A Matter of Persective?

I've posted a couple of publicity drawings of two iconic British cars - the Morris Minor and Austin Healey Sprite. As you can see from the images, there's something not quite right about the size of either the cars or the people drawn into the artwork.

The proud gent in the Morris is beaming over his purchase of a new Minor. The family running to greet him seems pretty proud of Pop, too. But look at the bloke behind the wheel. If we use the car for scale, Pop must be about 4' 6" tall and weigh in at about 80 pounds. In fact, the kids in the sketch appear to be about the same size as the old man. I've seen several Minors in the flesh and they aren't nearly as large as the sketch would indicate. Were the postwar British people that small or were liberties taken with the Morris?

It seems to be a recurring theme that artist's renderings were exaggerated to show the car larger than it really was. Clap your eyes on the Austin Healey Sprite and you'll notice that the nattily dressed man with the pipe is a bit on the slight side. In fact he seems to be about 4-1/2 feet tall as well.

Maybe the tagline 'Enlarged to show detail' had not been coined yet.

Images from BMC publicity literature