Have a look at the following postcards from the sixties:
Notice something… unusual? In some postcards it is quite obvious, in others not so much… but the red car is always there!
Andreas Möller loves the Ford Taunus. Throughout the years, he has collected lots of memorabilia related to the car of his dreams, enough to fill a room with brochures, operating manuals and even postcards! One day, he noticed something strange… in many of the postcards he had, the car was the same, a red Ford Taunus 12m with Hamburg license plate HH-KX 942!
The more he looked, the more glaring it became… there it was, in front of the church in the Dutch town of Zutphen, or stopped at the French-Belgian border crossing in Menen as well as in several other towns of the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. Sometimes it was featured prominently, others it was discretely parked in the background… How was that possible?!
Mr. Möller doesn’t know for sure, but he speculates that the car most likely belongs to the photographer. In one of the postcards, the trunk of the car is slightly open – indicating that perhaps the just got his equipment out of it before taking the photo.
Contacted by Mr. Möller, Hamburg town hall revealed that unfortunately the records about this car had already been destroyed, so there might be no way to find out more about the mysterious fan of the Taunus … but what a great story it is!
You can see the rest of the postcards on this gallery on the Spiegel website, where the story was first published (in German). And a big thank-you to Mr. Möller, who let us borrow his card photos and tell his story. If you have any information that might help him solve this automobile mystery, leave a comment below! :)
68 comments so far
The red car
Love this! And I love how the vintage postcards look like paintings.
The red car!!!
wow..
Really awesome cards :) We had a green Ford Taurus when I was a kid :D A model from the (late) 70s I think, bit newer than this one.
I read a very similar story, with a lot of old Barcelona postcards from 1905-10 with the same man in all...
The red car and I remember my father had one!
The red car, of course,my favorite color :)
What a nice story. I had a Ford Taunus, too - but later...
The other thing now unsual is the low traffic volume ;)
:-))
it is probably not the same car, but it is an old red one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dorthe/3687561151/in/set-72157601096730744/
Nice story! :)
I love these cards! Wonderful!
No mobile phone towers either : )
:D Nice story! I wish all the best for Mr. Möller! :D
Surprising story :D
They still sell those kind of cards in Delft... A few months ago I paid 50 cents for 10 cards, now they are 3 euros!
What an interesting story! Thanks for sharing this! :)
Very curious story this one! :)
Yes, I noticed the red car right away. Very interesting.
What a great story! Very cool :)
Curious case of the Red Car !
cool.....
that red car is everywhere
A fantastic story; I like it!
Very curious story :)
as I was scrolling the pictures I thought to myself there's nothing wrong to it... but after reading the "red car" and scrolled back it was a big "WOW!"....
I think I better check my old cards maybe that red car is with them.. lol
i wish sometimes time stopped i go back to the 70 or 80 what a great time was that,you have nothing to spend but so happy with your live.
The 2000 are very fast to live,in and a lot of people are not happy.
Great cards are these maybe i have some cards i wil look.
nice
WOW...
Great story!
sorry I can't help, but it was interesting to read.
Maybe Mrs. Scully and Mr. Mulder could help????
lovely story.
Very interesting! Surely it belonged to the photographer, can't have been that many coincidences!
Thanks for sharing. Please let us know if you solve the mystery!
Thanks meiadeleite: the story is still fascination me + the postcards looks better than in the Spiegel-magazine
It is a signature, discreet and personal! Congrats to the creator, to the observer of the fact and for postcrossing to share!
i noticed the red car immediately. Great! i have a feeling there will be a part 2 to this lovely story!
That's quite an amazing, unusual story. :) I hope the mystery will be solved.
This is so funny to me.. :D
Oostende and De Haan did not change much! ;)
Great story!
What a interesting story!!
i love this, so cool!
An old friend and photographer always said, "there should be a little red in every picture."
Thank you so much for sharing these cards and their story. I hope the photographer or his family help solve the mystery. Has the postcard company been contacted?
Lovely story for all we who like the vintage cards! It's really amazing!
And the cards, of course, are really great.
It's strange to find out tha the old cards were made from a so different point of view than the touristic cards we are nowadays used to. The modern touristic card are really boring, showing just the touristic items out of their situation. In the 70es. the screen was wide open. The situation and the moment had a real protagonism, not only the target out of the scenery... Curious.
Absolutely great collection!
Great story!
Cool!
i noticed the car right away. i think that the owner of the car loved to travel and that the car was photographed to prove his/her travel log. great story.
This car... Is this James Bond's car?? ;-)
echt lustig, hehehe
I have some old cards with that card also on it.
That is an amazing story! I love the old vintage card,,In some of my cards I have the exact same spot taken say 40 years ago, and then a newer card of this place and I can see how much it has changes over the years.
Cool! Are you sure it's always the very same card? I mean, does it have the same number plate?
Amazing story !
Thank You very much. I now have a new idea for a postcard series.
could it be possible it was the most reprentative/ common car at that time, sort of like Iphone today people just have and see it everywhere, even in the photo of postcards! lol
What a story!
well, now I thought; one can photoshop nowadays such items in a picture!
Great story!
woooow!! truly great story..n its history
I like hidden and background details like that.
Aah, it sounds like some of David Linch's stories=))
thanks for the story and pics!! perhaps like hitchcock had the habitude to appear in all his films for some seconds like a signature so the photographer perhaps has also the idea that a piece of himself should appear in all his photos!!?!?? who knows.....
I guess the photographer took his car everywhere he went and was dull enough to have it in his pictures all the time. I think I figured out a German (Hamburg) number plate on two of them cars. You could write to Hamburg's car register and ask, who the owner was. Maybe it turns out it was really the bloke who took all them wonderful pictures! It's like in that series, "Starsky & Hutch", in every series there was this grey VW Beetle! Once you noticed it, you are always looking for it! Have a try!
Lovely! Today I received http://www.postcrossing.com/postcards/RU-1655921 with 1 1/2 old Волга
I like those cards very much, especial if there is not so much to see on them.
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