There were a lot of things happening culturally in 1967, but Detroit wasn’t always exactly on the leading edge. While the kids were celebrating the Summer of Love in San Francisco, Chevrolet was playing up the lure of the tropical islands, which had its heyday in the forties and fifties. OK; Hawaii is always appealing. But couldn’t they at least have shot their 1967 Camaro “Hawaiian” concept on Waikiki Beach instead of the scruffy grassy banks of what I think is the Detroit River? Now I might be wrong on that, having never been there, but it sure don’t look like Hawaii, where I have been. And the surfing is not likely to be so hot.
The illusion of the beach scene circa 1967 was further hampered by the GM wardrobe department: that bathing suit is sooo 1952. Come on, Chevy; bikinis have been around for several decades. And that thing on the trailer: some sort of proto-jet ski? Now that interests me more than the Di-Noc slathered Camaro or the prim girl.
Everyone is having a good time pretending they’re 6000 miles away, despite the smoggy haze. And I guess it’s safe to assume that the Camaro Hawaiian didn’t make a very lasting impression. Oh well. Maybe you should try a Revolutionary War-themed Camaro?
Since today has become Camaro Day, and we’re doing beaches, might as well trot out this ad from 1967. What? No long hair? And no girls at all?
Oh, I get it. Chevy finally saw the light, and wanted to be well ahead of the next big wave with this one, targeting the nascent gay market. It pays to be a risk-taking pioneer!
Gotta love the Harvest Gold shag carpet.
Probably a concept. The headlights would have never been approved for use in 1967. Everyone had to use the round sealed beam lights then.
Would explain why one has never been seen in the wild.
Yes, it was, and I identified it as such. Somehow, I don’t think it was quite ready for prime time beyond just the headlights.
It would had been cool if the squared headlights got the green light in 1967. There seems then lots of show-cars of the era showed squared headlights as the next big thing. When it wasn’t show-cars, it was customized cars like the customized Mustangs then George Barris did for Sonny and Cher http://justacarguy.blogspot.ca/2009/02/sonny-and-cher-mustangs-that-barris.html
And other customized cars used squared headlights like this Barris 70-X Oldsmobile Toronado showed at Expo ’67 http://www.schmitt.com/viewimage.asp?ID=4031 (and speaking of Toronado, there was the customized roadster used in the 1st season of the tv series Mannix).
Grampa’s favorite show! Can’t recall how many episodes of Mannix I watched sitting on his knee (born ’66)
Well, at least the lovely ladies didn’t jump into that circa 1967 water! I’m thinking of what Colonel Kilgore of Apocalypse Now fame would have thought of that beachfront with no killer break……..possibly the River Rouge and Highland Park furnaces knocked the wind right out!
Was Bill Mitchell a man who liked woodgrain side panels? 2 years removed from the Mako Shark II, I just can’t see him approving of this treatment……….That surfboard rack is an interesting design, though.
There plenty of Mitchell touches though, the “european” driving lights, the real wire wheels, the shaggy carpet and wood wheel are all Mitchell M/O’s. Mitchell did all sorts of color combos on cars, depending on what he felt like.
That surfboard and the rack look like a built-in diving board.
The summer of ’67 in Detroit was a very, very long way from the “Summer of Love” in almost every way possible.
I do agree that this is probably on the Detroit river/Lake St. Clair. I’m not sure if Detroit or Windsor is in the background—possibly both if they’re in Grosse Pointe. They might be on Belle Isle.
Summer of ’67 in Detroit you had these two little bands: The Stooges and the MC5 getting started.
No, it wasn’t the Summer of Love. It was, however, the spring of the best damned rock and roll to come for many years.
Cheers! Hearing `No Fun’ in that Chrysler commercial made me feel good! Does that mean no Summer of Love for me?
I was thinking Belle Isle also. Since this is a concept car, maybe the photo shoot is also a concept for a real ad? Even GM wouldn’t actually try to pass that off as Hawaii.
The Hawaiian was a Chevrolet concept car shown that year at car shows, fairs, and in the press. To the best of my knowledge, these are the only press photos of it that GM released. There was no such production car, and no ads. This is it.
The budget for this thing was obviously minimal, as were the changes to the car. And the budget obviously didn’t include shipping it to Hawaii.
It’s definitely Detroit in the background. You can barely make out the Ambassador Bridge in the first photo (upper left). It could be Belle Isle or Windsor, but I suspect Belle Isle from the angle of the photographs.
I remember that this particular custom Camaro was used as one of those AMT 3-in-1 model kits.
I want one of those jet skis!
Maybe they were going to re-touch the photo with a different background but then just said “screw it”.
Many of GM’s older factory photos were taken on the roof of the GM Building in downtown and then more exotic backgrounds were then added.
Paul, not everyone was a long haired hippy in 1967, in fact the majority of people weren’t.
Hawaii has always been popular, this predates Hawaii Five-O by a year, and that was on the air for 12 years.
I know that too! And I wasn’t either.
