“They tell me I’ll eventually win everything,” Barbra Streisand told the Post in a 1963 interview. “The Emmy for TV, the Grammy for records, the Tony on Broadway, and the Oscar for movies. It would be beautiful to win all those awards, to be rich, to have my name on marquees all over the world. And I guess a lot of those things will happen to me. I kind of feel that they will.”

After her debut (and Tony-nominated performance) in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, the Post interviewed the unlikely star who was rising to overnight fame. Fast-forward to today, and Streisand has four Emmys, a Tony Award, 10 Grammys, and two Oscars under her belt. And all of the global fame and riches her 21-year-old self had envisioned in our interview, “Good-Bye Brooklyn, Hello Fame.”

Barbra Streisand: A Star is Born The Saturday Evening Post

Swimming helped keep Williams vital and strong. Ever since the 1940s, she had been one of the sport’s most ardent and visible promoters, inspiring thousands along the way to take the plunge. ©SEPS

Esther Williams didn’t plan on swimming into history as America’s most memorable mermaid. Blame it on Hitler. The pretty high school athlete had qualified for three berths on the 1940 Olympic team heading to Finland. But while Williams was busy lapping the pool and perfecting her strokes, Hitler was terrorizing Europe and occupying Scandinavian countries. The 1940 Olympic Games were canceled.

What Williams didn’t know was the showman Billy Rose was scouting for a performer to star in his San Francisco Aquacade. He noticed the young athlete’s picture in the local newspaper and invited her to try out. With her shot at the gold medal canceled along with the games, she accepted Rose’s challenge and became an Aquacade headliner opposite Johnny Weissmuller of Tarzan-movie fame.

Read More: Editor Pat Perry interviewed the vivacious swimmer who brought a lifelong love of water to America in “Esther Williams: Still in the Swim” (January/February 1998).

Remembering Swimmer and Movie Star Esther Williams The Saturday Evening Post

With Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the well-loved novel in the spotlight, we’ve been admiring vintage 1920s illustrations and advertisements from the pages of The Saturday Evening Post.

Here’s a look at some of the Post‘s Gatsby-era artwork. For more original illustrations and beautiful cover images, check out Gatsby Girls, available for purchase in print and digital editions.

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Vintage Gatsby-Era Art The Saturday Evening Post

The devastating explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, on Wednesday, April 17, 2013, happened 66 years after one of the nation’s worst industrial disasters—also caused by a fertilizer explosion. On April 16, 1947, more than 500 people were killed and 3,000 injured as a series of violent explosions and fires demolished the Gulf Coast seaport of Texas City, Texas.

The Post reported on the events leading to the explosion of the S.S. Grandcamp vessel; the minute-by-minute account of the terrible blast; and the legal battle that followed.

As in West, Texas, many of the firefighters were killed, and there is speculation that the volunteer firemen may not have known how to fight a fertilizer fire. The Post noted that although they knew how to fight ship fires, oil, benzol and propane fires, there was no general current knowledge that ammonium nitrate would explode.

It is impossible to estimate the force of the Grandcamp explosion, but it is difficult to exaggerate it. Terminal buildings ceased to exist. Monsanto’s warehouse—a steel-and-brick structure—was flattened. The main power plant was similarly crushed, and, as the blast fanned out, walls of manufacturing buildings fell, partitions shredded, pipelines carrying flammable liquids were torn apart. Two sightseeing light planes, 1,500 feet above the Grandcamp, were blown out of the air, with the loss of four lives. Windows in Galveston and Freeport were shattered; the explosion was felt in Palestine, Texas, 200 miles away.

Read more in “Death on the Water Front” by Milton MacKaye (October 26, 1957).

Fertilizer Explosions: What Have We Learned From Past Disasters? The Saturday Evening Post

Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player: “Some spectators are thoughtless and some greens are like peanut brittle.” (The Saturday Evening Post, April 13, 1963)

Legendary performers Jack Nicklaus (73), Arnold Palmer (83), and Gary Player (77) teed off for the 77th Masters at Augusta National Golf Club as honorary starters.

Fifty years ago, the Post interviewed the big three: Palmer was noted as the game’s acknowledged master; Player, the small, sensational South African; and Nicklaus, forecasted to be golf’s next superstar. In the April 13, 1963, article, the golfers discussed how the travel was endless, the pressure was fierce, but the money was great.

