Are you familiar with the Goliath GP700? These are kind of under-appreciated cars, I think, considering how they had transverse front engines driving the front wheels since 1957. Sure, they weren’t the very first to do this, but they were an economy car with this now-ubiquitous layout that emerged nearly a decade before the Mini made it really popular. But for the moment I just want to focus on this 1953 Goliath brochure because this illustration I think makes for a good brain teaser: can that man fit that suitcase in that trunk?
The whole scene is a bit puzzling in this nicely-rendered illustration, too. Why is that dude in the beret taking photos of what looks like a family packing their car? Does he work for Goliath, and was shooting pics for another brochure, one with photographs, but the artist here captured a sketch so fast he just included him in there? Is he part of that family? Are they really going to cram five people in that little ironically-named Goliath? Did that little girl find a giant pearl or dinosaur egg or is that just a ball? Is it bait so the girl in the apron can catch her? So many questions.
Anyway, back to the main question: will that suitcase fit? Take a moment and make your guess.
Okay, have your guess? Good. Let’s see:
First, will it fit upright, at the rear of the trunk? It looks like there might be just enough room for the width between the other suitcases and the rear lip:
Hm. Nope, I say. It may just cram in there, but it’ll be too tall for the lid to close, with that curve in it. What about flat, on top of the other suitcases?
Hm. I think no again, because of the hinges, which would have no room to move. And the corners would hit the trunk lid where it curves again.
Plus, this guy looks like that suitcase is really heavy, too. What’s in that thing? some poor kid is going to have it on their lap for the eight-hour drive from Dusseldorf to Salzburg! Tough break, kid, but daddy needs his collection of Victorian cast-iron erotic implements for his lecture!
The Goliath! I’m astonished that anyone remembers that car!
When I was 14, my father (who ran a towing service and garage) came into possession of one of these that had blown a piston to bits. He let me have it to play with, and I asked him how to fix the engine. Thinking I wouldn’t, he said to just take out all the broken bits and keep the oil from spraying out the crankshaft by stuffing something in the hole. He was kidding. Really.
I jammed a pencil in the hole, broke it off, and held it in with a gear clamp. The engine fired right up and ran on 3 cylinders just fine, though it did have a bit of a syncopated rhythm. I ran that car around the property, wishing for a drivers license, until it finally blew the head gasket for some reason and wouldn’t start again. Oh, well.
My father was blown away that I’d done that. I probably got several hundred miles out of it running in circles, my first front-wheel-drive car. We yanked the rear axle assembly out from under it and made a load trailer that lasted the family over a decade. In fact, I used that trailer, towed behind a Renault 12, to move my junk from Florida to Oregon right after I married my wife. The only trouble we had with it was a tire that shed its tread all over Salt Lake City before I noticed it, and, really, I couldn’t blame that on the Goliath axle.
Oh, and: the trunk was huge. With a little rearrangement, the guy will have no problem getting that last suitcase aboard. If I’d owned one, I could have stuffed a pony in there. And the guy isn’t taking a picture, he’s sucking down an Irish Coffee before he has to get stuffed in the back seat with two kids, wishing he could have been in the trunk instead.
Will the suitcase fit?
Judging by the “I’ve had enough of this shit” look on dads face I’m gonna say yes. Easily.
After unhelpful uncle tag-along and his stupid camera equipment are left on the side of the road.
Anyone else having an issue where another name is appearing to show up in place of their username?
I think that suitcase could be shoved in there, but it may not matter as dad appears to have had a couple extra cigarettes following his breakfast of bacon, eggs, ham, bacon, and black coffee with a strong pour of Old Crow. Hopefully Mr. Blue-Beret, the filmtastic camera fanatic over there still remembers his CPR training from the war.
You’re looking at this all wrong. He’s taking the suitcases out so he can shove the family in the trunk.
Yeah, obviously practicing for the trip to East Berlin one day to retrieve more relatives.
The witness protection program had a leak. Camera guy is about to let the world know their true identities, so they had to pack fast and careless and get out of town fast. The last heavy suitcase has all their silverware that they will need to pawn later to feed themselves.
