(Photos from Detroit Public Library Digital Collection) – It has been a while since I got myself lost in the digital stacks of the Detroit Public Lbrary’s photo and image collection. I went in there yesterday with the idea of digging up some cool stuff to share with you all and boy did I ever.

There’s not a lot of rhyme or reason to the order or theme of these photos. Instead I am highlighting stuff that struck me as very interesting and that stuff ranges from the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup races to a neat photo featuring a bare 1977 Dodge truck chassis. Oh, there’s about half a century of history between those two things and in the decades are things like Packards, Liberty engines, grungy crankshaft factories, a Torino, and Zora Arkus-Duntov sitting in what could be the coolest Chevrolet ever built.

There are a couple fire trucks as well, my favorite being the 1909 Seagrave that the guys from Pasadena, California are piled up on. Those rigs have sure come a long way in about 110 years.

Check out this collection of awesome automotive and gearhead photos –