On the topic of the Masters, Nicklaus said, “There has never been a golf course in the history of the game that has suited a man more than Augusta National suits Arnie. Never! He’s got a four-stroke bloody advantage before we tee off. Almost every hole is a dogleg left.”

Read the full interview here.

Masters’ Champs Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player The Saturday Evening Post

Click here to download the full article “Pennsylvania Legislature” (December 7, 1822) from the Post archives, or read below. (See also “Jailhouse Blues” in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue.)

Pennsylvania Legislature The Saturday Evening Post

This June 6, 1953, article tracks cooling technology from its public debut in movie palaces (not a resounding success: cold air piped through holes in the floor forced dust into the air, only to settle on moviegoers’ faces) to the new trend of room coolers (99 percent of homes at the time had none) to futuristic dreams of shopping centers with air-conditioned and roofed “streets” between rows of stores.

Here’s the whole story:

We Were There First: Air Conditioning The Saturday Evening Post

“The magazine came out every week, and I would pick up my bundle at the grocery store after school,” Gordon wrote of his newsboy days. “Some unknown, out-of-sight person had dropped these off earlier. I would guess I had 20 to 25 copies in the bundle. There was an equal number of customers waiting for me to hop on my bicycle and pedal perhaps three miles to cover the route. I liked that. Each copy sold for five cents. My profit came out of that.”

“The Nursemaid” by Norman Rockwell

"The Nursemaid"
from October 24, 1936

Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gordon had early memories of the magazine. “I can remember my mother tearing off the covers of The Saturday Evening Post over the years — those illustrated by Norman Rockwell, and saving them. She told me, ‘Gordon, each one of these pictures has a complete story within them and you don’t need to read a single word.’”

Today, Mr. Thorpe resides in North Carolina where he loves to take his bike out on the American Tobacco Trail, so named as a tribute to the area’s agricultural and commercial heritage. Many of the cyclists have grown accustomed to seeing Gordon and enjoy stopping to chat with him. He used to ride the trail with his wife, but sadly, he lost her in September. Determined to stay active, Gordon says, “I get up and go by myself now.” The World War II veteran also swims a mile every morning.

Gordon’s bike is a Trek 4700 hybrid his family presented to him on his 80th birthday. An article on the Rails to Trials Conservancy website describes what his supportive family did for his 90th:

“I had no idea,” Gordon says. “We were out on the trail together, and I say, “Look, they’ve put a new bench in.” So my son says, ‘Why don’t we stop?’ I started reading the little bronze plaque, and that’s when I realized.” Reading the inscription aloud, Thorpe seems genuinely touched by the gesture to build the seat, which took months of careful planning between the family and county workers.

“That’s the part I like best: ‘keep on riding,’” Thorpe says.

“I still subscribe to The Saturday Evening Post,” he says, “and when I am through with each issue I send it to my daughter.”

His delivery days were over within two or three years. “When I reached 15, my interest changed from The Saturday Evening Post to girls.”

Keep on riding, Gordon!

Know a former Post newsboy? We would love to feature them on our website! Email Diana Denny.

Photos provided by Gordon’s son, Jim Thorpe.

Post Newsboys: Still Riding! The Saturday Evening Post

I looked at his hair. It was thick. It had a tendency to curl. It was exactly the right length — not too long, not too short. It wasn’t a butch through which his scalp showed pinkly. I envied him his hair and his even tan, every inch of which was exactly the same degree of darkness. There were no freckles, no peeling spots, I thought, figures that his hair should look right. He should know about such things. After all, fit’s the most famous barber since Delilah, although he abandoned his tonsorial trade about twenty-five years ago to sing for his living.

“I understand you’re a big man in the icechomping field,” I said to Perry Como. “I’m an ice eater myself, and it drives my wife to distraction. She says she can hear the echo of my molars all over the house. Does your dentist tell you it’s bad for your teeth when you crack a whole cube with one bite?”

Como looked cautiously around his office as if he were afraid it was bugged. “I’ve never told him,” he said in a low, conspiratorial voice.

“You mean he can’t tell by just looking into your mouth?” I asked.

“He’s preoccupied with some other dental problems of mine,” Como explained. “For eighteen years I’ve had a small space between my two front teeth. That was my Number One problem. It was a minor one. I acquired a major one many years ago when they drilled why you should know this, but once your teeth are ground and capped, they’re tender afterward. If you get a little cavity or decay on the uncapped part of the tooth, the dentist has to take the cap off, drill a little higher and put on another cap. Dentically speaking, I’ve been going through hell for eighteen years. In all honesty, I guess if I had laid off my ice-breaker bit, my teeth would be in pretty good shape.”

