Shite Postcards

[Junkman]

Sankt Gilgen, Austria:

 

 

[chaseracer]

Viva HB more-door in the pic of Freistadt: Australian body panels in Austria!

[mercrocker]

There is something interesting in Sankt-Gilgen too - outside the town hall thingy next to a stroke 8 Merc....White coupe - Moretti-ish?

[chaseracer]

^ Alfa Giulia...?

[Junkman]

Viva HB more-door in the pic of Freistadt: Australian body panels in Austria!

 

Yeah, but no Kangaroos.

 

 

There is something interesting in Sankt-Gilgen too - outside the town hall thingy next to a stroke 8 Merc....White coupe - Moretti-ish?

 

I think it's an E20 Corolla.

[chaseracer]

I think it's an E20 Corolla.

 

Could be right there, Herr Junkmann...

[Junkman]

What I would like to know is what the silver coupe between the Beetle and the /8 at the left on the St. Gilgen card is.

124? 504?

 

The blue metallic W108 is Rudi Engel's car, he lived in that house.

The black Simca 1501 is my granddad's, he frequently got pissed together with Rudi.

[chaseracer]

My money's on a 504.

[mercrocker]

Hedging my own bet here, that roofline doesn't look quite right and the doorhandle appears to close to the window-line....I think it might be something earlier than that.... 

 

Junkman's hit on the E20 Corolla is probably and slight disappointingly correct.... 

 

Are there only 52 people in Austria or are you extraordinarily fortunate in finding postcards with family cars on,JM?    I dream of such a find....

[flat4alfa]

The only postcards I ever find are of my Mum at Blackpool kissing a donkey

 

In smutty cartoon form.

 

 

 

That was a fib

[Junkman]

Are there only 52 people in Austria or are you extraordinarily fortunate in finding postcards with family cars on,JM?    I dream of such a find....

 

Austria is a very, very small country and the Junk Clan is very, very big, because blue blooded.

Not to find a Junk Clan owned car on a postcard of Sankt Gilgen might prove difficult to this day.

The Junk Clan migrated there after being forced to leave Dienten, a community which has part

of the Junk Clan's coat of arms in its armorial bearings to this day.

 

The Junk Clan's coat of arms:

 

 

The armorial arms of the community of Dienten:

 

 

 

 

 

Finding Junkpapa's car on a postcard of Reit im Winkl, Germany, is an entirely different story altogether and much more sensational.

 

Look closely. Yellow R16 TXes weren't common to begin with.

The numberplate reads M-A 3998. The 'D' sticker is on the bootlid, not the backlight.

At the bottom right corner of the backlight is his I.S.C.Y.R.A. sticker.

[flat4alfa]

I'm such a prole I had to look ISCYRA up

[Junkman]

Yeah, the funny bit is that nobody knows what it is and the sticker prominently sports the red star,

so most people thought Junkpapa is a commie.

[Spottedlaurel]

More Junkman relatives' cars to be seen here?

 

Europabrucke, Innsbruck, Austria old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

Innsbruck Triumphpforte old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

Anything non-British in this Belfast card?

 

City Hall, Belfast old postcard 1960s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

I don't know if someone took the trouble to find such a dated card, but this wasn't sent until the late '80s. " 21st May 1988. Am in Belfast for a couple of days to do a holiday flight down to Spain. We stay in the centre of Belfast so it is easy to go out and look around the town. Hope you are well."

 

The Front, Parkgate old postcard early 1970s? by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

Who'd have thought it, an old Vauxhall in Cheshire?

 

Marine Parade, Southend-on-Sea old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

Period correct for AngryDicky.

 

La Place Graslin, Nantes, France old postcard 1960s by Spottedlaurel, on Flickr

 

And finally, another one with a bit of Junkman interest?

[mercrocker]

Certainly some nice motors on that Nantes one....Not least the 404 break commerciale or whatever they called it - I haven't ever come across one!    Rambler has its back to the 404 and what looks like a 68/69 Buick coming down the hill.   The Pompidou graffiti dates it nicely.   

 

I have quite a few of these "Jack" cards so presumably they were a reasonably big publisher....

[Junkman]

I think it's a Dodge Dart, not a Rambler.

 

Anyway, someone took his Bristol 405 DHC on a skiing trip to L'Alpe d'Huez:

 

[Junkman]

[martc]

Anything non-British in this Belfast card?

 

There's a scooter in the bottom right hand corner which has a better than evens chance of being foreign (although it could be a Douglas "built under licence"  Vespa, but I'm no expert on these things).

