I Really Like These Storybook-ish Drawings Of This Old Ford Van: Cold Start

Every now and then I’ll encounter an old brochure where it’s less about the car that captures my attention, and more about the artistic style of the brochure. Today is one of those days! It was inspired by this 1951 Ford of Germany brochure about the Taunus van, and the illustration style used is somehow strangely soft and sweet, almost like illustrations from som quaint old storybook about a van that lived with a cobbler and they meet an elf or fairy or some shit. They’re just charming!

As you can see above, there’s a soft, painterly quality, and everything seems to have an almost, I don’t know, velvety texture to it. The body panels don’t quite seem like cold metal, to me.

Here, look for yourself:

See what I mean? The visual look makes them seem sort of…soft? The bottom one, the brown wagon, it almost seems upholstered? Like a leather sofa you can drive around. Cars have been built with vinyl exteriors before, but I’m pretty sure the Taunus was all-steel.

The grille is interesting, too; it seems to be made from body-colored metal that’s angled to slots cut into it, with chrome trim delineating the sort-of louvers; the look is interesting and almost feels like the false grilles used on some rear-engined cars, but it’s not that– this is a conventional front engine, and that’s a functional grille. It’s just a bit odd.

Looking into the cargo area and interior, the illustration makes it still look sort of soft and inviting, almost cozy, like a cabin, perhaps. The spare tire is under the floor, which is nice in that it gives access without having to remove any cargo, but it does reduce the interior height by a good number of inches. I’d have stuck it on the rear door.

In fact, all of the packaging feels a bit archaic, really. I mean, look at this – the cargo area doesn’t even start until the halfway point of the van’s length, and that hood is a good 1/3 of the overall length. It’s not really an efficient use of space at all, and it makes you realize why vans that were starting to appear at this time, especially Volkswagen’s Type 2, did so well. Just look at the packaging differences:

Even in this very early VW van, I think also from around 1951, before VW moved the spare to a better location, you still have much more cargo room in the VW for the same basic amount of overall length. Yes, the engine and spare wheel take up room at the rear, but unlike a front hood, you can use the space above it, and it leaves a huge open cube of space for the main cargo area, which is also loadable from the side, very handy for a delivery vehicle.

Still, the Taunus has its charms, and this brochure works hard to convey that. There’s a drawing of the engine here that uses extensively one of my favorite graphic design conceits: breaking boundaries:

See how the fan blades and oil bath air cleaner and that bracket and the lower oil pan tab things all break the boundaries of that thin border? I love that shit! It makes everything feel so much more active and vibrant. It’s sort of strange and maybe even silly but I never get tired of that basic visual concept.

Oh also, I finally looked up what the hell “Taunus” means. It’s confusingly close to “taurus” but it’s got nothing to do with astrological bulls. It’s a mountain range in Germany! Ohhhhhhhh.