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custom carsPetersen Photo Archive

Petersen Photo Archive

PETERSEN PHOTO ARCHIVE

Part of theĀ immense Petersen Photo Archive of old Hot Rod, Custom Car and Drag Race photos is online to be explored.



[dropcap]P[/dropcap]etersen Publishing has been around documenting the Hot Rod, Custom Car and Drag Ā Race scene from the early days. Publishing many magazine titles over the years. Some that are still around today, others that have not made it and are only available as older samples at swap-meets. The company has been taken over by Source Link Media (enthusiastnetwork) but fortunately the archives have been mostly survived all these years. For some time now some of this amazing archive is digitalized and available for viewing (small watermarket images) and for purchase at the Getty Images website.


I had seen some of these photo’s but most of them were Drag Race or Stock Car related and not much of my interest. However today Rob Radcliffe of King Kustoms showed me some photos that he had used as inspiration for the Period Perfect Shoebox Custom he is building. And one of those photos showed a front photo of Don Robert’s Shoebox Coupe I had not seen before. Rob told me where he found it and before I knew it I was looking at the hugeĀ Petersens Archives. Most of the material I have seen so far is from the mid 1950’s and newer, but there are a few from the early 1950’s as well. Hopefully the archive will also include more material from the early years in the near future. Only a small amount of them are Custom Car or early Hot Rod related, but it is still an amazing collection with a lot of very interesting material, that will keep you busy for a while.


The images on the Getty Images website are shown with watermark as you can see below, but could be bought as digital file. (Not cheap though)
From what I have seen so far everything is very well archived with proper names and dates. At the end of this article is a link that will bring you to one of the images, from there you can start searching and exploring the huge amount of photos from this Petersen Archive shared by Source Link media.

CCC-petersen-archive-getty-27The Petersen Photo Archive is also sharing its collection onĀ Facebook.
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If you want to see more photos from the Peterson Photo Archive, check out the Getty Images Website


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CCC-Sponsor-KingKustomsTShirt-602Contact Rob Radcliffe at King Kustoms for more info on these T-Shirts Email Rob

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Rik Hoving

Rik is the CCC editor in chief. As a custom car historian he is researching custom car history for many years. In 2004 he started the Custom Car Photo Archive that has become a place of joy for many custom car enthousiasts. Here at CCC Rik will bring you inspiring articles on the history of custom cars and builders. Like a true photo detective he will show us what's going on in all those amazing photos. He will write stories about everything you want to know in the realm of customizing. In daily life Rik is a Graphic Designer. He is married to the CCC webmaster and the father of a 10 year old son (they are both very happy with his excellent cooking skills)

One thought on “Petersen Photo Archive

  • Oh these are great !! I haven’t even got to look at any customs lately, I needed to see these. Awesome photos. I wonder if they are selling prints ?

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