Ooh, another photo archive: the auto-related photos of the Virtual Motor City Project

So through the Making of Modern Michigan photo archive, which we highlighted recently, we’ve since found another couple of photo archives: the Portage District Library’s and the much larger Wayne State University Walther Reuter Library’s Virtual Motor City Project, which contains the Detroit News’s photo archives from before the turn of the century to about 1980, which means we’re bound to find plenty of old auto-related photographs.

Starting with the above undated photo, captioned “beer-laden truck that fell thru ice on Lake St. Clair.” The vintage of the truck and the barrels scattered about hint at something confirmed by one of the keywords associated with the image: Prohibition. When I lived on the shores of Lake Erie, I heard many tales of Model Ts and Model As that attempted to drive between the Lake Erie islands (Put-in-Bay, Kelleys Island) and the mainland back when the ice on the lake was actually thick enough for such a venture (though occasionally not thick enough to support the cars). Makes sense that rumrunners would make a similar trek from Windsor across to Detroit to get hooch to thirst Americans. Anybody want to take a stab at identifying the truck?

According to the caption for this June 17, 1942, photo, this is simply a “Ford truck to haul bomber parts,” but our friend Fred Crismon, author of “U.S. Military Wheeled Vehicles,” has more:

Early in 1943 [which clashes with the date of the above photo -ed.] this highly specialized vehicle was shown to the public, identified as a tractor designed to pull a 60-foot-long “supertrailer” in which 34 complete tail cone assemblies could be carried. The tail cones were for the B-24 bomber of which Ford was one of several builders. The assemblies were carried between several manufacturing plants according to contemporary sources, invluding runs between California and Texas, Willow Run, Michigan, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fort Worth, Texas, and between Loudonville, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. Two Mercury V-8s were used, driving into synchronized transmissions.

Crismon also noted that the tractor was rated at 10 tons and that the trailer was loaded from the top by overhead cranes. About 70 of the trucks were built, and the twin engines were accessed by pulling them as a unit out the front of the tractor. Crismon provides evidence that, although Ford was often mentioned as the builder of the trucks, a company named Thorco Dual Motors built them – Thorco being a trademark for the Thornton Acle Company. However, James Wagner, the author of “Ford Trucks Since 1905,” wrote that about 100 tractors were built by E and L Transport of Dearborn, and the corresponding trailers were built by Mechanical Handling Systems.

Any Detroiters familiar with the location?

Dated November 21, 1945, the caption for this photo reads:

Joyful group of men, some of the African American, run from Chevrolet Gear and Axle plant in Detroit, Michigan. “Chevrolet Gear and Axle employees stream out of the plant at Holbrook and St. Aubin in Detroit as the UAW-CIO strike against General Motors is launched, the strikers walked, ran and leaped as they left to begin the walkout, which affected about 100,000 workers in Michigan.”

The factory was apparently located at 1840 Holbrook Street in Hamtramck (source), and remained a GM property through 1994, when it was sold to American Axle and Manufacturing, which apparently still owns and operates out of the factory.

Dated February 24, 1937, this photo depicts Chas. Steimlosk, hard at work metal finishing a Diamond T’s fender at the Wilbur Wright Cooperative School of Trades.

Kaiser-Frazers were a big deal when they were introduced after the war, not just because they were new cars on the market long before the Big Three could introduce new cars, but also because two titans of the industry were behind the venture, and this photo, dated July 26, 1946, shows how eagerly anticipated Kaiser-Frazers were.

As for Aaron DeRoy Motor Car Co., I see it mentioned here and there, and that there’s an Aaron DeRoy Theatre at the Jewish Community Campus in West Bloomfield, but no address for the dealership yet.

Setup day for the Parade of Progress? Dated June 1, 1939, the caption only states “Shows Truck and Trailer at Northwestern Field,” but today we know those trucks to be the proto-Futurliners, normally able to draw sizeable crowds.

And, finally, a photo that will make every AMC nut cringe. Dated January 10, 1979, it depicts Gerald Myers, the president of American Motors (I believe he’s on the left), shaking hands with Bernard Hanon, his counterpart at Renault, over the hood of a Le Car. The occasion: Finalizing the agreement to sell Renaults in the U.S. and Canada. Later that year, Renault would buy 22.5 percent of AMC; in 1980, Renault upped its ownership of AMC to 46.4 percent, where it remained until the French company sold its entire share of AMC to Chrysler in 1987.

Still, there’s a Spirit in the background, so I’m content.