Another option for loading that last piece of luggage is to insert it between the two that are already stacked there. I used to have a SAAB Sonett V4 (the model between the II and the III, sometimes incorrectly called the II V4) which, like the II shown below, has a large space for luggage behind the seats, under glass, but the only access is via a fold-down hatch at the back:
https://www.classicargarage.com/assets/images/1/saab-sonett-2-1967-two-stroke-red-rouge-rot-rood-30-ba9f2aa1.jpg
The best way to make use of this is to load smaller items first, then lift them while sliding the larger items underneath. That way the smaller items are forced upwards into the narrower space constrained by the fixed rear window. (The glass in the III, in contrast, lifts as a hatchback.)
Similarly, with the Goliath, this method would put the smaller top piece of luggage within the curved volume at the top of the trunk even if it couldn’t be put there directly had the larger piece of luggage been inserted first, as the curvature at the opening would then have been in the way. Push the smaller luggage far enough forward and the hinges will still clear, too.
The suitcase will go in the back seat with the kids, they can sit on it or lay on the rear window ledge, the suitcase was later seen in Pulp Fiction
Well, I guess we can assume the Goliath failed all contemporary road tests for not fitting any of their standard luggage sets
Of course it’ll fit! Since these are drawing people in a drawing world, they just erase the boundaries of the trunk and make it a bit bigger.
Yes. The top suitcase is removed and is used to store the small child. It is placed in the back seat. The camera guy works for Child Services.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2hv7EqILnZ0
Camera guy is obviously under orders from Number 3 to track the parents, Numbers 11 and 17. The white ball is a child-size orb used to keep the kids from escaping the Village. The older girl knows this and is trying to save her.
Be seeing you!
I feel like when you elongated it to turn it in relation to the car, you exaggerated it’s length (insert inappropriate joke of your choosing), so it should fit vertically behind the others. Plus, the bag to the left looks soft and can be turned, smashed, reformed a bit so that the big one can slide over further and it should fit just fine.
Maybe the other suitcases can be shoved a bit forward …
Just load that damn shit box like my old man did in the before times. Lay a couple of them across the back seat. Gives the rug rodents something to sit higher and see out the windows. Also makes it easier for either parent to backhand the little turds if they get too lippy or loud. Thank God for my good childhood memories.
Dad looks like a Rubik’s cube champ here.
Oh boy, Father loves Car Tetris!
Lucky Pierre, standing far too close to the front bumper, is clearly taking a picture of Mother, who may or may not be flashing him.
The older girl is wearing an apron. Is she a maid? An au pair? Does this violate child labor laws?
The little girl may be the victim of physical abuse as both legs are bandaged as well as in casts from the knees down to treat a tragic case of cankles, a common English birth defect. Looks like she’ll need corrective shoes, too.
And what’s with that water closet flush chain-looking thing hanging from the rear view mirror?
Why are the hubcaps reflecting foliage in color when there is none depicted on that side of the car and why do the background and horizon disappear midway through the scene?
Is this the Twighlight Zone?
He is removing the suitcase that doesn’t fit with the boot lid closed to retry a different packing puzzle sequence.
You’re missing the most interesting question: Why is the beret the color of Dad’s suit? What does it mean? Is beret guy really Dad in an alternate universe that has somehow, for one implausible moment, intersected with ours?
Lot’s of space to the right of the 2 laid flat. At least I’m guessing there is.
I dunno, man. I think dad is actually pulling it out of the trunk. The kids are clearly running away from the car, mom is looking on to make sure they’re getting a minimum safe distance, dad is trying to save their worldly belongings, and beret dude is documenting the unfolding disaster.
My guess is engine fire.
So if this is the case, then yes, it DID fit in the trunk.
“Penny you insufferable little bitch, pick up your ball and get in the car, or else you’ll end up in the suitcase like your brother!”
But Dad Thomas quit crying an hour ago. And now there’s no noise coming out of the suitcase. And it smells like poo poo now…
jeebus… a little dark, isn’t it?
Choices had to be made.
Just remember not to check THAT luggage. Carry on only.
Just smile and tell the TSA you are a professor of anatomy at whatever local college their stupid kid might be attending.
Works every time.
Of course it is. It’s a closed suitcase.