[HN Gopher] Vintage Wooden Homes on Wheels: Photos of Mobile Liv...
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Vintage Wooden Homes on Wheels: Photos of Mobile Living from Early
20th Century
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 36 points
Date : 2024-06-25 14:36 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rarehistoricalphotos.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rarehistoricalphotos.com)
| dylan604 wrote:
| I love the absolute lack of concern for aerodynamics in these
| designs. They are straight up designed for function.
| opencl wrote:
| Most of these couldn't move fast enough for aerodynamics to
| matter much. A Ford Model TT truck had a top speed of 15mph
| _without_ a house attached to it.
| AmVess wrote:
| Aerodynamics is one thing, complete lack of crash safety is
| another. Aside from the RV's built on truck and van chassis,
| these things explode into a million bits in a head on
| collision. The vehicle's crumple zone is your face.
| Retric wrote:
| Most of those things probably had a top speed of around 10-15
| MPH on level ground and unusually good roads for the time
| period. You don't need much in the way of safety equipment at
| those speeds, though hills would be more risky.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_TT
| itishappy wrote:
| What a 1930s Car Crash Looks Like (19s)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki9fDmBTX7w
| dylan604 wrote:
| crash? that's just how they stopped.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Shows tiny home/van life is certainly not a new concept.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Humans have been nomadic longer than they've been static. You
| can take a nomad out of the wilderness, but you can't take the
| nomad out of the boy or whatever. Before these, we had covered
| wagons. Before that...
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Before that, gypsy wagons.
|
| I like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumance ; that way
| you only have to move the four- and two-legged members of the
| household, and the roof, walls, and stuff can remain in place
| in each seasonal-appropriate stop.
| bdcravens wrote:
| You don't even have to go that far back, living in RVs is
| nothing new. "Tiny home" is just a rebranding that removes
| connotation of a "trailer", but it's essentially the same.
| ghaff wrote:
| "Tiny home" probably also carries the implication of trendy
| design, more expensive materials, etc. You're not wrong but a
| lot of tiny home designs probably optimize space usage in
| ways that mobile home designs don't necessarily.
| mhuffman wrote:
| I think the one made out of bricks is just taking the piss! I
| also like the ones with porches ... such a homey little
| convenience!
| lawlessone wrote:
| has to be lino or something.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Why do they all have big wheels?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Roads were much poorer, so clearance* was much more important.
|
| One of my great grand fathers was a surveyor, and the
| neighbourhoods he worked on have become difficult for modern
| cars, because the curbs can be higher than low-slung doors, and
| driveway entrances are steep enough to bottom out.
|
| * in my ski tourism area, even without reading the plates it's
| easy to tell local vehicles apart from the tourist ones, by
| clearance alone. Some of the farm equipment even has portal
| axles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_axle
|
| (and even if they'd had good roads, I don't think they had the
| rubber technology: "radial" tyres weren't practical until after
| WWII)
| smusamashah wrote:
| Thanks for explaining. I had this silly idea that may be
| small wheels is a new tech and big wheels was something that
| just worked and everyone stuck with that back then.
|
| What is it they have on these wheels if its not rubber and
| how does bigger wheel avoid the downside of not having
| rubber?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| It was rubber, but natural, not synthetic.
|
| (I think modern tyre shapes at 1920s rubber prices might
| have cost a significant fraction of the car? Back then,
| they were not only small and narrow compared with today,
| but they were also much thinner -- which is probably why
| Bibendum, the Michelin Man, is made of tubes)
|
| The Allies miscalculated with the Maginot Line, because
| they hadn't realised the Axis might invent and produce
| synfuels.
|
| The Axis miscalculated with cutting the UK off from its
| rubber-producing colonies, because they hadn't realised the
| Allies might invent and produce synthetic rubber.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel#History
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_rubber#World_War_II
|
| EDIT: more on rubber; those colonies had earlier yanked the
| market away from Brazil: https://www.k-online.com/en/Media_
| News/News/April_2014_From_...
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Does the superb bus of Ray Conklin, president of the New York
| Motorbus Company in 1915 have plastic windows? I guess cellophane
| dates to 1912, but that's pretty wild to see in a photo from
| 1915.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| Some of these look like AI.
| araes wrote:
| Had that thought too. Unfortunately, almost every history story
| lately has started to have that suspicion filter for something
| that was suddenly "discovered."
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(page generated 2024-06-25 23:02 UTC)