.
In my high school locker, I had a pic of the Miami Vice promo shot of Crockett and Tubbs leaning against the Daytona.
I had a black Countach poster that was really big and also one with a silver 911 of some sort on it. I couldn’t tell 911s apart then, and I can’t now, so no clue if it was a special one or not.
In addition to a couple of Countach posters, I had this poster of a Lamborghini Portofino. I knew nothing about this car other than it looked amazingly unique. And at the bottom it proudly Proclaimed that Lamborghini was owned by Chrysler. A fact I often repeated well after Chrysler was no longer involved.
https://static.lambocars.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/portofino04.jpg
It wasn’t my room, but my middle school band director had that “Justification for Higher Education” poster up in the band room behind his desk. I used to go talk to him just to stare at the cars, always wondered about the car choices on it tbh.
Came here for this! It was all over the college dorms at USC.
My brother had a poster of a Porsche 928 on his bedroom wall.
As someone with loads of higher education I can assure you that was very much a case of YMMV.
That exact Porsche poster. And then the portrait with a black porsche 959, Ferrari testarossa and a Lamborghini countach
Omg! I had the exact same 3 car poster. I had a bunk bed. I slept on the bottom bunk and had that poster stapled to the bottom of the top bunk. I went to bed every night looking at those 3 cars.
I seem to recall a poster of a BMW 3.0 CSL in factory racing regalia, skipping over a chicane.
I believe I also had a red M1.
Both of these I believe I acquired from the local dealer when Mom and Dad went in for a test drive of a new 5 Series.
(They bought a Volvo 240 instead)
And when I was active duty USAF, I had an 8′ long Nissan Racing banner we pulled off one of the barriers of the track at Laguna Seca.
But I’ve never owned a BMW or a Nissan.
I find that really funny because if I were to do it all again I’d get a picture of the 850R BTCC wagon skipping. But then I might go astray and not get a Volvo. God forbid I end up in a BMW.
They didn’t take me with them when they went Volvo shopping – Otherwise I might have come home w/ a poster of a 242GT or Bertone Coupe.
A man after my heart.
As one of the olds here, I’m gonna throw out a car-ish poster I’m not sure many of you will know.
When I was a kid, this was the coolest car related poster on my wall.
Stryper’s Soldiers Under Command with the high roof, yellow and black striped E-150 van.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldiers_Under_Command
Yeah, I was not as cool as I thought I was…
So many yikes.