Open the black & white archives

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It appears to be a remarkable new trend: motoring manufacturers are opening their archives to the public. Daimler AG did so recently, giving access to historical images from their massive files. These date back to 1886 but were born as a library back in 1936 when the company started filing documents. The thing is: they used to be only available for the cream of the crop of scribes after having been given numerous passwords, being screened, checked and double checked. Not anymore. You and I can download images and documents from it now.

There’s no doubt that this is a colossal library, but still we are thinking it’s just a tip of the iceberg that has been put online. Type in ‘Le Mans’ in the search bar and you will get 12 results. ‘Carrera Panamericana’ gives 4 hits. ‘Bertha Benz’ 14. ‘Hitler’ just 4. It’s fascinating never the less and you can easily spend too much time. Find the archives here.

Meanwhile, Jaguar Cars has started updating films from their heritage files. Unfortunately it’s not simply the original footage as most of it comes in narrated documentary style. But there is good hope it will lead to more as the Jaguar Heritage Trust has announced this is just the start of it. To whetten the appetite they have started a video channel with short clips, to be found here.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture Daimler AG archives)

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