Category: Automobiles

The mid 30’s Cord automobile has long been a favorite of mine. The distinctive feature being the ‘coffin’ nose and the exposed exhausts. On of my favorite Cord’s is a model 810. The car was introduced at the 1936 New York, Los Angeles and Chicago auto shows. The show car was unique in that it had copper accents. The show car is on display at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg museum in Auburn, Indiana. The 810 was designed by noted car designer Gordon Buehrig. The 810 was originally going to be a 1935 Duesenberg but after incorporating a front wheel drive design, the vehicle was renamed Cord.


Packard 8

Posted under Automobiles

Packard 8

Here’s another shot taken at the 2011 Concours d’Elegance of America held in Plymouth, Michigan. This one shows a detail of the engine cowling of a 1940 Packard 180 Convertible Victoria. The Packard Motor Car Company started life in 1899 as the Ohio Automobile Company. Packard started the company after accepting a challenge from Alexander Winton to build a better car than was being produced by the Winton Motor Carriage Company. The Winton company was one of the first companies to sell motor cars and Packard had complained to Winton about the quality of his car. Packard changed the name of his company to the Packard Motor Car Company in 1902 and moved to Detroit in 1903.


’58 Cadillac Eldorado

Posted under Automobiles

'58 Cadillac Eldorado

I was spending some time going through my Lightroom catalog looking for some interesting images to post to my Google+ profile when I came across this image that I took in 2008. The car is a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham and it was on display at the annual Eyes on Design car show held in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan. I don’t think I ever posted this image anywhere before, so here it is now!


I took this picture of a 1933 Plymouth hood ornament during the 2011 Motor Muster held at Greenfield Village. The gentleman who owned the car gave me some information on the history and evolution of Plymouth hood ornaments. The 1933 had the flying figure and by 1934 they had switched to a stylized sailing ship. The key bit of information was that the 1933 ornament actually used gold in the medallion. True or not I thought the ornament was pretty cool. I took the shot with a 105mm macro lens that I had rented. I have a couple other shots which used a more open aperture, but the field of focus was too thin. I closed it down to f16 for this shot and managed to get more of the ornament in focus. Sometimes razor thin DOF looks cool, but for this sort of shot I prefer to see more detail.


Packard Steering Wheel

Posted under Automobiles

Packard Steering Wheel

With springtime comes the opening of the Gilmore Car Museum, a great car museum located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Michigan. The museum has a great collection of automobiles from virtually any time period. In addition to their regular displays, they also hold various car shows on their grounds. This shot was taken late last spring at the 2010 Classic Car Collectors of America (CCCA) show. This show features a wonderful collection of wonderfully restored classic automobiles. This particular image shows the interior of a 1940 Packard Touring Sedan.


1932 Bucciali TAV 12 – Grille

Posted under Automobiles

1932 Bucciali TAV 12

In my previous post I mentioned that the image I posted was not the one I was originally planning on posting. My original thought was to post this shot of the grille of the 1932 Bucciali TAV 12 and include the shot of the full car as additional reference to let the viewer see what the entire car looked like. Since I posted the full view, I figured it was time to post the detail shot.

As you can see, processing was fairly simple. Some minor cropping and a conversion to black and white to emphasize the look of the chrome on black.


’32 Bucciali TAV 12

Posted under Automobiles

'32 Bucciali TAV 12

Today’s image was not the image that I was planning on posting today. I have another shot of this car, a detail shot of this 1932 Bucciali TAV 12, which I was going to post. I was simply going to clean up the full length shot of the car to give viewers an opportunity to see what the entire car looked like. The picture was taken at the 2010 Concours d’Elegance held at Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester Hills, Michigan. The show always features a terrific collection of classic automobiles both common and rare. This car was parked under a tree and was the first car people saw when the entered the grounds. Lots of people were surrounding the car so it was difficult to get a clean shot. I never really thought I would do anything with this picture, but as I started to make changes, I started to like it more and more.


’56 Thunderbird

Posted under Automobiles

1956 Ford Thunderbird

This is a shot of a 1956 Thunderbird Convertible taken at the 2010 Motor Muster held annually at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Processing on the image was fairly minimal. I created more of a square crop to focus on the window ports and I used a curves layer to darken the image a bit and add some additional contrast. I used a HSL layer to remove the blue sky reflection from the chrome and then applied a little vignette in Lightroom.


R8

Posted under Automobiles

R8

This image is a bit of an experiment. I shot this at the 2011 North American International Auto Show held at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. The show always has one day where photographers can get in early. This image was show in the Audi booth using my Sigma 15mm fisheye lens. The man in blue is one of many workers whose job it is to keep the cars clean. I was trying to get a shot without him in the picture, but I finally just went ahead and took a few shots since he wasn’t moving. When I was looking overmy images I selected this one because I liked the way the car fit under the white arc of the show booth.


One of my favorite automobiles is the Auburn Boattail Speedster manufactured by the Auburn Automobile Company of Auburn, Indiana. The Auburn company was sold to E.L. Cord who merged it with Duesenberg to create a company which manufactured Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs. Their main facility was housed in an Art Deco building in Auburn, Indiana which now houses the Auburn-Cord-Dusesenberg museum. This shot shows the showroom of the Museum, displaying an array of vintage Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles (big surprise). The showroom has some great Art Deco touches such as the chandeliers, and detail work in the ceiling, flooring and main staircase. The museum is a great place to visit if you love vintage automobiles or enjoy Deco design.