How a little Aussie car blog turned into the world’s greatest collection of classic car images
When Melbourne’s ‘walking encyclopedia of classic cars’ Raph Tripp contacted celebrity music designer Bencu, an idea Tripp had been piecing together for over 40 years was realised. Tunnel Ram.net was created over a two year period and represents the first time that over 7000 rare and archival classic car images from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s have been brought together in the one place.
Tunnel Ram is now arguably the world’s greatest online image collection of classic cars, advertising and lifestyle. The photos reflect what some call the peak of Madison Avenue (New York’s advertising Mecca) when General Motors engaged the 1960’s best creatives Fitzpatrickand Kaufman, to work on the Pontiac account. Two men tasked with travelling to the world’s most exotic locations, inspiring a new lifestyle dream with the ads they created for the pages of New Yorker magazine over the course of a decade.
But it was not only Pontiac that received the treatment: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Camaro, Chevelle, Mustang, Shelby, Torino, Thunderbird, Corvette, Dodgeall became the centre of iconic illustration, photography and advertising art.
It was a period when not only car design was at its most confident, ambitious and spectacular but the ideas around how to sell them were breaking new ground in commercial art and advertising strategy. Selling the dream had never been so well funded.
And thankfully, Australia wasn’t immune to this great trend. We took our car design leads from the U.S up until the mid 70’s, which meant we stepped up with our creative for cars like Monaro, Torana, Chargerand the iconic Sandman. Ford too, with the Falcon GT received an elevated marketing platform (now Australia’s most sought after classic car)
To celebrate the launch of Tunnel Ram coinciding with the start of the 2019 F1 Racing season, Raph Tripp has created a gallery in honour of the history of Grand Prix drivers and manufacturers going back to 1950.
While the focus is on this classic period in American and Australian design, Tunnel Ram throws the net wider, providing some further context to this period. Galleries for British, Europeanand Japaneseclassics are also included as well concept cars, vans, dragstersand stars with their cars. Culturally, there are also galleries for non-car advertising, with archives of Australianand American Street Lifeand Surfing.
Raph Tripp is a Melbourne based classic car writerand image archivalist. He has authoured articles on everything from Mustangs to the Bat Mobile. Raph has been the proud owner of a ‘72 Falcon V8 coupe a-la Mad Max’s Interceptor, a Monaro GTS 350 4-speed, a ‘67 Pontiac Parisienne, a ‘65 Mustang and a succession of Aussie Valiants.
Ben Cunningham a.k.a Bencuis an Australian graphic designer, producer, director and artist that has worked in music, film and fashion for 25 years.