How about some classic, simple and beautiful design?

I love clean lines, organic forms, and purposeful meaning to shapes and parts on things made by humans.  Not a mess, not a mix of too many colors, and functionality.  In the past, what was beautiful and well-made and worked well lasted. These days you buy a salad spinner knowing it will break in a few months or a year (even if it has 'lifetime warranty').  Nobody would have made or bought a rake a hundred years ago if they thought it would just break fast.  I really, really, really dislike things that are not made to last and be used for real.

Anyway, we spent an evening in Hopewell, NJ, recently, looking at vintage cars, and here are some reflections in and about shiny objects:


A classic.  Reminds me of the clocks outside my elementary school in Sweden.


What - no GPS?  No Check Engine light? (Which always comes on, at least on my Subaru, and then goes off, for no reason at all.)  But this is all you need, I think, and it was on a 1932 Ford truck. Red, of course.


I can't decide what this Corvette grill reminds me of.  A grill of course, but more a lamprey mouth, a leech with sawing teeth, or a shark? Or jail cell window? It looks pretty mean. And here is a different one, similar style.

I love these 'gangster cars', which I think look like something out of movies about Al Capone's Chicago.  Did you know he had a bullet-proof car?

A classic.  Practical. Box. Works. Well. But mint-green?

The US in LOTUS.  OK, you can drool with these guys.  I think older cars are a lot more fun than these, so how about this one? Porsche 911 T Targa from 1971 - first owned by the King of Sweden. But most things with four wheels that don't look like today's mainstream cars are interesting.

I love blue.  There is no other reason for this photo.

Tiny engines under giant hoods. Flip-flop.