Some Human Hood Ornaments, And The Superhero Team They Could Be: Cold Start

It’s very late at night here at Monterey Car Week, and once again I fell asleep and then awoke at Miserable:30 remembering I promised to do Cold Start. So here we are! I have already taken many, many pictures of interesting cars, plenty of which I’ll be showing you soon, but for now I just want to focus on a few. Specifically, a few hood ornaments that depict human figures, because I happened to see a cluster of cars with them, and it made me think of something: what kind of superhero team would this chance assortment of hood ornaments make?

These particular hood ornaments were all found in one corner of the Gooding Auction preview area, and all were from cars from the 1930s or earlier, the era when people were happy to have little metal sculptures of people on their hoods.

So, let’s see what we have here! First up, let’s repeat the top image:

This fella is from a Pierce-Arrow. I always liked the name Pierce-Arrow because it’s the only car name I can think of that is named for the verb used for a specific noun and that noun itself. Anyway, this shiny, naked archer seems like he’d be a valuable asset to a superhero team, even if he’s just a human. I mean, the Avengers had an archer dude, right?

There’s a few versions of the archer, including a helmeted one, which may be preferable for heroic work. Also, maybe get the dude some pants.

Next up we have someone a bit more potent:

This is from a Stutz, and it’s the head of Ra, the sun god. Ra is Egyptian, which explains the headdress with the cobra, which, legend has it, would spit fire at enemies.

I think in our superhero hood ornament team, the freaking god of the sun should be the leader. In fact, sometimes I wonder why sun-worship isn’t more of a thing today. It’s 93 million miles away and can still fade your paint and burn your skin! That’s a lot of power!

I’m not messing with Ra.

Okay, I think this team is going to be a bit god-heavy. This is Packard’s Goddess of Speed, sometimes described as the “donut chaser” or “bagel chaser.” She’s winged, has a tire and wheel, and seems to be quite fast. I imagine she’d have powers akin to someone like the Flash, but with the added advantage of being able to smack someone with a car wheel.

Later, Packard switched to birds like swans and cormorants. That’s fine, we need the goddess of Speed for our team, anyway.

And finally, we have – well, crap, another god:

It’s Mercury! It’s not on a Mercury, though, it’s on a car called a Kissel, but the Kissel owners made a deal with Ford in the late ’30s to use the logo for a new marque the company was planning. At that point, Kissel had stopped making cars (they were active from 1906 to 1931) so I suppose it wasn’t too hard a decision for them.

Anyway, Mercury was the “messenger god” and known to be quite fast, with those winged shoes of his. And hat.

I think he was said to have invented the lyre, too, so that’s handy? As for his powers and role in the supergroup, we have speed – though we have that covered – and, messaging? Maybe that could be useful? He’s probably pretty invulnerable, too, being a god?

Okay, so let’s look at what our random grouping of hood ornaments gets us as a superhero group, which we’ll call the, um, Hoodlums:

Ra, the sun god, and leader. Solar powers of heat and fire!

Goddess of Speed, she’s fast and can hit you with a tire.

Mercury, a god of messages! He can get the word out to anyone, anywhere, anytime!

A mostly naked archer, first, you get distracted by the nudity, then WHAMMO, an arrow in your head!

You know what? I think this is a pretty potent team! Plus, they should all drive their respective cars, a Stutz, a Packard, a Kissel, and a Pierce-Arrow.

I’m going to bed.