That image up there is from a 1959 Opel Kapitän brochure, and while I’m certainly fond of the lovely brushy artwork and the very American-inspired Kapitän, what I’m most interested here is the scene. There that normal, privately-owned car, pulled up right next to what looks like a commercial airliner. This sort of thing has shown up in car brochures a number of times. Was this ever a thing?
Was there ever a time you could just, somehow, pull right onto the tarmac and just walk out onto your plane, if you just had a commercial airline ticket? There’s no way that could work, right? It’d be chaos! Maybe people got some sort of special access – but who, and how?
I did a little looking into it, and it seems there are eye-wateringly expensive VIP car services that will drop your pampered ass off right by your plane, like this LAX-based $3,500 service that will take you in a BMW. But it can only use LAX’s little-known private terminal, PS LAX, and I’m still confused. Commercial flights go to this terminal? How? Private charter flights I can understand, but how do the commercial flights work? This guy was invited to see the terminal by United – I guess United has rich-people-only flights, too, ones I’m too filthy to have known about?
Huh. Well, until they can drop me by my plane in a ’59 Opel, it’s not good enough for me.
Speaking of ’59 Opels, look at this other brochure page:
Look at that nice scene, in front of that lovely cabin, and enjoying the shiftlessness of that GM Hydra-Matic-equipped Kapitän,. which was the three-speed Hydra-Matic. But let’s look closer at what’s going on here:
That’s a drug deal! I know a drug deal when I see one! Look at sunglasses-and-hat there, that dude had dealer written all over him, I don’t care how sharply creased his pants are! That’s a baggie of cocaine! I know what’s going on here, in that debauchery-chalet!
Man, Kapitän owners know how to party, am I right?
Where is the future we were promised?
Back in those days people would park just about anywhere. Runways, boat docks, random fields…
It’s Cold War era Germany – clearly the dashing couple are trying to distract the uniformed officer while someone smuggles state secrets into the trunk of their Opel.
Papers, please.
Sorry, I’m hung up on the background airplane in the first picture–not the one next to the Kapitan, but the one in the distance, seen above the Kapitan’s trunk. I see one engine on the wing, and then…the whole fuselage is another, big engine? Forget the Opel, what the hell is this?
A Canberra bomber with extra engines added under the wing and then converted to civilian use, obviously.
Drawn by a really early AI?
Back before 9/11, it was a lot easier to use connections to pull off something like this. I have friends who work in aviation security and under certain circumstances they can still pull off a maneuver like this.
Still doable, but everyone one the plane will hate you. Not just for the duration of the flight but for all time. Never ever try to pull this stunt, It will end very badly (further imormation is available
“North Haverbrook…. Oh no… Oh no!!!”
Re Drug Deal guys…
“Are you a cop? If you’re a cop, you have to tell me.”
As good a time as any to bring up the concept of the Great Span as posted in a number of articles on kottke.org: https://kottke.org/tag/The%20Great%20Span
My grandmother’s brother-in-law (which would make him my great-uncle or grand-uncle though we simply called him uncle) could not turn his head independently of his torso due to injuries from crashing in a race in the earliest days of professional car racing (he used to race against Barney Oldfield, hence the Great Span reference, as Oldfield retired from car racing in 1918 after becoming one of the most famous names in racing; after my uncle recovered from his injuries he went into journalism where one of his early assignments was covering the breaking news of the sinking of the Titanic. Wish I had talked with him more about his life but I was still just a young child when he passed away.)
In the late 60s he, his wife (my great-aunt), and my grandmother would go for Sunday drives, which was still a thing. One time they ended up driving on a road unfamiliar to them; my grandmother remarked on how nice, wide, and smooth the road was and with no traffic to boot. Then they saw some people running up to them and frantically waving their arms; it turned out that my uncle, partly due to his inability to turn his head independently of his torso and partly due to his advanced age, had inadvertently driven onto the runway of an airport, cementing a place as an oft-told anecdote in family lore.
In the 1990s I would sometimes give friends a lift to airports and more than once I would drop them off right beside their planes, so, yeah, it was still a thing to do that, as seen with the Opel Kapitän, even at decent-sized airports. And even after 9/11 for a few years it was still possible to get a good look at the DC-3 used by RAM (https://www.ramusa.org/) albeit separated by fences at a local airfield; it was indeed a fascinating airplane to behold in person (to the extent possible.)
