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San Francisco circa 1923. "Jordan Playboy roadster." A car famous for the ad copy that sold it. 5x7 glass negative by Christopher Helin. View full size.
Somewhere west of Laramie there's a broncho-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I'm talking about. She can tell what a sassy pony, that's a cross between greased lightning and the place where it hits, can do with eleven hundred pounds of steel and action when he's going high, wide and handsome. The truth is -- the Playboy was built for her. Built for the lass whose face is brown with the sun when the day is done of revel and romp and race. She loves the cross of the wild and the tame.
There’s a savor of links about that car -- of laughter and lilt and light -- a hint of old loves -- and saddle and quirt. It’s a brawny thing -- yet a graceful thing for the sweep o' of the Avenue. Step into the Playboy when the hour grows dull with things dead and stale. Then start for the land of real living with the spirit of the lass who rides, lean and rangy, into the red horizon of a Wyoming twilight.
This house was torn down to build a stairway into Lafayette Park, I think the pillar is still there.
Here's a 1919 view of it on our OpenSFHistory site.
And a view of the stairway that was built.
[Thanks! No wonder I was never able to find it. -tterrace]
Appearing in a June 1923 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, the ad promoted the Jordan Playboy, in art by Fred Cole, driven by a cloche hat wearing flapper hunkered down behind the wheel in abstract fashion, racing a cowboy and the clouds.
Hmm, only one clue I could even sort of find, and it's clipped off by the car.
Of a car today that would generate copy like that. Most cars today are just appliances that can be discarded after the lease is over.
BTW: Agree about that house, a real duesie!
Any ideas?
Still up?
Who wouldn't want to know or be that lass!
I understand the author was riding the Union Pacific across Wyoming at sunset when he spotted the unknown girl keeping pace with the train for a fleeting moment.
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