Grabbed something from the nightstand to read the other night, and what did my hand reappear with? A 1952 National Geographic. No idea where that came from, but there was a very compelling article about a guy who spent half a year with the Portuguese cod fishing fleet, which then still used sailing ships for their annual pilgrimage to the Grand Banks off Canada and Greenland. Excellent story, and long too. Anyway, this Cadillac ad on the inside front page was worth stopping for, even if the lovely lady’s face has been spoiled by something spilled on her who knows when. But it was the text that really caught my eye: “Yes, this is that long-awaited interlude in the day’s activities…that wonderful moment she’ll remember till it comes again tomorrow – the journey behind the wheel of her Cadillac! (click picture for full size)
I wanted to hate this ad, but I really can’t. It really does wanna make you drive a Cadillac. You win Madison Avenue. 60 years later.
This is the car you want for towing a 25 ft airstream. 🙂
Did she pick the color to match the house? OK on the house, less so on the car.
In 1952, there was less traffic than there is today, so a daily drive was more of a pleasure. Plus, the Cadillac ohv V-8 and Hydramatic really were a cut above almost anything else available at that time. Combine those features with very good build quality and the newly available power steering, and I’ll bet driving that Cadillac really was a treat in and of itself, and not just ad puffery. Well, at least until you had to parallel park that yacht!
IIRC this ad is a part of that whole series of Cadillac ads that featured gold and jewelry as part of the visuals for the ads. I guess it was groundbreaking in the 1950’s.
I actually studied this kind of thing in college in the mid-1980’s…
Edit: I forgot to mention that I absolutely love the Cadillac script at the top of the ad. It reminds me of Shelley Allegro, but with a few more treats, like how the “d” mimics the “l’s” with that little counter in the ascender. And the completely wild proportion of the upper case “C”, and the distorted (condensed) letterform of the lower case “c” at the end of the word Cadillac. Even the baseline wanders. It’s loose and elegant all at the same time. Excellent work.
One has to be confident of their abilities to sell that.
(takes off typography-geek hat, and sits down…)
I’m married to a graphic designer, the more type-geeky-ness the better! 🙂
After the Depression, WW II and Korea, this ad must have looked like the heaven that whole generation fought for.
Interesting that our house, built in 1991, has the same exterior color (chosen by the builder, not us). Also blackwall tires were quite common in 1952 because of a shortage of some type caused by the Korean War (still in progress at the time) that resulted in a dearth of whitewalls, which normally adorned any Cadillac.
This beats ads with dancing hamsters or trucks driving through flaming spiral tunnels.
I dunno.. I kinda like the hip hop hamsters (and yes, i’m 45) 🙂
Paul, it comforts me that I am not the only totally geeky guy on the planet.
Back in 2001 I inherited a classroom in Gallup NM that had a cabinet full of old National Geographic. I could kill many any hour looking at the adds from the 1960s through the 1980s. That’s how I know that the 1982 Chevy Celebrity that I had as my first car in 1993 was advertised as “The Small Car With The Big Car Ride.” Which I can testify it was.
The advertising in old magazines is a great read thr Motor Industry mags I have from the 50s are full of ads for cars and the latest garage equipment and parts supplier ads fascinating reading.
This is so right up my alley! I have three binders full of National Geographic car ads, dating from the late 50’s through the late 80’s. Maybe we could have a feature corner on here and collectively share some of these old treasures…
I’ll never forget the day in 1955 (I was 11 years old at the time) when I was playing at a friend’s house one summer day, his dad showed up with a newly purchased 1953 Cadillac that looked much like the one pictured in your magazine except that it was metallic light green. They were an Oldsmobile family but the dad must have had a good year at the plant. Anyway, back in that time period, whenever a family got a new car everyone immediately went for a ride. Since I was there I was included with their 3 children. We all fit in the back seat with plenty of room to spare. When he stepped on the gas out on the main road we were all pinned back in our seats from the thrust yet there was absolutely no sound! There was no engine noise, no air noise, no tire noise – just absolutely serene silence while we rocketed down the road at probably 60 mph or so. That was an experience I could never forget and it seems like it was yesterday so impressive was that Cadillac. I have to believe that GM engineers were proud of their work back in the fifties. There certainly was excitement for the masses about autos that has never been the same since.
I thought my memory of neighbors lining up to ride in moms new 63 grand prix was exaggerated, but i’d guess this custom died out soon after 1964 or so… perhaps our less innocent nation after JFK had been shot?
I do remember the pinned back feeling as a kid in the backseat of a neighbor’s son used 65 Impala SS Convertible, I was about 8 in 67 or so, and I was terrified I was going to fly out as The Beach Boys sang “Do It Again” on the WABC-AM radio.