[pshome]

Parts (!) of Austria did drive on the wrong side at times.

[martc]

Parts (!) of Austria did drive on the wrong side at times.

linksfahren.jpg

 

Is that the British zone after WW2?

[Junkman]

No, Austria is the only country of ever where the individual states had their own regulations as to whether the traffic is left or right hand.

From 1915 onwards (1st republic), all of Austria drove on the left. From 1921 to 1938 it switched to right hand traffic, but in five increments,

so during that period, the sense of traffic was not unified throughout the country.

 

Switching from left to right were:

 

Vorarlberg 21 August 1921

West Austria (Western Tyrol, and Western Salzburg, so NOT the entire states!) 2 April 1930

Carinthia and Eastern Tyrol: 15 July 1935

 

On 1 July 1938, i.e. after the Anschluß, the German highway code came into effect, so effectively Austria as a whole switched to right hand traffic,

however, it wouldn't be Austria, if there weren't exceptions. Lower Austria, Vienna, the Northern Burgenland and parts of Northern Styria

(again NOT the entire states) only changed to right hand traffic on 19 September 1938.

 

Map:

 

 

In 2016 left hand traffic was again introduced temporarily on the Hütteldorfer Brücke in Vienna during the modernisation of the subway line 4,

to facilitate the turning around of bus line U4Z.

 

Also, to this date, there is no unified traffic sense regulation for railways in Austria. On most lines they are running on the right hand track,

but some left handers are still left. The gradual switch to right hand is ongoing since 1909, a bit like the UK switching to the metric system.

[pshome]

Wasn't it Austria that changed the side for trucks on the 1st of April and for cars 2 weeks later?

[martc]

Lots of interesting stuff about the Austrian rules-of-the-road/railway.

 

That's just bonkers.

[Junkman]

Wasn't it Austria that changed the side for trucks on the 1st of April and for cars 2 weeks later?

 

I don't know.

 

 

 

 

That's just bonkers.

 

 

No, it's Austrian.

 

You can't compare it with the UK, or other wealthy nations that were mass motorised already in the 1930s.

Austria, or rather what was left of it, was a bitterly poor country following WW1. Only after the Anschluß it got better,

but only briefly.

It was ridden by destitude to the degree that often farmers' children were sold across the borders,

since becoming farm maids/menials/sex toys there was the only way of saving them from certain death by starvation.

 

Consequently there were very few cars, thus the chance of two of them meeting on a road outside a town was

rather slim and most country roads were single lane anyway.

Usually the doctor was the only man in town who owned a car. Oh, and the Junkclan, of course.

[martc]

Some interesting stuff about the parlous state of Austria after WW1.

 

Still a bit bonkers though; are/were the Austrian states quite independent of each other and capable of making their own laws? I would have thought that no matter how poor a country is the Government would just say "OK lads we're driving on the right" and those few with cars would say "fair enough then" and it would be settled.

 

Unless the individual states had some sort of axe to grind with the central government...

[Junkman]

This was during the first republic, so yes, one could say locals had an axe to grind with the central government,

if one were willing to understate the situation to the degree of denial.

It was an era ridden by crisis, poverty, depression, upheavals, strikes, general political unrest, radicalisation

and chaos. On which side of the rudimentary road system a handful of cars drove didn't really have top priority.

[pshome]

told you mate, they drive on the other side in this village, but you did not listen.

 

[martc]

one could say locals had an axe to grind with the central government,

if one were willing to understate the situation to the degree of denial.

It was an era ridden by crisis, poverty, depression, upheavals, strikes, general political unrest, radicalisation

and chaos. On which side of the rudimentary road system a handful of cars drove didn't really have top priority.

 

Sounds like the UK in the very near future. Be prepared to drive on any side you like.

[mercrocker]

Many moons ago I returned to work after my first Continental motoring holiday, complete with travel stained E21 BMW and many blurred 35mm slides.   An old boy (ex RAF pilot and MGB bore) accosted me in the tea room and asked confidentially if I had any trouble with driving on the right as he was contemplating such a trip.   Rather surprised at his confessed lack of experience I assured him he would be perfectly OK.  

 

"Goodo" he said, patting me on the shoulder.   "I had been worried."   Again, I expressed surprise at his anxiety.   "Oh, its just I tried it on the ring road last week and fucking shit myself" he added, completely deadpan.....

[Junkman]

Vienna, almost Austria.