There’s actually a bigger story behind this: Chevrolet had a rep for being particularly conservative in its advertising and marketing. I challenge you to find another youth-oriented sporty car PR/ad picture from 1967 with such a prim young woman at “the beach”.
DeLorean wrote about this extensively, how shocked he was at the state of Chevrolet advertising/marketing when he moved there in 1969. And I’ve found a blog by a guy who shot many Chevy ads back then, he confirmed the same thing. The ad agency guys were constantly suggesting “racier” or more contemporary approaches to the photo shoots and ads, but were shot down most of the time.
Compare Chevy and Pontiac ads from the 1963 – 1969 era, and it will become quite apparent.
The point I’m making is not that Chevy should have used hippies in their ads in 1967, but they certainly should have been hipper. The “Hawaiian” makes that painfully obvious.
Along with (in)famous GTO advertising like the ‘You know the rest of the story’ 1968 GTO on Woodward Avenue magazine ad or the 1970 GTO Super Bowl commercial with ‘The Humbler’ cruising a drive-in for a race that were quickly and unceremoneously yanked, one of the best stories DeLorean had about a proposed GTO ad that never ran was a simple photo showing a small boy with a pale of water standing in front of a GTO in a driveway with the caption, “A boy and his Goat”.
When GM brass saw it, they were outraged. They lambasted the ad agency by saying, “You can’t call one of our cars a goat!”. They didn’t understand that the term wasn’t derogatory but GTOs were just known as Goats on the street. Instead, they came out with the rather lame ‘Great One’ ad campaign, instead.
I remember the “Command Performance” print ad firsthand, seeing it in car mags etc, in 1967.
But I also remember Chevrolet TV ads…where they existed, such as they were, pretty much sucked 1966-68. That struck me as a kid…especially in contrast to Ford and MoPar…with their catchy jingles or pop culture tie-ins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCUWU3sbfrU
Embarrassingly tacky for today, but it sold cars in 1968.
Aaron Severson mentions John DeLorean’s dismay at Chevrolet advertising in Ate Up With Motor’s history of the late-sixties Impala…stating much of the ad budget was “squandered on side projects for division management”.
Perhaps the exercise above is such an example?
“…not everyone was a long haired hippy in 1967, in fact the majority of people weren’t.”
Neither was I. Sure loved the music of 1967, though.
I got my driver’s license when I turned 16 that year. I still sported a flat-top haircut until spring, 1968! Many men still wore hats – dad did, and for the last 10 years, so do I. I do have fairly short but combable gray hair – no more flat-top and no bald spot!
Paul, shame on you for making a “gay” comment about the last photo. The advertising at the time showed all young men dressed that way – it was the “norm” to be well-dressed. This was still the era of the “debonair”, James Bond-suave look. Sure, the ad may have been a bit behind the times, but the advertising world in many product ads projected an image for an older, more mature age group – perhaps late 20′s – early 30′s, an image of what they may have regarded as “class”.
Up to that time, many pop groups still sported coats and ties and dressed somewhat unifomally.
Shame on you for taking me way too seriously
Touche’!
For some reason the 3 Camaros on the beach picture made me think of “Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman….damn glad to meet you”
Agreed! Just look at The Beatles from 1966-earlier or just about any other pop group from 1966-earlier including The Stones! 1967 was the year EVERYTHING changed!
I like how that seat belt webbing is draped across the floor in that third photo.
Yeah, thats one of the things that makes me think that these weren’t really the “finished” product.
The Jet-Ski thing is a small powerboat. It would seat one in the hull, like a regular boat. I recall plans for building your own being published in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science. Maybe Mechanix Illustrated. Anyway, they used small outboards, in the range of 10HP and, because of their very small size, went very fast. Forget the generic name that was used for them, though. Looks like the outboard is actually mounted mid-ships on this one, though. Don’t recall that, maybe for balance?
The headlamps look like the Cibie units from the Renault 16 and other French cars of that era. Could be wrong. Possibly not quite wide enough, hard to tell.
The ads (fourth and fifth pictures) look like they were trying to sell to The Beach Boys of a couple of years earlier, or Jay And The Americans. Bands like that and their fans. No way was Steppenwolf or The Jefferson Airplane contemplated
I wonder what everyone was thinking around this time that made wood-paneled convertibles seem like such a good idea. The 68 Chrysler and Mercury offered a woodie convertible, but it was on the big cars. This Camaro with the DiNoc is just so wrong. But if it had come out, would woodie Mustangs and Barracudas have been far behind?
I want that exact car in that exact color with that exact woodgrain! Oh, it had better be a six cylinder powerglide, too – with air…
The setting is Windsor. That’s how they get Detroit in the background.
There’s a riverfront park in Windsor that’s used in lots of car shots of that period, and even much later. Cadillac had a series of great photosof the 58 models shot in Windsor.
Belle Isle won’t give you the view of downtown like Windsor will.
