Actually, what I think I see here is a Volvo 740 whose body is being supported by jack stands or some other means, otherwise its suspension would be totally compressed, a condition that would be quite visible and obvious. It appears to sitting at completely normal ride height.
It’s not the only time they did that either.
At least in this case, the extensive support under the lowest car is quite visible. As is the deformed roof and/or door on the second car from the bottom.
One can argue that it’s not deceptive to support the suspension with jack stands as the purpose of the ad was to show the body integrity. However, the ad leaves the impression that the vehicle is completely unaffected by the extra weight, as it’s probably meant to. The car-buying public would interpret this ad as a display of suspension strength.
True but it makes the point. During the first oil embargo (1973) my father decided to replace my mother’s 8-year-old Buick. By the way, she had not really mastered the art of driving at the time and had been involved in a few accidents none of which were officially her fault (wrong place at the wrong time).
Naturally, Dad was looking for something safe and had relatively good fuel economy. Dad is a car guy so he knows what he wants. Toyotas, too small; Vega or Pinto, are you kidding? So it was off to the Volvo store. My seventh-grade self went with him.
I was impressed by a 144 sedan we saw in the service parking lot. We were told it had hit a bridge abutment at over 40 miles per hour. The front was completely demolished but it was if a hidden hand stopped the CARnage (pardon the pun) at the firewall. The windshield was even in tact. Needless to say papers were signed for a school bus yellow 144 with automatic, air, and floor mats that looked like they were intended for a Mack truck.
What didn’t impress me was what I noticed the next day when my parents picked me up from school and I got a look at the (Maroney) window sticker. That damn taxi cost as much as a fully equipped Oldsmobile Cutlass – the new colonnade A-body.
Well mother drove the car for 10 years, accumulated 150,000+ miles, and was involved in a few more “mishaps” all without a scratch on her person. Guess what replaced the ’73 Volvo – a 1983 Volvo DL.
That’s interesting — I didn’t realize Volvo had already mastered crumple zones in those days.
Much of the public still sees crumpled fronts as evidence of flimsy manufacturing, thinking that big, heavy cars from the past would be so much safer to crash in than today’s lightweight fluff. (“They don’t build ’em like they used to!”). Parents used to buy these old cars for their new teen drivers because they were “safer”. I’ve shown a few people that 2009 Malibu vs Bel Air crash comparison, which is pretty eye-opening for them.
Anyhow, good for Volvo for pioneering this stuff.
I have to chuckle whenever I hear or read references to “today’s lightweight fluff.”
Take two ordinary production vehicles – one old, one new – of approximately the same size, then weigh them and tell me what you find. Despite having an abundance of thinner, high-strength steel, aluminum, plastic and once-exotic materials like titanium, today’s vehicles have more mass crammed into their volume than cars of the past. That density is there to keep bodies rigid, passenger compartments intact, and to house comfort and safety equipment we only dreamed of in the so-called “good old days.”
Yes, cars are super-porky now. On the scale at work, my 2013 Challenger SRT is 4600lbs!
For example, ’57 Belvedere Fury looks massive at 3600lbs, while a ’17-’20 Lincoln Continental appears modest in size at 4500lbs, leaving a very skewed impression.
An imposing looking GAZ-24 Volga is only 3100lbs, and it was almost as heavy as a prestigious sedan could be besides larger ones from the US. 3000lbs would be where to start even for a tiny modern vehicle ( except lightweight ones, of course or city cars )
Bigger, heavier cars are safe is partially true, under certain circumstances.
Older traditional sedans/wagons with full ladder frame have advantages in collision against weaker, smaller vehicles especially at low speed and frontal collision. ( low enough not to cause crumble around driver and passenger areas ). For example, many international students consider Hindustan Ambassador the safest car in India.
( I suppose when traffic is in chaos below 40kph, Ambassador is quite safe in relative to Tata Nano, Suzuki Alto, and almost all kei-car built under the license lacking of due srutiny in safety. And most likely that vintage Morris is the safest until 1960 Dodge shows up if hit upon )
I don’t think such condition is modern vehicle safety. It looks more like demolition derby to me
Deceptive, but I suppose it points out the rigidity of the Volvo body. Akin to those Fitz and Van ads featuring tiny people to make the car interiors look huge. No doubt Volvo wouldn’t be able to get away with this today, nor should it.
Truth in advertising has come a long way. As a kid I recall TV ads for Geritol, Carter’s Little Liver pills and other such quackery. And then there were the cigarette ads, proclaiming nonsense like “9 out of 10 doctors recommended Camels”. Crap like this has largely disappeared due to government pressure. Corporate America always complains about all those pesky regulations inhibiting its operations, but they mostly brought it on themselves.
