Your jumping off point to the
world of Gus Wilson,
master mechanic, and his adventures as owner of the Model Garage. In
some ways this is a snapshot of a natural mechanic before the days of
trouble codes and printouts.
A graphical navigator
that shows which stories are available. Access the stories by clicking
on either a month or a year. There is also a shortcut to take
you directly to the cover art galleries and other places of interest.
Links to galleries of the fantastic
artwork that graced the covers of Popular Science Monthly.
Accessible by links to the covers, listed by both decade and specific year.
There are also links to information about some of the famous artists who
created these masterpieces of illustration.
This page will take you to transcriptions of the Gus
and the Model Garage series. Beginning in July of
1925 and ending in
June of 1969 you can observe a "master mechanic"
at work. He had an
encore, one last Xmas
present in the December 1970 issue.
The elusive and mysterious Martin
Bunn is discussed as well as some of the recurring
characters of the series as
well as Gus Wilson, proprietor of the Model Garage.
My personal "hall of fame" dedicated to
real-life "Gus Wilsons" that have influenced me as a mechanic. There is also
a gallery of service stations
from the old days and even a photo of a
shop bay
that could've been graced by Gus.
The monthly
companion to the Gus chronicles. Here are a few examples of the ingenious
solutions to some of the minor problems found while working on cars of the
era.
Just for fun, a
narrative about the multi-volume set of books dedicated to "Things to Do and
Build". First published in 1913 and into the 50's by Popular Mechanics
Press. It's amazing we all survived.
