Vintage ‘71: pickups, pickups and Sperry Rand

Ford ad in Mechanix Illustrated (detail)

I’m still assembling my collection of Mechanix Illustrated magazines, and reader Jim Eickelman of Mogadore, Ohio, kindly sent me a copy of the August 1971 issue recently. Jim had a particular soft spot for this issue: Tom McCahill printed one of Jim’s letters in the “Mail for McCahill” column. Interestingly enough, McCahill, in his response to Jim’s letter, rails against planned obsolescence and writes, “If any of the 1971 cars ever make it big in a future antique show, it’ll be a bigger miracle than television, penicillin or golf on the moon.”

To commemorate Uncle Tom’s observation, we’re thus reprinting the interesting car ads that ran in that issue, just to prove that McCahill didn’t always get it right.

Thanks, Jim!