For all their ubiquity today, bumper stickers are largely a post-World War II phenomenon. Instead, if you had some personality quirk you wished to display (your politics, your favorite sports team, a brand you enjoyed, or even some touristy spot or event you’d visited), you had roughly five options. The closest to the modern bumper sticker was a rectangular piece of cardboard that could be wired to your bumper; there was painting directly on your car, an option particularly popular with youthful drivers in worn-out machines; there were water-transfer decals to go on your glass; there were metal toppers and frames for your license plate; and finally there was the spare-tire cover.
Before the mid-1930s, the external spare tire was the norm. The cheaper the car, the more likely the spare…
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Hemmings Motor News (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2022