In the 240 era, Volvo got in trouble for an ad depicting a monster truck crushing cars, and when the truck got to a 240, the roof did not crush. (I wish I could find the ad on the internet.) Turns out the roof had been reinforced.
The print ad depicted in this post was also made into a video commercial – https://youtu.be/hKBqDhFvfXI
Anecdotally, I was (long ago) at the DIY junkyard and a fellow was crushing the picked-over cars so they could be stacked on a flatbed and hauled off for scrap. His method was to raise the mast of the 4-ton forklift to full height and slam the “down” lever wide open, causing the forks to drop hard and fast, crushing the roof of the car.
Until he got to a 244, and the roof wouldn’t budge using this method. He finally had to back up and kink the roof pillars with the tips of the forks, and only then would the roof collapse via the “drop the forks” method.
Here’s the Volvo Monster Truck commercial:
And here is where the FTC fined Volvo and the Ad Agency $150,000 each for that ad:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-08-22-fi-1522-story.html
“The Volvo commercial, which aired in October, 1990, featured a structurally reinforced Volvo withstanding the weight of an oversized truck rolling over it. Rival vehicles that appeared in the ad were structurally weakened to be crushed by the truck.
Thanks for finding it, Lokki!
Remember hearing about this back when it happened; it was filmed near where I live (they say in Austin, but really closer to Manor which is east of Austin) in the Travis County Exhibition center. One of my best friends now lives in Colorado, but he and his wife had a home with about 5 acres nearby, where they kept a horse. He was visiting about 6 years ago and actually got lost trying to find the entrance to his neighborhood…he last lived here in 1996, and things have greatly changed since. He’s actually coming for a visit in a couple weeks (otherwise have been pretty much a hermit…only went out to lunch once since Feb 2020 with ex-coworker I’ve known since 1985).
Maybe this was the start of the “slit window” styling cars have now…with less glass area the roof could be made stronger, the sacrifice of course being worse visibility. A strong roof is important but I’d gladly give up things like sunroof (though they are small enough that they probably don’t have a big effect on roof strength) to get more glass area on the sides of the car…but I’m sure marketing would overrule me, it is hard to charge extra for better side glass vs a sunroof. Would like the roof to support the weight of the car (should it flip) but how strong does it really need to be…is it likely that you’d have to bear the weight of another vehicle (plus the rest of yours should it flip)? Safety is good, but isn’t good vision out part of that?
Not directly related to the roof, but a Volvo crash story none the less. When I was a
teenager in the early ’90s, a buddy and I were at a dead stop in an older Alfa Romeo
Spyder when we were rear ended by a lady in a 240 that was doing around 50 mph.
This was on Mountain Rd (RT 152) near the intersection with Hess Rd in Harford County
MD, for those familiar with that area. The Alfa was shaped like a tent after the accident
and the driveshaft went out the front. Neither my friend or I were injured in any way.
The “lady” was not so lucky, although her wounds were fairly minor. Turned out
she put in the wrong contact lenses. I would have had (slightly) more sympathy for her if
she had not tried to shift the blame to me, stating that my taillights were out, until
contradicted by witnesses.
I have been a bit leery about various vehicular safety claims since.
“Based on an Giulia 105 series chassis, the Alfa Romeo Spider was launched in
1966. Unnamed at launch, the name “Duetto” was chosen in a write-in competition in Italy. The Italian firm of Pininfarina was responsible for the design of the body, as well as being involved in the manufacture of the vehicle’s monocoque construction (designed with the relatively new principles of crumple zones incorporated into the front and rear)”….
I recall these ads. I do remember my eyes going straight to the suspension before anything else. A good side article to this would be the makings of the IH Loadstar cabover and it’s evolution into the Cargostar. Love the look of the narrow cab and those fenders.
They did the reinforced stack of cars ad first with the 140 in the 70’s. They fessed up several decades later.
Assuming there were no additional changes to the photo from a gifted artist, This photo can be replicated. Here’s how:
1. Remove every unnecessary weight in the truck, including drive line, seats, radiator, etc. Also remove the door parts and entire right side of cargo box. With diligence and a knowledge of mechanical structures, it should be possible to reduce weight of truck by at least 50%.
2. Inflate car tire pressure to 150 psi. As they are static, the tires will take the pressure.
3. insert wooden blocks between suspension points and body [wood works better than metal because it deforms slightly to stay in place].
After the photo shot is done, use crane to remove truck & have it hauled away and crushed for scrap [don’t want any evidence sticking around!]. Deflate and destroy the car’s tires & rims, remove & burn the wooden blocks.
