Going Down Many Rabbit Holes with the 1953-55 Topps World on Wheels Set!

I fully admit to milking my recent eBay purchase of a big lot of 1953-55 Topps World on Wheels cards.  I don't have the chance to buy vintage cards often, and I find the set to be worthy of a lot of scans!  I do hope you enjoy seeing the cards - and hopefully someday I'll have the entire set to show off all at once.  For now, let's return to the eBay lot and see what the next several cards are all about.

#94:  Ford Country Squire 1953

Another state-of-the-art car for the time of the set's publication, the Ford Country Squire is a pretty sweet-looking station wagon.  According to the card back, one of the big changes to the 1953 vehicle is that the clutch and brake pedals are now being suspended from above, "doing away with dusty, drafty floor holes."  

#97:  Packard Patrician 1953

This four-door sedan included power steering, power brakes, an automatic transmission, and air conditioning.  What more could you ask for from a 1950s-era vehicle?  Well, I guess you could hope for a car that wasn't the size of a mid-sized boat, but beggars can't be choosers.

#99:  Buick Roadmaster 1953

This hardtop convertible looks like it is straight out of The Jetsons.  Much like the Packard from above, this car also features air conditioning.  I guess air conditioning must have started to be in cars en masse around 1953?  There sure seem to be a lot of cards proudly proclaiming the inclusion of a way to cool down the air.

#100:  Pontiac Parisienne

One of the uglier cars that I've seen in the set, the Parisienne sounds like it was even worse looking on the inside!  According to the card back, the car featured black carpeting, pink cowhide, and nylon decoration.  Yikes!  

I had to do a Google search to see if I could find a photo of the interior.  As luck would have it, Google did provide a couple of decent photos:

That car is almost so ugly that it is circling back around to "cool looking."  

#105:  Adams-Farwell Stanhope 1906

After a run of "modern" cars, the next card goes back to "old" cars.  I like the dark blue paint job, but that seat looks mighty uncomfortable.  This car featured an air-cooled engine that revolved around a stationary crankshaft.  It was geared to the wheels through a transmission and a single chain drive.  I don't know much about cars, but that seems like a dumb design decision.  

#108:  Moon Raceabout 1912

This car was all the rage at the 1912 New York Show in Madison Square Garden.  According to the card back, the car was purchased by an engineer on the Long Island Rail Road.  The car was driven through 1929 when it was retired, and eventually the car made its way to the (now defunct) Automotive Museum in Southampton, New York.

#109:  Leon Bollee Tricycle 1898

This was one of the earliest mass-produced cars in the world.  It had a three-speed transmission, brakes, a steering wheel, and pneumatic tires.  According to the card back, the ignition was by a platinum tube heated by a flame.  Again, I don't know a lot about cars, but that seems like another poor design decision.  I'd love to know the reasoning behind three wheels as opposed to four as well.

#110:  Apache

This hand-built roadster was a Frankenstein-esque combination of parts from a 1939 Ford, a 1937 Dodger, and a 1949 Ford motor.  The car was built by Mr. and Mrs. Eddie Pardue.  This set certainly inspires me to do a lot of Google searching for follow-up information.  For the Apache, I found this article:

That will do for the next batch of cards from the Topps World on Wheels set.  I've definitely enjoyed going through the cards at a slow pace - doing lots of extra research and reading really slows down the post writing, but the various rabbit holes are fun to go down!  I still have more cards from the eBay lot to show off, so expect more car cards before too long.