concorde | It Doesn't Have To Be Right...

Time for another one of these posts, because it is. Some are real, some never made it off the drawing-board.

air

BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde (sadly, I never got to fly in one of these)

Tupolev Tu-144

Boeing 2707 SST

Lockheed L-2000 SST

sea

SR.N3

SR.N4

SR.N6 (I nearly had the chance to ride in one of these when I was a kid)

I think I used to have a copy of this

land

Alvis Stalwart (I rode in one of these on a visit to SEME at Bordon when I was in the Upper VI)

Alvis Saladin (I went to uni in Coventry and lived for a year on Fletchamstead Highway, where Alvis would test-drive their tanks at night)

Scammell heavy haulage tractor and trailer (a relatively common sight on British roads in the 1970s)

Land Rover County 110 (back in the 1980s my boss had one of these, and I drove it quite often)

space

USAF’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory

Controlled touchdown, probably at Edwards, fpr Gemini spacecraft

Controlled touchdown, probably at Edwards, for Gemini spacecraft

Landing on the Moon using a Gemini spacecraft

“Big G” – a proposed 12-man Gemini spacecraft

There’s an unfortunate tendency for these retro-futurist posts to go all a bit boys-toys-ish. That’s understandable, given that Cold War supersonic fighters and bombers did, well, did look pretty cool. Likewise the cars. And, sadly, hunt for contemporary fashion photos and it’s almost impossible to find ones depicting men in space age outfits – it’s all women. Even the sales photographs for the giant computer brains generally have women posed as if operating them.

Anyway, this time around there are… planes, cars, some house interiors, and some fashion. A few of the fashion photos show designs by Pierre Cardin, who probably deserves a post all his own…

Aircraft