Clearly, both of these depictions are code for drug deals.
In the top image both the well-heeled gentleman and the pilot are negotiating with the Tarmacadam Madam for some psychedelic mushrooms. This is signified by the guy in a blue cap putting the merchandise in the trunk and by the blue Kapitan, or blue kap (cap), a slang term for said shrooms.
In the lower image, the gents are paying for crack cocaine often referred to as red cap in street slang. This is indicated by both the red Kapitan and the literal red cap on the dealer/pimp.
Hans and Franz sure know how to party runter.
What is going on with that lady’s arms in the first scene? The artist could have put them any.where … why there, like that?
And, is that Nancy Drew and George Fayne in the second scene?
(if only I could zoom in 😉 )
doh! And she’s undoubtedly flapping her hands feebly like fans
You can still drive your private vehicle onto the tarmac for a commercial flight. I did it just last week.
In what may or may not be a related note, I am writing this from a federal prison.
A few years ago I flew through a small airport in Costa Rica where the apron and parking lot were one and the same. I think these days there is a chain-link fence preventing you from driving onto the runway but that’s definitely a new development.
Now I think about it, there’s a highway that crosses the runway at Gibraltar International, so a well timed photo at the traffic lights and you could easily reproduce this image today, assuming you have access to a handsome 1959 Opel Kapitän (who doesn’t?)
It’s the same in Shetland. We were there last summer in the TVR, and it was sooooooo tempting to turn left for a blast along the runway.
I’m wondering about the 5/8 scale driver.
Some people have commercial appearing planes as their private jet. In those circumstances, their chauffeur usually will be driving directly up to the plane for departures and arrivals.
As an aside, it’s really not that expensive to rent small jets for vacations with a few friends. You can find highly motivated aviation companies in most medium sized cities. In my experience, they can save a lot of time and trouble, especially with the way the large airlines have been behaving lately.
Yeah, perhaps most famously Iron Maiden’s used a whole-ass 747 on a couple tours, but looking through the Street View history of the nearest private terminal, there’s plenty of commercial-sized jets (I found the one from a failed prime ministerial campaign in 2019 kind of funny).
That 747 was awesome, and actually made quite a lot of financial sense. The band stated in multiple interviews that they could actually carry all of their gear for the show and whole road team on just the single aircraft instead of having to charter multiple other planes and pay for multiple other air freight services. Plus Bruce Dickerson was actually certified to fly it, which is just badass.
That drug dealer is giving me strong Dale Gribble vibes.. it’s probably a bag of POCKET SAND!
It was definitely a thing to do in the 70’s. At JFK airport, Al Pacino and John Cazale drove their van up to the plane in a “Dog Day Afternoon”.
and look at the extra “Service” they got when they got there!
If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the illustrator forgot about the wheels on the other side of the car, so technically this is an enclosed motorbike. If we work backwards from current airline baggage policies, we can assume that the vehicle is checked baggage, if not a carry-on. The porter is clearly loading it onto the plane. We can also assume he’ll be receiving at least a shiny quarter as a tip.
Regarding the second scene: I think Mr. brown suit is paying the pimp. His buddy seems pretty excited.
Now that’s what I call a cabin rental!
That drug deal boggles my mind. If that isn’t an exchange of guilders for nosecandy, then what exactly was the artist attempting to convey???
My company, Volcano Lairways, flies only the finest and most luxurious jets. We offer runway access to all our passengers. And by passengers I mean me and a few of my closest minions.
As someone who gets to fly out of private terminals on occasion for work (they’re at pretty much every airport), I can vouch that there are some pretty big planes parked at those terminals and you can be driven right up to your plane. When we were in LA, aside from getting to meet David, I saw someone driving themselves on the tarmac by our terminal in a Lamborghini.
I’m not rich… just rich-adjacent, so it’s all very, very weird.
My former business partner was partial owner in a small 6 plane “airline”. For the annual corporate meeting, he would pick us up at small public airports where we would walk out to the plane. There would be a rental car waiting on the tarmac at the destination. The difference between private and public airline travel is astounding.
