Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
March 1943. "A truck driver on U.S. Highway 29 near Charlottesville, Virginia." Photo by John Vachon for the Office of War Information. View full size.
I can see this vee-hickle going down road at highway speed with mans hands moving up and down 6 inches...normal for the times!
The lever on the steering wheel hub might be spark advance-retard, manual throttle, or even a headlamp switch. Early autos allowed for (in fact, required) lots of manual adjustments on the way from start to idle to full operation, and the steering wheel/column were a logical location for those controls. Now, car steering wheels are crowded with ancillary controls for our more modern driving tasks -- tune the radio, switch CD channels, engage "sport" mode, order your home margarita machine to crank up a batch because you just exited the freeway.
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5