By Pete Vack
All photos courtesy Erik Verhaest
After a few days of enjoyable email discussion about his postcard collection and helping to identify some cars in the gorgeous locations, Erik Verhaest, aka “M.carpedi”, reflected a bit on the fun we had guessing the cars. “What a wonderful hobby!” he said. We couldn’t have agreed more. Now we hope our readers will share the experience with us.
Erik and wife Yvonne.
While it was a great deal of fun to spot and identify the cars, Erik also enjoys the cards because of the location, scenery, and surrounding environment. His collection takes us on a journey to the most beautiful spots on earth. “In those days,” said Erik, “photographers did not consider cars to be a disruptive element, but pleasant additions to the panorama.”
Erik says that “…the main purpose of my website is not to sell cards, but to share my pleasure of discovering all these hidden beauty’s with others. We do have a link to my Ebay sales, and another to the Delcampe site which specializes in postcards sales, but the real ‘trouvailles’ (finds) will not be for sale as they are too rare.” He is more content just to share his passion with other car and card enthusiasts.
By whatever name, Erik is famous.
Erik and his collection are well known; he has been featured in Classic and Sportscar, Autovisie, La Vie De L’Auto and more. His collection is immense. “I started collecting postcards in the early eighties, when I bought my first Citroën DS. Not only is that car highly desirable, every sales brochure, photograph or scale model I discovered became part of the collection. Even the smallest DS parked on a postcard behind a church somewhere in France made me happy,” wrote Erik.
That's how it begins.
One of Erik’s old photos has a very young boy holding a wooden Volvo 444. Despite his love of Citroën and postcards with Citroën, Erik enjoys all makes and models. His postcard collection has thousands of cars picturing cars such as VW, Lancia Fulvia, Fiat Topolino, Morgan Plus 8, Ferrari, etc. “In fact,’ he commented, “I must have YOUR car on a postcard somewhere!”
Luckily, Erik’s career at Citroën of Holland made it easy to collect cards in his travels. He started working in the Citroën Dutch headquarters showroom in Amsterdam in 1978, where he was a salesman, a marketer, a sales instructor and the last 20 years earned a living as the Communications Director. “With Citroën, I travelled through China from Hong Kong to Beiing with journalists in 1988; I saw Russia behind the wheel of a Traction Avant in the Paris-Moscow-Paris rally; I followed Jacky Ickx in Egypt during the Pharaoh Rally and Sébastien Loeb in the German WRC rally. I met designers, marketers, engineers and factory workers, all involved with one thing: cars.”
One day in 1991 I showed some car cards to a motor journalist. “What a treasure,” he said. “Would you like to publish some in my magazine?” So I did, but there was one little problem: I could not publish under my own name. Imagine the boss at Citroën learning that a staff member played with postcards! I had to find a pseudonym. As my philosophy is ‘Carpe Diem’ mcarpedi was born; Max Carpedi, sounds Italian or French, and his cards became PostCARds.”
Erik told Mick Walsh at Classic and Sports Car that his collection is meticulously filed, but that he also has a photographic memory. “I never forget a picture. Since I have over 2000 DS cards alone, that kind of memory can come in handy.” Swapmeets in Holland, France and Italy provide the main source for finding postcards, but shops on the French Riveria, Nice and Cannes and of course Paris are other good sources. “Black and white cards are fine but I prefer sunny shots with rich color.”
Then came a chance to create a booklet using just a few of the thousands of cars in his collection. After a false start, he approached a French publisher, Drivers, who agreed to create and market two booklets of postcards. Each PostCARds is a collection of 45 nostalgic postcards showing cars from the 1950s and 1960s, in their natural environment of streets, city squares and by roadsides, always close to tourist attractions. Today, these booklets are available on Erik’s website priced at 15 euro excluding shipping and handling.
PostCARds Citroën 2CV, M. Carpedi Descriptions:
ISBN: 2-9520491-0-6
“This friendly all-rounder remained in production for more than forty years, and became the symbol of freedom and mobility for hippies and mothers, for farmers and lawyers. The 2CV appears on practically every post-war postcard as an integral part of French life. This nostalgic journey takes you from Paris via the Route Nationale 7 to Menton, and includes day trips to Milan and Amsterdam. Also enjoy the 2CV’s contemporaries in mind and spirit, such as the Renault 4CV, the Volkswagen Beetle and the Fiat 600, and sink back into the reverie of days gone by.”
PostCARds Italian Sportscars, M. Carpedi Descriptions:
ISBN: 2-9520491-1-4
“Enjoy a nostalgic journey of deja-vu with the scent of Vignale, an exhaust pipe signed by Carlo Abarth and a Superleggera body featuring a Touring emblem, all in a world where Pininfarina coexists peacefully alongside Bertone and Michelotti. Have you ever seen a postcard featuring a Fiat 8V, or a Lancia Aurelia B20 parked carelessly in front of some small Italian hotel? Let your dreams take flight with PostCARds Italian Sports cars.”
And guess what. VeloceToday will offer these booklets of postcards to our Premium Readers who win the name-the-car contests. We just received a one of these very nice booklets from Erik. The cards are detachable and can be used for regular postcard and sent though the mail. So order two copies!
Erik started his collection more than 20 years ago. Time flies when collecting postcards. He has retired from Citroën, moved to France, built a house with four garages, and enjoys his 1988 Citroën 2CV6 with only 29.000 km. “And of course ‘our’ 1961 Citroën DS 19 Convertible which was discovered in 1995 in Boston, Massachusetts, with only 83.000 miles. It was restored completely, and since we have driven more than 200,000 miles with it, mainly on French B roads. Life is too short to leave cars in a garage, as M.carpedi would say…”
Erik's DS and trailer home.
About that title: It is a take off on the Hollywood film noir movie The Postman Always Rings Twice starring John Garfield and Lana Turner. In our case, the Mcarpedi postcards are appreciated twice, once for the scenery, the second for the cars. We apologize for the silliness.
