For several reasons, I don’t think GM would run an ad like this nowadays. But the claim alone is a bit suspect. “More people buy used Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Cadillacs than any other kind of used cars”. Hmm. I assume that must mean all of those brands collectively, which it certainly doesn’t exactly imply. No doubt more used Fords were sold than used Oldsmobiles, especially the slow-selling Toronado. Undoubtedly even more used Thunderbirds were sold than it.
But it makes for a nice load of used GM cars.
GM also had the OK used car lots. Not sure if there was any real support (ie: warranty), but it made the customer feel they were getting the support of GM.
I’m pretty sure that “OK” was Chevrolet only, and that the other GM brands all had their own used car branding. Pontiac was “Goodwill” and I think Olds was “Valid Value”.
My favorite ad was a Saab radio spot that ran in the 90s. The announcer said something like, “80% of people who test drive a Saab, buy a Saab.”
While it very well may have been true, it only emphasized the fact that most people who drove Saabs didn’t consider any other cars, and those who didn’t drive Saabs rarely test drove them.
Isn’t that, like, textbook selection bias?
Speaking of selection bias: 2 Chevys on the carrier but no Opel or GMC Truck.
Used car sales back then were just that. Car sales. Nobody had a Pontiac Catalina and a GMC truck for their final two choices. Opel’s were like that cousin that never fit into the family and really only kind of looked like anyone in the family but no one specifically. But they were family. (But the family still whispered about them).
Truth be told, Snaabs are as devoted now as they were then. I should know!
I look at all of these coupes, not a bad line in the whole bunch… then scroll down one post to an A-Body 2-door… and right there I’m like, “well, that’s what happened to GM.”
Really is jarring, but to be fair GM’s 4-doors during this period always seemed like hastily converted 2-door models, that completely flipped in the 80s, maybe even the 70s with the Collonade A bodies.
I generally enjoy your contributions here, so don’t take this as an attack. Would you name a few strong examples of late ’60s GM four-door sedans or hard-tops that look like two-door afterthoughts? Most of them were reasonably attractive for GM cars. I really feel like GM made a concerted effort to punish buyers for tolerating the government regulating their products excessively in the ’70s, and that very few of their cars were even attractive in-period from 1974 on.
68-72 A bodies and 68-74 Chevy IIs namely. I think both the 75 X body 4 doors and Collonade 4 doors were as good or better than the 2 doors
I pulled up photographs of the cars that you mentioned, and in my personal opinion any disparities in appeal are covered by the inherently greater attractiveness of two-door cars. It is just my opinion admittedly. I also tend to think of Colonnades as being inherently unattractive no matter what the body style. They’re all weak and droopy while fundamentally lacking in the detail development that once made GM cars desirable.
There’s just some weird lines to the 68-72s that bother me more than most, the greenhouse shape doesn’t match the roofline and the door opening seems longer than the roof pillar allows, they tried retaining too much coupe profile I think, which is made further off kilter by the longer wheelbase, they seem lumbering where the coupes seem lithe. 64-67s don’t have that issue, in fact those are some of the best looking 4 doors of the era IMO.
This angle on the skylark in particular exemplifies what looks so wrong to me
I understand your criticism now. That’s is a good illustration. It also shows the problem with having too many divisions to populate with too many models. You can’t just design a car as a complete realization of an idea. You need to attempt to disguise it as four different cars. I feel like import competitors that didn’t need to make generic cars and then dress them up as Fords and Mercuries, or Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Chevrolets were at an advantage in producing cars that resonated with potential buyers. The Skylark in the photo does a good job of looking like a Buick, and a poor job of being attractive.
“New GM cars go out of style with a great deal of reluctance”. Oh boy…. please buy a new car because it’s the latest thing but buy a used one since we say it’s still close enough….
That’s the culture of self-impressed arrogance that led one or another GM executive to respond to a question of what they planned to fight Chrysler’s new K-cars with by telling a bunch of reporters that a 1- or 2-year-old Buick offered better value, then affirming it when asked, incredulously, if they were suggesting a used car.
The next sentence in the ad copy says “Take at look at our 1968 models if you want to see how other cars will appear in a year or two.”
Which, at that time, was true. GM was the styling leader. Ford and Chrysler cars (Mopars in particular) would incorporate styling features that GM had introduced a year or two earlier.
This was starting to break down with the rise of imports, and cars such as the Continental Mark III, but in 1968, people still thought of GM as the styling leader.
That Riv is calling my name, but then again, so is the Eldorado. Really, none of them are bad.
You take the Riv, I’ll take the Eldo, don’t forget the canoles.
Deal… 🙂
Of the cars on that transporter I’d say the Grand Prix is the least attractive. For some reason that’s the one that I would pick, Today. It has some unusual styling flourishes, like the narrow tail lamp strips, the heavy rear quarter skeg panels, and that protruding beak. It also has these cool hidden headlamps and horizontal strip turn signals. ’67 was the only year for the convertible. All the other cars are a styling home run.