While uncommon, I think this one instance of a car on the tarmac was an exception to the rule. What makes it special is that it marks the first time an inflatable woman was ticketed and given a seat assignment on a commercial flight.
Look at the fixed, flared set of her arms and the unmoving dead-eyed stare straight ahead and tell me this isn’t a 50’s version of the kinky inanimate male companion. This scene captures the historical pre-flight moment when “she” is being shown off to the captain, who appears to be impressed by the unabashed pride of the owner and workmanship of the doll in equal measure.
This is no mere car advert. It is a moment in aviation history preserved for posterity.
Hard to believe that just a few years later Otto would be deployed on a flight from LA to Chicago.
Well, you should not take a Kapitan to a Private terminal .
That will do Sergeant. Don’t let us detain you.
It does sound like it would cause a Major traffic jam.
That is a presidential plane, you see, and that’s the special up-armored Kapitän carrying the head of state and his wife on their way to some far-off summit. Obviously.
Dunno about driving out to the tarmac, but my Dad has very clear memories of walking across from the plane to the terminal. Maybe taxi or shuttle services did it back then? I don’t know that they’d allow a random car to pull up.
Then again, it seems like a semi-normal thing when Thompson pulls up to disgorge Dr Gonzo at the airport at the end of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. No one is screaming or yelling, as they normally do when he breaks societal norms.
I remember flying to San Diego 30ish years ago and descending the stairs to the tarmac, the first time I’d ever experienced that. I don’t know if it still happens today, but it may be more of a warm climate thing.
The only time I’ve ever experienced it in the past 20ish years since I first flew have been military flights on military aircraft.
Too much security since 9/11
I’ve done a bunch of smaller plane flights into smaller airports where you walk across the tarmac to the plane. Even a few out of Toronto for flights to places like Timmins or Ottawa. When I worked in Mali over the years it went from walking across the tarmac to a 30 second bus ride for “security”.
Actually, now that I think of it, I think I have walked across the tarmac as a civilian. Small puddle jumper I took as a final leg when I went to Camp Lejeune for a job.
I’ve walked from the terminal to the plane several times. XNA (northwest arkansas) was a vast improvement over the previous airport when it was built but it was opened before it was ready. I took flights out/in about 10-12 years ago where there simply weren’t enough places for the planes to unload/load directly from/into the terminal. So you’d walk up/down a long staircase and to the terminal or plane. Seems like it was about a 200-300 ft walk. I have no idea how they got away with it since any mobility issues would make loading or unloading a passenger impossible.
Someday I’m going to pay the extra fees that let me use that big yellow slide that looks like so much fun. You’re never too old for a good slide.
It’s still that way at Burbank, and probably some other smaller airports as well. Pretty common in the Caribbean still, as well. So yeah, warm climates, but not just warm climates. Keflavik, Iceland uses buses to cross the tarmac, but you still have to climb (thankfully enclosed) stairs to board.
All these comments make me realise that the whole of the US is in a different tax bracket… I don’t think I’ve gone on an airbridge onto the back of the plane… my local airport (biggest in the state, by actual area not number of gates) doesn’t have a single airbridge, it’s all done by feet on tarmac
Last I did this was in summer 2001, in Corfu. Two years before, I flew back from Greece barefoot (backpacking trip which ended up lasting four months longer than planned; Greek friends got me trashed as a send-off).
In an era where I imagine people were obsessed with aviation, even if the scenario doesn’t make sense (when did any brochure backdrop for a car ever make sense) the desire to make a connection to the luxury of flight was probably the only goal for marketers here.
Could you imagine a car ad in 2024, with any modern car parked out in front of a commercial airliner? Most would assume an elderly person accidentally drove their rental through a fence and out onto the tarmac. There’s nothing glamorous about a commercial airliner these days, that’s for sure.
Yeah, airline travel, especially jet airliners, was The Future (TM), parking your car next to one immediately made it look cutting edge by association. I don’t know what the modern equivalent is, finding yet another way to work in “A.I.”, I guess
A few years ago it was cars that looked like they got sucked into the Tron universe. Oddly enough I think we’ve come full circle to the 70’s where most cars are now shot on top of a geological formation that said car could never get to on it’s own.