Going all the way to impress potential buyers at the 1925 First Auto Expo of Rio de Janeiro

For 16 days, Ford assembled cars on a makeshift assembly line for the public to watch

The event was attended by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Gray, Packard, Hudson, Itala, Lancia and Voisin.

these photos came to light when the grandson of an engineer associated with making the expo happen, loaned the bool to a Rio newspaper. It's likely that no one alive recalls the event, or that it was thrown to promote development of roads in Brazil, because there weren't any. In view of the push that more car owners and car makers would make with the demand for roads, if I read the articles right, this was a brilliant idea that would force roads to get made from the trails that barely were drivable .

For a full gallery and posts about this extraordinary display of new cars and extreme measures to impress the potential new buyers in Rio, be sure to have Google toolbar ready to translate or use
translate.googleusercontent.com, and click on http://carrosantigos.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/exposicao-de-automoveis-rio-1925-parte-2/ http://carrosantigos.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/exposicao-de-automoveis-rio-1925/

Thanks to Nik and Rafael for spreading the word about this amazing historical moment, which I bet has never been duplicated or copied

Is it any wonder I recommend Nik's blog so highly? Couldn't give it higher praise and applause!

Am I nuts? Or does a cop smoking a cigar at a gas station seem like a poster for unsafe behavior?

What do you think? Maybe I'm too hard on law enforcement, but everytime I see a cop car, it's speeding, changing lanes with out signaling, talking on a cell phone (yup, they are exempt from that new law) parking in a way that would be a ticket for anyone else... etc etc.

Maybe I'm too critical of them, but I doubt it. . . they aren't allowed to smoke in the cruisers to top it off.

He was ready, he was set, did a good burn out, and then fell flat and disappointed the crowd when stumbled and fell. He should'a had V8

at the far end of the dragstrip

Wide shots of the Barona 1/8th mile racetrack

http://www.baronadrags.com/map.shtml for more info on the racing schedule

Gone in 6 seconds

A couple of interesting things from the King of Clubs event

Normally this much smoke means brush fire here in So Cal, but not here at the 1/8th mile dragstrip... around a dragstrip this is just a good start

This appears to be an early 60's built custom, cool yacht style instrument cluster

dual frenched antennas


Cool rear bumpers

Pinstriping and hood ornaments at the King of Clubs event at Barona