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Healey in Flames

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Ah, yes.......fuel seepage at the SU's kept it going......
 
Editor_Reid said:
Not a bad airbrush job for the pre-Photoshop days. I wonder what percentage of people seeing that ad thought that the photo was genuine, i.e., "unretouched"?
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Just as many people that thought the backyard photo was genuine. :laugh:
 
hey...... great car....
 
Not an airbrush job. The lighters are riveted by tabs at the base. An enlargement of the photo shows the tabs. I have no doubt they really did it. Why wouldn't they?
 
Andy65 said:
Not an airbrush job. The lighters are riveted by tabs at the base. An enlargement of the photo shows the tabs. I have no doubt they really did it. Why wouldn't they?
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Are you inferring that there was <span style="font-style: italic">honesty in advertising </span>fifty (50) years ago? What a concept...
 
Andy65 said:
Not an airbrush job. The lighters are riveted by tabs at the base. An enlargement of the photo shows the tabs. I have no doubt they really did it. Why wouldn't they?
Click to expand...

The photo is taken from the Sebring 12-hour race of 1954 (I believe, off the top of my head), and I assure you that the Donald Healey Motor Company was not riveting lighters to their race cars.

And tell me, where was the photographer standing for that close-up of the three riveted-on lighters, apparently taken at speed?

Ronson may have conducted such a test, but the photo they used is not of that event.
 
Advertising was different then. It was far easier to bolt and photo than fake a photo. The photo may have been at the Sebring track but not during the race. They just had the Healey drive by some parked cars a couple of times for the shot. As for the close up, simple; stop the car and use a fan to blow the flame.
The closeup is taken from a different angle, slightly above and uses the lens depth of field rather than movement to blur the background.

The 1961 TV show, Route 66 has commercials from the day on DVD. Amazing how unsophisticated they are by today's standards.
 
As an ex-smoker for many years (thank goodness) and lover of all those Zippos I had, I can assure you no lighter could stay lit on that hood unless the Healey was in a school zone.

I had a few Ronsons too, but the Zippo was quite a bit better.

Great picture, retouched or not. Wonder who raced this Healey? Note fuel filler on rear, this car was probably a serious racer. Maybe a 100S prototype?
 
The blurring on the cars in the background is greater than that on the car, indicating that there was apparently forward motion that they "stopped" by swinging the camera forward as they panned past the Healey. Besides these were the days of watches that took a lickin and kept on tickin', etc.

I think the photo is real but I can't see the lighters!
 
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