Peter Behrens's Blog, page 537

Ford F-6, etc.

Lee Saloutos found these in a junkyard in northeast California.

Colorado Bike

Custom 10

Mercedes SSK (And Not a Nail Station in Sight)

from a Mercedes Benz advertisement first section,  Wall Street Journal 3/21/13:
"290 dealerships have been restyled to offer an expanded range of amenities, including courtesy vehicles, full-service coffee bars and nail stations"

Mercedes Silver Arrow

Boys and girls, this is why I drive old trucks.

From a half-page Mercedes Benz advertisement that ran on the back page, first section, of yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

"290 dealerships have been restyled to offer an expanded range of amenities, including courtesy vehicles, full-service coffee bars and nail stations"

In Europe I met a service manager and engineer with a prominent car 'brand' who told me how the dealerships take advantage of owners' disassociation from their wheels to sell ludicrously expensive 'servicing' and 'maintenance' packages, I guess while the owners' nails are being painted? polished? sharpened?--whatever happens to nails at a nail station.

This is my idea of a Benz:

GMC Advanced Design truck

I believe the GMC and Chevrolet "Advanced Design" series trucks (1947-55) were among the most beautiful vehicles made.

American Houses, Colorado Springs, snow.

1940 Ford 1-ton truck. Clayton New Mexico

Union County, New Mexico

Union County, N.M.  is larger than Rhode Island & Delaware combined and has a population of approximately four thousand.

The Car Salesman Jane Hilberry poem

                                                                               ©2013 JoAnn Verburg T he Car Salesman

She likes the fact that he can’t find the caron the lot or remember the price.  He’s dejected, has had all the hopes driven out of him.  She likes that in a man.He grew up looking for birds,he tells her, can identify them nowjust by the silhouette.  In the morning,he scouts out where the owls will be, goes home for a cup of coffee,then comes back later to find them.He doesn’t wear a ring.She imagines taking him with herto concerts at the Fine Arts Center,would like to come in on his arm, surpriseher colleagues with her taste in men.She would like to taste this man,if only once, sit with him in a bardrinking beers and laughingat the Ford Corporation.  She would liketo get drunk and dance with himto the amateur band playing songsof the seventies, or stay cool and soberas a chalked cue, and win game after game of pool, the men’s quarters lined upon the polished edge of the table.After work, she’d sit beside him in his truckand loosen his tie, loosen his laugh.Sitting in his makeshift office, she feelshis depression, like the black hair that creepsout of the neck of his shirt.  She feelsthe sadness of everything he’s never daredto want, doling out cars to those who can afford themand those who can’t.  Now he’s telling his wifeon the phone, “No, I don’t want to, but I will,”then making a note of that errandhe plans to forget.  He’s hearing the pullof the tides on Cape Cod.  “When I came herein 1969, people couldn’t understandwhat I was saying.  It was like I was talkinganother language.”  He’s still talkinghis own language, the man who needsto sell cars-- “Just give me one more chance,”he asks her on the phone--and whose hearttrails after birds.  Sometimes it’s so beautifulwhat he sees when he’s out in the woods,he says, he feels inspired.He thinks how he would write it down.Then when he gets home, it’s gone.  Flownlike some bird he can’t identify, flownlike something in his life he’s been tryingto get a glimpse of, something he was surehe’d recognize immediately, if he saw it,just from the silhouette.

                                    --Jane Hilberry, from  Body Painting .