Topic: Art and cars #1 - Solved! Jack Kerouac and 1949 Hudson

[Ray B.]

Who is he, and what car is he associated with?

Art and cars. Painters, writers, musicians, actors, movie makers: in a nutshell, artists. Cars of special importance in their work, or in their life.
This one, being relatively easy, will be worth just 1 point. Tougher ones will be worth 2, one for the artist, one for the car.
Rules of this puzzle is: you identify the artist, you have one week to find the car. After that, the hunt is opened and anyone can rob you of your point.

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Thanks!

[Ray B.]

A six day old puzzle: not an old one, but already pushed back on page 3 of the Rookie section. Let's move it and allow the experts to try their luck.

[Ray B.]

Up again.

[Otto Puzzell]

Either it's one of the Pep Boys, or Edwidge Danticat.

[Ray B.]

Didn't know either.
None of those. He appears here as a doll, but he is (was) a real person. As for his trade, watch and read.

[Allemano]

Matt Dillon?

[Ray B.]

As for his trade, watch and read.

And as I feel you may be entitled to a true photo, here is one.

[Otto Puzzell]

I got nothin' 

[Ray B.]

Not even his profession? I thought I had made that clear.

[Allan L]

Not even his profession? I thought I had made that clear.

August Ferdinand Möbius, the inventor of the Moebius strip?

[Ray B.]

I had made it clear but NOT with this picture, I agree. 

[ImpishGrin]

Some kinda writer I guess?

Edit: Albert Camus by any chance? The doll is not too similar but then, it's a doll

[Ray B.]

Not some kind: a well-known writer, but not Camus (which you seldom saw without a tie).
The way this one is dressed in both images is quite typical of him.

[Otto Puzzell]

Well, it's Jack Kerouac", who penned "On the Road". On some printings of the book, there there is what appears to be a 52 Buick. The book was published in '57, and references a race with a guy in a "brand new Buick". Other vehicles mentioned in the book include:

“Truck with a flatboard at the back”     p.24
“old Ford coupe”    p.38
1938 Chevy    p.91
Plymouth    p.106
1949 Hudson    p.110
“Texas Chevy”    p.142
“old ratty coupe”    p.216
1947 black Cadillac limousine      pp.224–5
“twenty-dollar Buick”    p.230
1949 or 1950 Chrysler    p.245
1937 Ford Sedan    p.265

Oh, and "Poor Bull came home in his Texas Chevy"

The main vehicle referenced in the book, is the dilapidated Chevy Jack shares Neal Cassady.

[Ray B.]

Yes, and eventually not so easy.
This is the kind of answer that pleases the kind Autopuzzler I am. I think it's going to be worth two points. I'll add them when I move this to the solved section.
Contrarily to you, Otto, I don't have the novel on my shelf anymore. But the car I had in mind was the 1949 Hudson. I'll have to do my own research to check its importance first.

[Ray B.]

I read On the Road too long ago to remember all of it, and as I said I eventually lost my copy of the book. It appears that you lost yours too, because the list you give come in fact from Wikipedia. No true Autopuzzler will hold this against you, since this is no literary contest, and you never said your infomations were taken from the book itself anyway. Two points as said.

The book was written in April 1951. I did some research and they tend to prove what I remembered, that the car with the most importance in the novel is a 1949 Hudson.
In 1949, Jack and Neal met in North Carolina and drove a 1949 Hudson to New York, then to New Orleans to visit Burroughs, and finally to California. Ginsberg helped Jack get his first novel published, "The Town & the City" (1950). Jack and Neal traveled to Mexico. The 'paper scroll' version of "On The Road" was written during April 1951 – legend holds that it was done in three weeks time

This is how it felt being inside one (1950's photograph by "tterrace" on shorpy.com).