Differences between corn and unicorn, brought to you by Ethyl

On the Vintage Ads LJ group, the infinitely amazing Man Writing Slash posts a collection of Ethyl gasoline ads from 1950-1952 that emphasize the advantages of leaded gasoline through humorous graphic comparisons -- a kind of precursor to today's HSBC "We see the world differently" ads.

18 Ethyl Gasoline Ads "-- and there is a powerful difference, too,..."

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: ads • Delightful Creatures • Funny • illustration • Old school • unicorn chaser

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

http://garethrees.org/ Gareth Rees

It looks as if these were inspired by How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers: A Manual of Flornithology for Beginners by Robert Williams Wood.
- http://dailygrail.com/ Red Pill Junkie
  
  And they were all inspired by Dalí ;)
  
  http://www.myfreewallpapers.net/artistic/pages/dali-paranoiac-visage.shtml
  - http://garethrees.org/ Gareth Rees
    
    It seems unlikely that Wood was inspired by Dalí—”How To Tell The Birds From The Flowers” was published in 1907, when Dalí was just three years old! But there are certainly antecedents, for example Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Bob Knetzger

Cool, I remember I had these collected and reprinted in a free A&P encyclopedia. Thanks, Cory, I had been looking for them! Hmmm…. where is the “walrus/ walnuts” image?
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

It’s extra humorous because lead poisoning can cause hallucinations and delirium!
http://twitter.com/shay_guy Shay Guy

“If you run out of gas, get Ethyl; if Ethyl runs out, get Mabel!”
Rhyolite

What a charming add for LEAD
- billstewart
  
  Now we’ve got corn-based ethanol additives in our gas instead – unless you’re running yours on unicorn-based additives, of course, but we’d probably know that from the rainbows coming out of your tailpipe.
Robert

That thing on the left looks more like a dead unicorn left rotting out in the sun for a while. Complete with insect.
GeorgeMokray

If you don’t know the story of Thomas Midgley Jr, the man who beat the tetraethyl lead in gasoline, you should. He not only put lead in gasoline but also invented Freon. He’s probably the one human being in the history of humanity who effected the global ecosphere more than anyone else. His death is interesting too. He was indeed the first geoengineer.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/01/26/830326/-Three-Inventions-of-Thomas-Midgley-Jr-the-First-Geoengineer
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  He was pretty arguably innocent RE: Freon, nobody knew that punchline until well after the fact; but he and everybody involved in an authoritative capacity with the Ethyl Corporation ought to have been lined up and shot for that little stunt…
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Is my memory accurate, that he also didn’t know of the harm of both of these products in his lifetime? Something fascinating about creating two damaging substances like this to never know the actual implications.
  
  But ye, it can take a long time to find out this stuff, especially when it comes to combining substances in practical use. This being the primary reason I’m not a big fan of unnecessary chemicals in things like soap and food.
John Smith

There is a powerful difference between gasoline and the watered down crap that they sell at filling stations these days.
pjcamp

“Ethyl” = tetraethyl lead.

I can see how that would make you confuse a monkey with a flower.