That image up there is from a 1959 Opel Kapitän brochure, and while I’m certainly fond of the lovely brushy artwork and the very American-inspired Kapitän, what I’m most interested here is the scene. There that normal, privately-owned car, pulled up right next to what looks like a commercial airliner. This sort of thing has shown up in car brochures a number of times. Was this ever a thing?
Was there ever a time you could just, somehow, pull right onto the tarmac and just walk out onto your plane, if you just had a commercial airline ticket? There’s no way that could work, right? It’d be chaos! Maybe people got some sort of special access – but who, and how?
I did a little looking into it, and it seems there are eye-wateringly expensive VIP car services that will drop your pampered ass off right by your plane, like this LAX-based $3,500 service that will take you in a BMW. But it can only use LAX’s little-known private terminal, PS LAX, and I’m still confused. Commercial flights go to this terminal? How? Private charter flights I can understand, but how do the commercial flights work? This guy was invited to see the terminal by United – I guess United has rich-people-only flights, too, ones I’m too filthy to have known about?
Huh. Well, until they can drop me by my plane in a ’59 Opel, it’s not good enough for me.
Speaking of ’59 Opels, look at this other brochure page:
Look at that nice scene, in front of that lovely cabin, and enjoying the shiftlessness of that GM Hydra-Matic-equipped Kapitän,. which was the three-speed Hydra-Matic. But let’s look closer at what’s going on here:
That’s a drug deal! I know a drug deal when I see one! Look at sunglasses-and-hat there, that dude had dealer written all over him, I don’t care how sharply creased his pants are! That’s a baggie of cocaine! I know what’s going on here, in that debauchery-chalet!
Man, Kapitän owners know how to party, am I right?
Man, people were just SO small back then!
😉
Those Kapitäns are actually quite sweet looking rides, altough I guess there must be very few left. I think I’ve ever seen maybe just one example of the bodystyle pictured in article in the wild.
PS LAX is a private terminal, but the planes don’t stop there. They have their own security and clearance to drive their customers over to the commercial gates to catch their planes. It is basically for the types of people who are too special to walk through the normal terminal with the poors.
Where is the future we were promised?