Why Don't We Have These Anymore?

I confessed yesterday to attending Railroad Days in Galesburg. Today I want to share another thing I saw at Railroads days and lament the fact they are no longer a part of our automobile culture. There was a car show on Main Street on Sunday that covered a couple of blocks and spilled over on a couple of side streets for about a block. I would estimate there were about 100 cars and trucks being shown by their proud owners. I am not usually a car show guy. There aren't too many cars that really grab my attention. If I had an era I enjoyed perhaps the muscle cars of the late 60's and early 70's when I was a teen. There will be pictures today but not of entire cars. They will be pictures of one vital part of a great car. It was not something that appeared on any of the muscle cars I so enjoy. It is a part of bygone days, the cars of my grandparents. It generally served no purpose it was just an added bit of art work. The only car that comes to mind now that is in widespread production is Mercedes Benz.

These small pieces of art are referred to as hood ornaments or mascots. They were often made of brass, zinc or bronze and given a chrome plated finish. They have essentially disappeared from modern automobiles. The most notable examples on current cars are the Mercedes star surrounded by a circle and the leaping jaguar on Jaguar cars. The ones pictured above are just a few of the many available through the years. The one on the red Ford is the only one that has a real function. It is a Boyce Motormeter. It was a radiator cap that incorporated a thermometer that was visible to the driver and a sensor that measure the heat of water vapor. Many early engines did not have water pumps but a circulation system based on the "thermo-syphon principle like that used in the Ford Model T. 

What happened to hood ornaments? Let's blame litigation and concerns for safety. During an automobile accident the hood ornament could and has flown off and injured bystanders. I say if it is your time to go what better way than impaled by an artistic hood ornament. 

Wouldn't you rather be impaled by a hood ornament than be run over by a truck and sent to your eternal resting place by a set of truck nuts? So add that to the things that indicate to me we have arrived at the end of our civilization. We have replaced a beautiful piece of art work on the front of our cars with a bit of vulgar humor on the back of a vehicle.