I said, “I’m curious about how you go about crunching ice with caps on.”

“Obviously my caps are made of concrete,” Como said, “I can polish off a whole bowl of ice in no time at all.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I’ll tell you why I think I’m an ice craver. When I play a lot of golf, as I frequently do, and it’s very hot, I perspire bucketfuls. I get dehydrated and I have to push that lost water back into my body, I’m not very big, but in one round of golf I can ooze between five and seven pounds.”

“On just an ordinary, peaceful, quiet day of golf?” I asked.

“It’s actually water. It’s bloat that vanishes.”

I said, “I understand that you play a very leisurely game of golf, a lazy game. So why all the perspiration?”

He smiled, confessing, “I can sweat like a herd of wild animals. My pores are wide open and ready to go any time. I’ll tell you a secret,” he went on, “I know your spies have told you that my rounds of golf aren’t strenuous, that I keep my eyes and ears open to the crunch of grass underfoot and the sound of birdsong as I journey around eighteen holes. They doubtless tell you also that I seem to relish these things so greatly that I play very slowly. Well, to use a sweet word instead of a crude one, that’s a lot of hooey. I may appear to loiter, but honestly I’m just as fast as anybody else on a golf course.” He thought of something and added, “With the exception of England. I really had a problem there. For some reason, British players hit the ball and run. Their wives may find them something less than volcanic at home, but put them down on a golf course, and it’s Balaklava and The Charge of the Light Brigade all over again. They charge at you like wild boars — polite wild boars, mind you, but if they want to play through you, if you’re smart, you let them play.”

I said, “The only English golf match I’ve ever seen was one played between Bob Hope and Bing Crosby for the Playing Fields of England Fund, They had to call it off on the fourth hole because they were driving their balls right down the spectators’ throats. Twelve or fifteen thousand people crowded onto the fairways until there weren’t any fairways; there were just masses of people.”

“I played in a few of those things myself,” Como said. “They’re fun until they start leaving you no room to play in. After that they’re murder.”

I said, “I helped Bob Hope write his story for The Saturday Evening Post. There are those who say he’s no good without his writers around him, but I can testify that there were many times when he said sidesplitting things to me on his own, without his writers thinking them up for him.”

“He’s a swifty with an ad lib,” Como agreed. “Hope’s played a lot of golf exhibitions for charity, and I’ve played with him on some of them. You gather together three or four characters like Hope, and ten or twenty thousand people are apt to turn out. When the galleries start lining up on the fairways until they leave only a long, narrow slit for you to drive through, it scares the hell out of you. You could kill a spectator if you hit him in the wrong spot.

“Most of the benefits I’ve played,” he went on, “have been for boys’ clubs or for such things as cerebral-palsy funds. I remember one day in Washington, D.C, when there were five of us—Hope and I, Ben Hogan, Ed Sullivan and Jimmy Demaret. Most of the people who’d come out to see us play weren’t golfers and knew no golf etiquette. They didn’t even have enough gumption to know they were in danger and get out of the way when Hope and Sullivan and I were shooting. Hogan and Demaret knew where their shots were going, but you can’t stand in front of Hope or me when we’re shooting without running a good chance of having a slice or a hook slam into you.

“That was the maddest day I can remember. Bob was flying in from somewhere with Jim Demaret. They were supposed to be there at one o’clock, but when they didn’t show up, Hogan gave the crowd a golf clinic.
He showed them how to hit some balls, then he explained his shots over a microphone to kill time. People were milling and trampling around out of hand, and I was hiding in the locker room. I wasn’t about to go out there and get flattened. Finally there was the sound of police-motorcycle sirens, and in came Hope.

“From the moment we teed off on the first hole, trying to play golf was ridiculous. By the time we got to where a ball had landed, it was gone, and we never saw it again. I didn’t see the same ball twice all day. There were supposed to be marshals to protect us — they were really to protect the crowd —but they didn’t. So the people gathered in the middle of the fairways and grabbed the balls as fast as we hit them. We kept trying anyhow and finally got to the fifth hole, which was a well-trapped par three. I’ll never forget what Bob did then. It showed a softer and kinder side of this man who seems so cocky on the outside. He told the rest of us, ‘I’m going to hit it in the trap,’ and sure enough, that’s where he hit it.

