What a Trip

Jump in the way-back machine for a moment to a time when high-speed photography was relatively new. Outstanding camera equipment back in the 1960s was something of a chore to carry and position. We're going back to an analog period that thrived even when humans were getting their first taste of outer-space.

Veteran photographers can tell of the manual process involved in this craft fifty years ago, but we'll keep it at this; you had to be passionate and proficient at your job or no sale. So rather than go through a deep hassle getting high speed photos, some chose to go with what their digits could create. Photography is an art-form, but there's something about the actual illustrations hired hands created to capture speed as it appears in our minds.

Pictured is a 1969 & 1/2 Plymouth Roadrunner A12, designated by the black fiberglass hood and air-swallowing scoop. Inside, the three two-barrel carbs appear to have separate filter-less elements for uninhibited flow albeit risky on a dirt and gravel road. If there was ever a factory hot-rod option, the A12 package had to be it.

Black steel wheels with no bright appointments other than the lugs, four-pin fiberglass lift-off hood, either torqueflite or A833 transmission, and 440 cubic inches fed by a 3x2 Edelbrock intake. 390 horses are strong, but there's a lot of potential here for Hemi-like performance.

So with all of this power in an intimidating look, how would you see a ride in one of these bending your mind? An A12 Roadrunner has to be something close to the Millennium Falcon on earthly winds. Don't reference that in 1969 though or you'll end up in an institution.

Getting period appropriate, look at this image as if the artist went for a hellride after dropping acid. Now I haven't a bit of experience in the practice, but I'd imagine the world would literally bend before your dilated pupils.

The hood's longer than a Dusenberg, there's no environment to describe beyond mere lines where sky once drifted, and the pilot looks like a devilish insect with those goggles. For this era there wasn't a digital photo-editing program on personal computers. Any computer enveloped whole rooms for that matter.

If consumers were drawn in by outrageous caricatures of the latest hot cars, deliberate manual strokes put them on paper. What's cooler than buy a car that could literally stretch time and space? That's one hell of a departure from the conservative, feel-good advertisements earlier in the 60s. However, there were new grooves being formed in our society and the hip thing was following a path so feared by previous generations because of how uncharted it was.