I’ve been researching a Curbside Outtake on an unusual BMC 1300 (ADO16, Austin or Morris 1100, Austin America and many others) variant and inevitably have come across some period advertising from some of the many markets where this car did good business and was assembled. The car was built in the UK, obviously, but also in Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand, and elsewhere as well.
At the top, an Austin 1100 advertisement from the UK from 1965, picking up on some classic British themes and pushing the Issigonis technology.
There was this effort from Australia, again focussing on the innovations in the car and its consequent capabilities for space and comfort, and performance. The car was assembled in Sydney, at a factory inherited by BMC from the Nuffield Organization, and which ultimately assembled the Leyland P76 before closing in 1976.
Over in New Zealand, the car was assembled by Dominion Motors who also distributed Nuffield’s products. here the advertising again featured the hydrolastic suspension, and its suitability for contemporary New Zealand’s often not fully surfaced and (still) continually twisty roads. Dominion Motors was eventually merged with the assembly business owned by the Austin Distributors Federation to create the New Zealand Motor Corporation, now known as Honda New Zealand, after BL progressively withdrew from the early 1980s.
The car was also assembled in Spain by Authi, as a way of getting product in to Spain despite tough import restrictions and duties in the pre-EU environment. BMC and later BLMC created some specific models for Spain, including the Austin Victoria, a 1300 with longer front and rear ends. Sales were, in total, around 20,000 a year until BL bailed out in 1974 and sold the plant to SEAT.
Over in Italy, Innocenti assembled the car under the IM3 and later IM4 and IM5 nameplates, with some minor differences. Not least of these was a revised interior and a universal joint in the steering joint in the steering column, making all the difference to that Issigonis driving position.
So, QOTD, which one works best?
I like the Australian ad the best!
The Australian commercial describes the 1100 as a medium sized car. The 1100 was twenty inches shorter than a Chevrolet Chevette, although the Chevette’s impact bumpers made for eight inches of the difference. Still, it is hard to think of an 1100 as a medium sized car.
Probably had more room in it than my Crown Vic.
The Crown Vic had relatively inefficient packaging for 1990 while the 1100 had efficient packaging for 1963, but that doesn’t mean that six people would fit in an 1100 as comfortably as they would in a Crown Vic.
The 1100 was a five seater so no, six people would not fit. 5 x 1963 Australians would probably fit with equal or greater comfort than 6 x 2006 Americans in my 2006 Vic. I’m 5’11’ and 160lb and can’t fathom how cramped it is.
Plus, in 1963 Aussies probably considered something like a Ford Cortina to be a mid sized car. The 1100 was smaller on the outside but amazingly roomy inside, so it wasn’t a totally outrageous claim – though personally it’s not one I would make.
As with all the Issigonis BMC FWD cars it’s the interior space that counts. This went into overdrive with the 1800 which offered more interior space for four adults than a Cadillac in a package smaller than a Ford Cortina.
The Italian ad is the best for its color, visual interest, humor and setting. I wanted to see more of it. The Australian ad is excellent too, but it is too long and in B/W.
The New Zealand ad forgot to make the car look like it is where you want to be. No one wants to be in a rollicking rolling and jumping car. Not only is it hard to see a car moving vertically, I wouldn’t want to be in it.
The Spanish ad and the British ad didn’t work. Once again, why am I being showed stressed out driving conditions in the city instead of the car itself?
BTW, nice car!
Quite a spread…the New Zealand ad takes that 1100 off some sweet jumps, but the ad from Spain shows a 1300 hooked up to an oscilloscope. Both are pretty cool. I think I like the English ad best, however, because I’m kind of an Anglophile…but just about any old car ad is OK with me.
The accents in the UK and Australian ads are unknown to science.
The UK, Aussie and Italian ads are much more professional and polished than the NZ one with its’ then-already-outdated background music and – as VanillaMan points out – failure to show the car as a place you want to be in. The Spanish ad is for a local dealer so it seems just as unpolished, but still not as much so as a lot of local dealer ads that either try harder for a memorable “hook” or don’t try at all and just show stock footage of the car and talk about cashback and financing deals.
I thought about that NZ ad failure a bit more.
The idea behind the ad was to show that the car can handle rough terrain, so it needed to show it handling the rough terrain – it got the exterior shots right, but without showing the placid interior where an attractive model is easily sipping her coffee, the idea isn’t finished. We don’t know what is happening inside the car. We never see the driver confidently piloting it. As far as we know, it is all ass-over-backwards inside with everyone thrashing around like rag dolls. Who wants to experience that?
I remember those old ads showing suspension improvements, the Dodge front tires shown rattling over corduroy pavement, the Terraplane photo with the arrows sharply thrusting upwards over a bump – yet the folks inside were also shown as not even noticing the hell going on beneath them. That is what needed to have been shown.
NZ=fail
Considering they’ll all fairly low budget looking, I find these adverts interesting ~ the first one spends much time on the engineering aspects .
Notice BMC didn’t use the word ‘quality’ and that’s a shame because I like much of BMC’s engineering but the products as assembled and sold always seemed to need serious fettling before being reliable .
Sadly, I have no rose tinted memories of Land Crabs .
-Nate