“I wish I had a movie of the action for the next fifteen minutes. Bob deliberately hit that ball from one trap to another, dealing out stale jokes for the crowd every second of the time. He was giving the crowd a show for their money, and it was hilariously funny. He’d hit under the ball so it would go straight up in the air, or he’d top it and bury it in the sand. You know, people consistently underestimate Bob. He’s much more than just a funny man; he’s a very kind man too.

“We played four more holes because we thought we ought to play at least nine, after which we dropped everything and ran for the clubhouse like rabbits. I simply couldn’t have stood another nine holes. We’d be there yet. It had taken us four and a half hours to play the holes we did play. When we saw a ball, we hit it. The rest of the time we were signing autographs and walking. A couple of times I even walked in the wrong direction because I couldn’t see the fairway.”

From Our Archives: I Call On Perry Como The Saturday Evening Post

The Runaway
Norman Rockwell
September 20, 1958

We bid a sad farewell to a model for one of Norman Rockwell’s most iconic covers, “The Runaway” from 1958. Dick Clemens, the real police officer who was delighted when Rockwell asked him to pose for the painting, died Monday at the age of 83.

The popular cover shows a boy running away from home, as boys sometimes do. The contrast between the large policeman and the small boy is poignant. Rather than briskly hauling the runaway home, the officer respects the lad’s dignity with a bite at the diner and a chat first. In a 1976 issue of the Post, Clemens talks about modeling for Rockwell:

Being a model for Norman Rockwell has given me a sincere sense of pride. People have come up and told me they have seen copies of the cover. A copy now hangs in the State Police Academy in Framingham, Massachusetts. I also have a reproduction of the original.

I knew Norman Rockwell casually, as a fellow townsperson. For a short period of time we lived on the same street, two doors apart. Mr. Rockwell was aware I was a state police officer. He called me and asked if I would pose for him.

The Runaway happens to be my favorite Norman Rockwell painting. I also had the pleasure to pose for him on a second occasion. He did a Christmas card for the Massachusetts State Police, which depicts a facial view of myself. This is my favorite, next to The Runaway. His art is timeless. It has proven to be pleasing to people of all ages.

I am now chief of plant protection and security officer for the distribution and transformer department of the General Electric Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I am married and have two teenage daughters. My children are very proud of the painting. They have also given prints as gifts.

I had not seen the Locke boy (the young man in The Runaway) from the time that we first posed (1958) until 1971. He and I spent a semester studying logic at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield.

A Fond Farewell to an Iconic Policeman The Saturday Evening Post

The Roe family before going to Panama.

This 1905 photo was recently sent to us by Matt Kindred. The lives of the Roe family of Iowa were about to change dramatically, as the following year, the father would land a good-paying job on a major project: the building of the Panama Canal. The little girl holding the flowers was Matt’s grandmother, and the boy in the dark suit was her brother Otis Edward Roe. Young Master Roe would have a new job, too: selling issues of The Saturday Evening Post to workers at the Panama Canal.

Otis Edward Roe at the construction of the Panama Canal.

While researching family history, Matt discovered a 1972 Saturday Evening Post story about former newsboys. His Great Uncle, Otis Edward Roe, had sent in a photo from his newsboy days in Panama. The canal was not a project taking a few weeks or months, but years, and Otis and his siblings spent a portion of their childhood in Panama. The photo shows young Roe standing on the edge of the Gaillard Cut, “which sliced through the Continental Divide and was the most hazardous phase of the canal project.” The 1972 issue reported the Roe had “a brisk business, selling the Post to those workers who were so far from their homeland for so long.”

“It appears in the above photo young Roe is holding this April 3, 1909 issue of the Post. Post staffer Ron Dowdy points out that a five-cent issue in Panama “was not an inexpensive purchase for the American worker. The common laborer was paid 90 cents per day. The workers worked 9 hour days. So the magazine would be worth a half an hour’s wage.” The fact that you could get three meals a day for about 30 cents adds perspective. So does the fact that in the days before radio, the Post with its many fiction stories, serials and welcome news from the States would have been one of the few sources of entertainment and distraction, so it was well worth that hard-earned nickel!

Otis Edward Roe in 1972.

Like his father, Otis Roe had worked for a railroad, and at the time of the ’72 article, he was retired and living in Tallahassee, Florida. He recalled that among his Post customers was the man in charge of the canal construction, Lieutenant Colonel George Washington Goethals. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Goethals chief engineer of the Panama Canal in 1907. Construction was completed in 1914.

Selling The Post at "the Canal" Construction payday.

