Found a whole bunch of really nice vintage American car advertisements from the 1950s and 1960s in the Ultra Swank Flickr Group. Wish Detroit still would do classic hand drawn illustrations like this today for their cars. Which is your favorite American mid century car and why?

Not that Ultra Swank condones being sexist, it just sometimes amazes me what kind of stuff advertising agencies were able to pull off around the 1950s. Here are some fine examples of American ads of the times that takes a punch at women only being good for being secretaries, housewives and objects of beauty. Even though the ads would never pass in a magazine today, they are still cute in a old fashioned way. Thankfully, men have evolved a little over the years. [Via]

I always found the Motorola TV ads from Taschen's book All-American Ads of the 60s very unique. They feel so retro but still very futuristic at the same time and I love the way they portray the future in such a optimistic and bright way that was only possible in the mid 20th century. The illustrations were drawn by Charles Schridde and the advertisements were often seen in Life Magazine and The Saturday Evening Post among other places in the early 1960s. Sadly the first edition of the Taschen book is out of print and no longer available through their website. But you can surely get it through Amazon and other online shops. [Via] [Thanks Fhardyfan]

Images via Paleo-Future

For all you ladies out there, here are a few scans of retro Revlon advertisements for lipstick and makeup. Revlon was started back in 1932 and are most famous for their Dorian Leigh and Suzy Parker advertisements in the 1950s. "Not a prissy pink... not a sissy pink" and "Fire and ice" are two of many memorable ads.  [Thanks Fhardyfan]

Images via vintageadvertisments on Flickr.

Moving back to Sweden again for a while and more specifically to the Swedish automotive industry. For those who aren't in the know, Sweden has two major brands; Volvo and Saab. Today we are going back to the mid 1950s to look at how the advertisements for model 121 also known as the Amazon were portrayed in the country that brought you all ABBA, IKEA and Maud Adams. The Amazon first saw light in 1956 and remained in production to 1970. And according to Phil Seed's Virtual Car Musum they are "seemingly indestructible". More photos and tv commerials after the jump. [Thanks Fhardyfan]

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Here's a glimpse into the wonderful world of now defunct Trans World Airlines (TWA). I love the catchy and somewhat cheesy 1960s theme song! The video could use some color correction obviously seeing it has degraded quite a lot over the years, but who cares. Following that video is a promotion of Boeing's new 747 airliner with what looks like Trans World's livery. I can't help thinking of the movie The Out of Towners when I watch it. Maybe that was the idea though, anyone who knows?

Update: The livery of the 747 is not the one of TWA but of Boeing and the aircraft that is shown is in fact the very first 747 (RA001) in production. It is on display at the Seattle Museum of flight. Hat off to Hans for pointing this out!

Enjoy this fun and swanky Ford commercial from 1960 linking new compact cars to futurism and the space frontier. They don't make commercials like this anymore, do they? If you like this, there is a ton of more of old commericals and archive footage to be found in the Prelinger Archives at the ever so great archive.org website.

More airline retro goodness from a TWA commercial made in the early 1970s. Looks cheesy but still delicious in some odd way.