Tag: Class of ’73

Running With Scissors [Part One]

Allegories of failure.

Launch imagery was… atmospheric… Photo: gr8autophoto

Urban-planned existences lived out under high-voltage power lines, the yellowed lighting of deserted subterranean underpasses. Dehydrated food – just add water – George and Mildred on the Radio Rentals telly. Modest hopes, unfulfilled ambitions and quiet despair, punctuated by mass unemployment, the three-day week and grinding industrial disputes. The Sixties ‘white heat of industry’ had sputtered – Seventies Britain appeared to be unravelling into a J.G Ballard-esque dystopia.

Should one, for the purposes of shorthand or metaphor wish to Continue reading “Running With Scissors [Part One]”

Reimagining a Legend

Volkswagen do Brasil used its creative independence to produce a car that, had it arrived a decade earlier, might have been a very credible replacement for the Beetle.

1973 Volkswagen Brasilia. (c) autowp.ru via wheelsage

The Volkswagen Beetle is one of the defining motor vehicles of the Twentieth Century. It remained in production for 65 years and a total of 21,529,464 were built. Although much changed over its lifetime, the distinctive profile remained largely the same, with its smoothly curved roof and bonnet, and separate front and rear wings connected by running boards. Anybody seeing a 1938 prototype parked next to a 2003 final year model would Continue reading “Reimagining a Legend”