Young Roe wasn’t the only Post presence at the building of the great canal. This 1908 photo from Our Teams, a magazine for newsboys, shows a boy making collections at a pay-car. A large posted sign reads “The Saturday Evening Post—5 Cents a Copy.” “One thousand copies weekly are sold this way in the Canal Zone,” Our Teams reported, proudly boasting “Our Boys Are Everywhere.”

If you know of someone who was a Post newsboy or girl, we would love to share their story on our website.

A Post Newsboy at the Panama Canal The Saturday Evening Post

Images of Firearms from Post’s Past The Saturday Evening Post

It was twenty-two years ago that I stopped off between trains to watch a high school basketball game at Plymouth, Indiana, and wound up—when the regutar official failed to show up—being pressed into service as referee. Since then, averaging fifty games a year from crossroads high schoots through Big Ten games and seven Indiana state-final tournaments, I’ve blown my whistle about 30,000 times and run about 3000 miles on hardwood floors. But I still haven’t seen everything. There’s no limit to the things that can happen in a basketball game.

There was the lowly last-minute sub who dashed in determined to save the day, only to find, when he peeled off his sweat pants, that he had neglected to put on his playing trunks. Once an overwrought boy rushed up to me and insisted in all seriousness that the other team was using seven men. And I’ll never forget the time our own dean, acting as timekeeper, thrust his gun under the table to end a game, and blew a hole through his new hat.

Before one 1934 state tournament battle, a coach asked the other official and myself to keep a sharp eye on the opposing team. “They have a trick of knocking the ball out of a man’s hands as he gets ready to put it in play from out of bounds,” he said, “to give themselves time to cover up.”

If so, a technical foul should be called. Not being given to pre-game statements of policy, however, we just told the coach to wait and see.

Right off the bat, the ball went out of bounds. Sure enough, a player brought it up to the side line to throw it in, and swipe! the ball was batted from his hands. Dutifully, we blew our whistle and slapped on a technical foul. There was juat one detail that wasn’t according to the scenario. The boy who committed the foul was on the team of the coach who had done all the squawking before the game.

Hoosier Hysteria in 1942 The Saturday Evening Post

Studebaker Car Ad March 26, 1910

Studebaker Car AdMarch 26, 1910

This 1910 ad is the first Studebaker ad we could find in The Saturday Evening Post. The Studebaker brothers opened a blacksmith shop in South Bend, Indiana on February 16, 1852. The California Gold Rush proved to be a boom for this wagon business, as was a contract to supply Union army wagons (who knew there were “Studebakers” in the Civil War?). It was a natural transition to the motor coach, if that new-fangled horseless carriage fad can be called natural. From wagons and buggies to classy and classic vehicles with motors, Studebaker history reflects a century of transportation change.

Studebaker Car Ad July 5, 1919

Studebaker Car Ad July 5, 1919

By the time this ad appeared in July of 1919, the five Studebaker brothers had all passed away. Production of vehicles such as this seven-passenger “Big Six” was overseen in part by sons and sons-in-law. Car ads were already appealing to the ladies, as we can see a group of women here about to take the Big Six on an excursion. It was priced at $1,985.

Studebaker Car Ad May 28, 1927

Studebaker Car AdMay 28, 1927

This beautiful 1927 ad is for a Studebaker Commandeer, the “Greatest post-war engineering achievement.” This handsome model boasted nickel-plated bumpers and something called “no-draft ventilating windshield (exclusively Studebaker).” Dig the “full-size balloon tires”. Modern features such gasoline gauge on dash, interior dome light and automatic windshield cleaner show that the horseless carriage had come a long way.

Studebaker Car Ad June 29, 1934

Studebaker Car AdJune 9, 1934

This 1934 ad is a work of art in itself. Notice the price has declined dramatically – starting at $685. These “lowest priced Studebakers in history” are the result of the economic Depression and refined manufacturing methods. No more building one car at a time. Even the lowest-priced cars were a tough sell in that economy, but by 1933 Studebaker was back in the black and expanding dealerships.

Studebaker Car Ad October 10, 1936

Studebaker Car Ad< October 10, 1936

The low-price years continue with this 1937 model. Boasting the “winged victory radiator grilles” and capacious trunks, these classics start at $665.