I don’t like the 68 Grand Prix roofline or that bad toupee vinyl roof GM thought was just amazing, but I do think the front end is very attractive, like a big GTO, much more so than the 67(I prefer the unique stacked headlight version on Catalinas and Bonnevilles) In fact if this were a Bonneville fastback or convertible instead of a GP it would probably be my favorite car on this load instead of my least.
That was the “halo” vinyl roof option, which was offered for a few years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It had largely disappeared by 1974 at GM and everywhere else.
The truck is a ’64 or so C50, well used with plenty of ‘patina’. No instant obsolescence there. Seems unusual to show a dirty and worn truck pulling the fresh-looking cars. Were they trying to emphasize the contrast, or just not paying attention?
Also who would transport a load of cars even used ones with the windows down?
And with the hub caps on?
These particular 68s indeed must have looked good in 1970… their 1970 successors basically carried over the basic body shapes but gained either fussy details(corvette’s gills), strange unflattering sheetmetal revisions(Riviera and Toronado), watered down conservative styling (Impala and the Eldo’s now exposed headlight nose) or were just plain ugly (Pontiac).
You have a good point. The Riviera and Toronado are textbook examples of how to ruin styling home runs — consider the 1966 models (and largely carryover 67s) and how they were badly degraded by 1970. The full-size Pontiacs lost their mojo in 70, and even though I personally like the 70 Chevy, it is arguably the least daring of the 1965-70 generation.
That Riviera is one sexy beast.
“New GM cars go out of style with a great deal of reluctance” – in this case, because the cars displayed here constituted all the GM cars that had lost their vent windows by 1968 (except for the ’68 Camaro and Firebird). GM was already planning to start eliminating their other car lines’ vent windows; all the 1969 full-size cars and intermediate coupes lost theirs.
At this time (I was 12) I thought the vent-windowless look was stylish indeed. Later I grew to appreciate them and recognized that it was simply cheapness to omit them.
(The pictured Caprice coupe is quite rare and I’ve only seen one in photos; people who wanted that formal coupe roofline almost always purchased an Impala Custom Coupe, which retained the vent windows.)
The ’68 Camaro and Firebird list their vent windows, too.
Is this actually a 1968 ad referring to these new cars as future used cars in. 1970?
I assume that’s what this ad is about. Another reason it wouldn’t play well now is that few people trade in cars after just two years, though I suppose that may be true for leases.
Twice the ad mentions that new GM cars come with a “Body by Fisher,” but wasn’t the Corvette one of those fairly rare GM cars without a Fisher body?
We may be looking at some artistic license in carrier engineering. Or maybe a Mad Magazine like fold-in?
I’m not sure the Grand Prix could drop so snuggley into the belly of the beast.
Sooo, I’m guessing that sales of used Fords Mercuries and Lincolns were second highest in used car sales and those of Chryslers Plymouths and Dodges were third? I always marvel at advertising that takes a blatantly obvious truism and tries to make it sound like some kind of Eureka! idea.
Yeah with GM having near 50% market share and Ford at about 25% unless GM owners were significantly more likely to keep their cars longer than Ford owners then yeah chances are there will be twice as many 2 year old GMs than Fords on the used market.
Depreciation rates of various models would give a true indication of their popularity as used cars.
Looking at the low and high end of the market, the full-size Chevrolet and “standard” Cadillac (De Ville series) easily outsold their Chrysler counterparts, the Plymouth Fury and Imperial, when new. But the GM cars depreciated at a slower rate than their Chrysler counterparts, even though they theoretically would be easier to find as used cars, due to being sold in much larger volumes.
The ad is trying to drive home this point, without referring to any specific figures or depreciation rates.
In his book, DeLorean specifically noted that the gap in trade-in value between comparable examples of the standard Ford and Chevrolet that had existed in the early 1960s (he put it at $200, if I recall correctly), had disappeared by 1970. In his eyes, this was tangible proof that Chevrolet quality had been falling since the mid-1960s.
I’ll take that blue Eldorado up top, please!
This ad always puzzled me when it came out. Even as a kid in third grade I realized all the cars in the photo were either airbrushed in or cut and pasted in. At the time, my Dad had just bought a brand new 68 Impala Custom Coupe and I knew every square inch of that car and what it should look like. I also still own my very first car, which is a 68 Impala convertible. That Impala on the car carrier only somewhat resembled the real thing. The front wheel opening is completely the wrong shape, it doesn’t have the oval look to it whereby the lower section aft of the wheel curves back toward the front of the car. The front bumper looks amiss as sell. Then there’s the roof…the pictured car has a rear side window line that seems slanted forward, the real thing was pretty much straight up and down. And finally, it clearly has Impala trim and an Impala nameplate but has no vent window. While Caprice Coupes lacked the vent windows, Impalas had them. I’m sure I could find issues with the other cars on the carrier to confirm they were early photoshops as well but that Impala has stuck out to me since the ad first appeared.
This ad hails from the time when GM was its zenith in terms of design and was still increasing its market share.
Despite shared bodies, one could still differentiate all the brands spun off a central theme and each division had unique powertrains.
Imports made up just 20% (or less) of the overall passenger car market and were mainly British or European in origin and hardly anyone bought a pickup or SUV as their daily driver.
How times change.