Paul, you are about a half a generation too young to make the distinction between “hippies” and “freaks”. Hippies were the back to the earth, off the grid a-holes who tolerated hairy-legged girlfriends/common law wives. Freaks were counter-culture, dope-smoking hipsters, and given the chance, would have loved a new 1967 Camaro or Mustang. But not with the fake tree on the side. Freaks did have standards.
Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not too old to know about that distinction. I came of age right in the heart of that era.
Truth is, the word “hippie” is perhaps the most misunderstood and misused word in modern history. The genuine hippies (actually called “Diggers”) marked “The Death of Hippie” right after the Summer of Love in 1967, because they knew it was over, thanks to the mass invasion of kids, hard drugs, and the media.
But the name has been used/abused by many, both as a self-adopted identity, or as a very broad or derisory label. Everyone seems to have their own definition of these terms, undoubtedly colored by their own experiences of the time, as well as their politics and values.
That era really marks the beginning of the great splintering of society into very many ever-smaller subsets. Your definitions are a wee bit too generic. There are conservatives and Libertarians who embrace “off-the-grid” living. Hairy legs: some of the girls in my high school adopted that, and they were quite sexy. Common law wives: that goes back a long way. And when it came to cars, there were always “freaks” who favored certain cars over others. Nothing new there. And freaks had standards? As in what kind of meth they preferred?
The labels “hippie” and such have been abused to death, but generic labels are too damn convenient to dispose. So help yourself.
There was a brilliant movie titled “It Was Twenty Years Ago Today”, which chronicles the Year 1967 through the impact of The Beatles album Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s based on the book of the same name written by Beatles Publicist Derek Taylor. In depth, it focuses on The Diggers and Death of Hippy in additon to the other “Happenings” going on throughout the world in that year. The original footage of the protagonists then and later, in 1987 when this film was made is simply fascinating to watch. I think it was Peter Egan who wrote in one of his Road and Track Side Glances articles that he felt 67 was the best year for music. In seeing the original artists playing some of the best groundbreaking songs in this movie, I have to agree with Peter.
Paul, you are spot on correct with your observations of that year of years. I wonder if you have had the chance to see this movie? Today, it is considered a rare cult classic as it is not available on video. I was fortunate enough to tape it one night off our local PBS channel…….
Yes, I remember watching it in LA on KPBS. And I just watched half of it again on youtube. Much better than almost all of the other movies done about that era. Thanks for reminding me of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWriMsTALF4
I saw that film as well and wifey and I marveled at the color footage of the Jefferson Airplane, which for a brief time, was one of my favorite groups.
Yes, 1967 was when the fracturing of society became evident and manifested itself in movies, music and pop culture in general.
Thing is, if you were young and growing up in and around it, even if the closest you actually got to it was through the new FM “underground” rock stations, you had a ball and enjoyed every second!
Those days were as yesterday still…
I’m constantly impressed with Paul’s ability to point out things that are often sitting there in plain sight but can go completely unnoticed.
Wow – the beginning of gay marketing, in 1967! I’d love to see the Mad Men episode when this copy was written.
“How much driver do you want to be?”
Options: Top, Bottom, or ‘Center’ (hmm…).
Bravo again, Paul
You’re kidding, right???
The cars in the last ad have photoshopped California dealer or manufacturer license plates, probably placing the beach as one in southern Cal.
Chevy did a couple of good ones like the 1969 “We’ll take on any other 2 cars in this magazine” with the 427 Corvette and 396 Camaro in a barn together, the “do not tease” 427 ad and the “tied down” 70 Chevelle SS
I wish they would re-created this ad with a ZR1 Corvette and ZL1 Camaro.
I read an article about this series of Chevelle SS ads, the car they used was a regular Malibu made up to look like an SS, they shot it on a movie studio backlot, and one of them came across all this thick Navy rope and they got the idea to “tie down” the Chevelle.
It made me think of Otter too…
To me the music that was coming out of Detroit in the ’60s was way cooler and interesting than the one from the west coast hippie bands: Iggy and the Stooges, MC5 and most of all Motown Records…such a great time !
At least the hula girl looks like an authentic “hapa” wahine from here . . . . the “surfboard” ?? Proper surfboards of the day were tankers (9’5″ to 10′.5″). Smaller, swallow tailed, triple skegs didn’t come along until well into the seventies, and I can guarantee that anybody in real-life would not have an ironing-board stand with a sandy, salt-water dripping board, hanging over their top down nice Camaro. Yes, it’s show and make believe, but the consensus is that GM could’ve shot the promo pictures at least in SoCal (like the one ad with the “MFR” portion of the Black California plate blanked out.
It’s a joke that Paul refers to the boys in the ad as “pretty”, but I recall that was the normal “mod” guy look in the day . . .
Aloha Motors and Service Motor, Co. would’ve been the Chevy outlets on Oahu in the day. . . . . Now it’s Service Motor, Waipahu and Kaneohe and Cutter Chevrolet (“Are you ready to Chevy?”) . . . .