The right rear tire is far skinnier than it should be. I would say some pre-Photoshop editing was done to remove supports in the pinch weld areas.
supposedly there exists movie (or video) footage of one of the famous “stack of Volvos” ad photoshoots that went awry due to (as the story went… or at least as I remember it) a gust of wind.
I’ve looked for it on teh webz a few times, but haven’t found it – to date.
Seemed like a good time & place to mention it, though 🙂
mrh
The Volvos are strong and back in this era their sheet metal was thicker than most American cars, but SAAB’s was thicker yet. The insurance institute in Sweden gave rated the SAAB the safest car made, just above the Volvo. The old SAAB story was that when Eric “on the roof” Carlson got the SAAB rally car stuck in the mud, he and the co-pilot rolled it over on it’s roof and back on it’s wheels out of the mud to be finish the race. The V8 Falcon team protested and said it couldn’t be done. So they did it again right there in front of race officials and the press. Not to be out done, the Falcon team flipped their car over and it crushed the roof right down to the seats.
I agree it looks slightly dubious….but Volvo like advertising on strength…UK, 1987
Clever, and effective. However, I must admit to some doubt that a recycled minicar DAF was actually deeply engineered much beyond crash-standard basics!
Notice the rear tyres? When did Volvo last put tyres that narrow on a car? They look about half the width of the front ones. Photoshop.
Did we figure out what the truck was before they photoshopped it into anonymity? I think I can see a Bedford TK.
I was thinking that, though if so someone’s been hard at work airbrushing the photo. The door handle is in the wrong place, but those round turn lights and the windscreen shape fit.
The only modification of that truck is the removal of the badges.
Trying again
Never knew that existed. Thanks!
Volvo got a lot of miles out of that stacked-cars theme:
Not to mention plenty of print:
…more…
…and more…
…and yet more!
Volvo is also good at stacking shipping containers (and pull it off) – search for Volvo 750 tonnes.
These Volvo “stacking” ad’s will likely go down as one of the most boneheaded campaigns in advertising history.
These ads remind me of the classic Ford Truck ads and GM’s delayed response, thankfully combined in this.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLysG4r6ZB8&w=560&h=315%5D
There’s no doubt that the dreary block of 700 series is much improved by the Loadstar roof option. However, the multiple-700’s roof option just compounded the problem, rather obviously.
IMHO.
Doesn’t seem like a grand feat of strength anyway really, one of the junkyards I go to used to stack cars on roofs I never saw any wit buckled roofs from it. By Volvo’s marketing logic the Chevy Vega would be a paragon of structural engineering
About exactly what I was thinking!
At the junkyard over the summer I saw an early Porsche 928 under a pile of cars about to be crushed. Phone dial wheels and all.
It looked quite intact around the roof and none of the windows were broken. I even thought how it seemed to be holding up to all the weight pretty well. I didn’t trust it enough to sit inside it, however.😀
It was a very rare sight for a Northwest Indiana yard to have any Porsche, much less a 40-plus year old one.
It had about the dullest and most worn white paint I have ever seen on a car. But no visible rust. Probably not originally from here.
I never bothered to learn how to put a video link in here, but perhaps someone so inclined could put one to the Top Gear Saab Farewell Tribute, or whatever its called. (from 2010-ish? Right after the discontinuation of Saab)
In one segment, Clarkson has a Volvo (700-series? I’m not a Volvo guy, but it was definitely one of the extremely-boxy ones. That doesnt narrow it down much I guess) dropped from whatever-height (high enough to make the point) on its roof and then a Saab 900 from the same height.
Maybe it was the reverse order but no matter.
The results, (seemingly fairly done) are dramatic with how the Saab maintained most of its roof integrity, certainly the B-pillar area. The Volvo, not as much.
Clarkson has his critics here and understandably so, but it was a good watch for me, and a solid salute to the Saab brand.
I should learn to post links but I so rarely want to I haven’t bothered. Maybe one day. Or not.
I had a 1970 140 series 4 door sedan. My wife was driving it and got hit from the rear by a Mack truck. (she said she actually saw the lettering in the rear view mirror). The rear bumper of our car was about five inches from the rear window. The body shop popped the car trunk and fenders and all back and we drove the thing for another few years. Many years later I had a 245 wagon (green stick shift no less) that took out the side of a Honda Accord that turned in front of me. The lady I hit was calling for an ambulance until she got the ticket. (I did not show up for trial). The only damage to my car was a turn signal lens. The 1970 bought new got pretty rusty; the wagon, bought used was like new when I got it.