This is ‘way out in left field, but speaking of old ads, I have a travel brochure from the Burlington Railway, dated 1953. The quaint part was describing a ride from the train’s destination somewhere out west to your hotel on a (primative) bus, traveling in “balloon-tired luxury”! Priceless prose, those old ads.
Blame television. Back then, people had longer attention spans; and took the time to actually read those wordy ads – which were worth reading.
Today of course, we need dancing hamsters or little kids driving cars…something fast, bright and shiny. No reflective thought…no thought at all.
You got that right. Nobody takes the time to read hardly anything these days. As far as TV goes, I suppose you could go back to the first James Bond movies where the “quick cutting” technique was used to accentuate the action and it has ramped up ever since.
Besides, hamsters are nasty rodents on a good day and anything remotely hip-hop is disgusting.
More than the car, I find the contrast in lifestyles, then and now, interesting. An upper-middle-class wife/matron had plenty of idle time on her hands, with which to fill with basically aimless travel…to the restaurant in the top-tier department store of the region; or to a bridge club, or to have coffee with the husband during the day.
Compare that to the frenetic two-career household…up at 0God30; dash out the door to wait with the kids at the school-bus stop (because it’s no longer safe to let the kids walk to work or wait alone) and then a mad dash to the office or shop. Lunch either at the desk or work station, or with people you really don’t want to share the planet with. Then at day’s end, another scramble to the distant neighborhood…hurry, before the day-care center closes…a harried trip through Boston Market or Mickey Dee’s Drive-Thru; then home, collapse in the easy chair for a couple of hours before bed.
People, even well-off people, had much less spending money then; but the quality and pace of life were at tolerable speed. It’s telling, too…that people were so impressed with a new car, something that until recently, a generation of high-schoolers took as a given for their senior year.
My thoughts exactly.
People had less money to spend but there was a lot less to buy.
Far too many people live that kind of lifestyle because they cannot think outside the box. I have a stay at home wife and no, my kids don’t run from this to that lesson because their neighbour’s kids do. We live a good life on my work but it took a fair amount of creativity to achieve it. I find the lack of said creativity perplexing. Who the hell wants to slave in an office or shop they hate?
I certainly don’t.
I have to agree (perhaps for the first time) with Canucklehead.
Nobody has to live this suburban rat race, and there’s an interesting split between friends my age group. There are the ones that are building their families around the “classic” suburban model of far flung stucco monstrosity 40+miles away from work that have to leave at the crack of dawn and return at sunset with a lack of connection to their spouse and children.
Then there are those that chose a more urban/older suburban environment less that 10 miles away from work, so there isn’t the time drag/expense of the commute. And guess what, they save even more money because they have the time to participate in their kids lives, like volunteering to be the coach on the little league instead of throwing money at the guilt of not being around. Or not having to have childcare expenses, since you actually end your day at a similar time as your child.
People don’t think of the consequences of their decisions to live in far flung suburbs. Much as I love the automobile I couldn’t see wasting more that 30 minutes in it for the daily drudgery of a commute.
In a lot of ways I can’t speak for the vast number of peoples lives since I won’t be married with kids anytime soon…. but I think a lot of group think about what happy family life looks like doesn’t actually work in practice.
Certainly an astute summation of reality then and now. My wife and I left our comfortable retirement retreat in Florida to spend most of the year in California to babysit our 2 grandchildren (ages 28 months and 8 months) so their parents can go to their jobs each day and continue to meet payments on their now equityless townhome. When they purchased a new Hyundai Sonata a few months ago there was no family ride the first day or the first month. In fact there wouldn’t be room for the whole family to get in the car. If we all want to go somewhere Grandma and Grandpa have to take their own car.
@JustPassinThru:
Stop hitting the nail on the head – you’re killing me! So true…so true.
The other reason why milady’s trip in her Cadillac was an event in itself back then was that she was sure to draw attention wherever she went. Cadillacs were much more exclusive then. Total Cadillac production in 1953 was about 110,000 — twenty years later it was two and a half times that. So she wasn’t going to see herself coming and going. Also, Cadillac barely had competition for the luxury market. Packard was already declining, the ’53 Lincoln looked like a fancy Ford and Imperial was still just a model of Chrysler. So when you saw a Cadillac on the road, you knew its driver was sitting on top of the world.
You know how a car gets featured here on CC and then you see one? Damned if today on I-65 driving home from Lafayette to Indianapolis I didn’t see a Coupe DeVille of this vintage heading the opposite direction. Maroon car, cream top and a continental kit. I was jealous of its owner.
Note that “…the woman who enjoys possession of a Cadillac…”
That’s right folks, a woman would never own this car, merely be permitted to drive it.
Hilarious.