Studebaker Truck Ad August 10, 1946

Studebaker Truck AdAugust 10, 1946

Studebaker didn’t only produce cars, but that workingman’s friend, the truck. And the vehicles were not only built in South Bend (where there remains a Studebaker museum today), but in plants in Detroit and Canada

Studebaker CG Car Ad September 1948

Studebaker Car AdSeptember 1948

We found this bright red “Studebaker Commander Starlight Coupe” in the September 1948 issue of Country Gentleman magazine, a sister publication at the time. This “respected North Dakota grain grower” is showing off his 900-acre farm and declaring he is “mighty proud of his farm and his new Studebaker”.

Alas, by the 1950’s, Studebaker’s star was fading, in spite of merging with the more financially sound Packard. But stay tuned, folks, we have some beautiful Packard ads to show you next time.

In the November 1962 Post writer Arthur W. Baum relates that Studebaker “now makes fewer automobiles than an other of the five major U.S. firms, little more than one in every 100 of the industry’s total of 6,000,000. In the last half-dozen years Studebaker has enjoyed only one substantially profitable year. The company concedes that about one-quarter of the country has no Studebaker dealers.” The slick new “Avanti” notwithstanding, they were not making the dent in a market dominated by the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Thunderbird. By the end of 1963, the South Bend plant, which had begun 111 years previously as a blacksmith shop forging metal parts for wagons. In 1966, the remaining plant in Ontario closed.

A Century of Studebaker The Saturday Evening Post

Packard Car Ad – April 25, 1903

Packard Car Ad
April 25, 1903

The first Packard ad in The Saturday Evening Post appears to be from April 25, 1903. J. W. Packard, his brother and a partner founded the company in Warren, Ohio in 1900. Cars were built one at a time in these years of automotive infancy. In fact, Packard partner, G.L. Weiss had been a major investor in the Winton Motor Carriage Company and owned Winton #4. (Imagine having a car with the serial number “4”). Five Model A Packards were built in that first year of 1900. To show what the 1900 Model A could do, partner G.L. Weiss and Packard made a highly touted test: they drove it from Cleveland to Buffalo in 13 ½ hours. Of course, the under 200-mile journey would take a little over three hours now, but this was still the horse and buggy era, with very few paved roads. As a promotion for the new car, the feat was a success.

Packard Car Ad – September 18, 1926

Packard Car Ad
September 18, 1926

This gorgeous ad from 1926 suggests the grace and agility of a thoroughbred. A 1932 ad had an oriental scene at the top to show how Packard was supreme in over sixty countries. In Shanghai, “Packard cars outnumber—by more than two to one—all other makes of comparable price combined”. Automobile ads were becoming a work of art themselves. As were the autos.

Packard Car Ad – March 17, 1928

Packard Car Ad
March 17, 1928

Packard ads of this era liked to tell us a story from history – in this case, the ancient forging of the 105-foot high bronze statue of Helios in 280 B.C., and then show how they carry on the grand tradition. “In one of the world’s most modern foundries Packard precision parts first take form under scientific control. Every detail of temperature and the blending and pouring of metals into the intricate moulds is carefully checked.” However it was created, the resulting convertible is a thing of beauty. Prices in this 1928 ad range from $2,275 to $4,550 with “individual custom models from $5,200 to $8,970, at Detroit”.

Packard Car Ad – March 25, 1939

Packard Car Ad
March 25, 1939

“Three American Faces You Know at a Glance” this ad confidently touts. “A 1939 Packard presents to the world one of the proudest and most distinguished faces that ever graced a motor car.” This was the new Packard Six. Remember: “When you drive a Packard, the whole world knows it’s a Packard”. Gotta love that grill.

Packard Car Ad – July 7, 1941

Packard Car Ad
July 7, 1941

By the 40’s, the car was more streamlined in style, like this Packard Clipper from 1941. This 4-door sedan would set you back $1,375. This featured “fade-away fenders”, front fenders that “fade” into the center of the car. “It’s beautiful—and permits increased body width with no increase in overall car width”, the ad noted.

Packard Car Ad – Wizard of Ah’s

Packard Car Ad
Wizard of Ah's

By 1948, the proud Packard was even sleeker. Love the copy: “Designed by the Wizard of “Ah’s!” Cars are getting smarter: “Press a button and the top lowers or raises. Another button moves the front seat forward or backward! And ALL four windows have magic push-button control!” If you were looking for more of a family car, no doubt you were more inclined to the “Station Sedan” at the bottom of the page. “All steel, finished in Northern Birch”.

The Packard is still “with us” not only through these old ads but through a number of Packard clubs around the world today.

Classic Car Ads: The Packard The Saturday Evening Post