Trope: a convention or device that establishes a predictable or stereotypical representation of a character, setting, or scenario in a creative work (dictionary.com)
For almost as long as there have been automobiles, automakers have been trying to show off their cars as aspirational purchases by showing them in aspirational settings in their ads and promotional photos. Many of these settings get reused to the point where we can consider them to be tropes.
What better to illustrate this than one of my personal favorite vintage auto advertising tropes: A car parked beside a swimming pool. After all, nothing says glamor and riches like an in-ground pool (sorry above-ground pools, nothing personal).
Unfortunately, many of these idealized settings require more than a bit of suspension of disbelief, where if you think for more than a few seconds about what is being depicted, the situation being pictured doesn’t really make any sense at all.
Like most things automotive, the “car parked poolside” trope is far older than you would guess. This 1926 Buick ad is the oldest example I could find, but there are probably even older examples.
This 1941 Plymouth ad is more prototypical of the genre: An actual photograph of a car being driven onto a pool deck, and a bunch of cavorting onlookers who totally don’t seem to be bothered by this in the slightest, as if this sort of thing happens all the time. Note that the people sitting in the chairs have to position themselves rather awkwardly, to avoid getting their feet and legs run over.
Here we see a family in a 1954 Cadillac Eldorado enjoying a nice Sunday drive beside a pool. Again, no one seems to find this even remotely unusual. Maybe the main road is closed and they are taking a detour.
1954 Cadillac La Espada Concept at Key Biscayne Hotel and Villas
The Key Biscayne Hotel and Villas in Miami was a popular place for GM to shoot poolside promotional photos in the 1950s. Perhaps management had a permissive attitude towards driving on their pool deck, or maybe the pool deck had easy access to the parking lot. Above is the 1954 Cadillac La Espada concept parked poolside at the Key Biscayne.
1956 Buick Centurion Concept at Key Biscayne Hotel and Villas
Here we see the 1956 Buick Centurion concept parked beside the pool. The raised tile on the edge of the Key Biscayne pool and slanted roof villas are both very distinctive.
And finally, here we see the 1955 Buick Wildcat III, also in almost the exact same spot and camera angle as the previous photo.
For context, here is a vintage postcard of the Key Biscayne Hotel and Villas. The drive-up villas would seem to provide easy vehicle access to the pool.
This 1954 Cadillac El Camino concept has a slightly different take on the parked poolside trope. Instead of being parked parallel to the pool, this one is parked nose-in, close enough for the radiator to leak into the water.
Lest you think I pick on GM too much, here is a 1957 Lincoln gazing at its own reflection beside a pool. Given the murky water and lack of depth markings, this pool may be more of a landscape feature than a swimming pool, but it is still damn strange to park so close to the edge that the passenger can’t even get out without taking a dunk.
This one is rather strange, even by poolside photo standards. Instead of pulling into a perfectly good carport about 10 feet away, Dad for some reason decides to park the ’59 Country Cruiser right next to the pool. A tad too much to drink at lunch?
This obviously wealthy individual is being a bit of a lout, parking his 1960 Imperial right in front of the pool, pretty much blocking it off. The rich really are different from you and me.
Finally, recognizing that it has already become somewhat of a cliche, AMC played around with the poolside car trope in this 1962 ad. Good thing I happened to be driving by the pool deck in my Rambler convertible to rescue the lifeguard. Who knows what would have happened otherwise?
was the floating lifeguard chair really a thing?
First time I’ve seen it, too. Think of the advantages, if someone’s drowning the lifeguard doesn’t have to leave his/her chair. Just rock the tower in the direction of the victim and grab them on the downward motion. 😆
I have always loved these poolside cars! I am sure there are a lot more of them, but the two that popped into my mind were some I have come across while looking for ads for CC pieces. One was the 41 Studebaker President.
And the other is a 61 Thunderbird. I wonder if that was how they brought the ladder for stringing up the lanterns.
Perhaps swimming pools were only afforded by the wealthy so that was the market car makers were after. The last one the ideal car for your graduating daughter?. Seems odd now. “Let’s go to…..s and show off our new car by their pool!”
“Note that the people sitting in the chairs have to position themselves rather awkwardly, to avoid getting their feet and legs run over.”
I’m gonna stop you right there. Assuming there’s no (literal, pre-Photoshop) cut-and-paste going on, what happens on the photoshoot is that the car is positioned *first*, both because it’s The Product being sold and for safety reasons. Then, everyone – and everything not bolted down – is positioned around it. That awkward sitting position was a deliberate artistic choice.
Of course all these photos are meticulously staged, lit, posed, and framed. I was merely having some fun by pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of what they are portraying.
I love old ads! I’ll take the Avanti, the ’54 Cadillac, that beautiful Lincoln, and definitely the Centurion. At least I get to visit the Centurion regularly down in Flint.
These are great. The absurdity of most of them is a reflection of their times.
The lead Avanti photo was no doubt taken in Palm Springs, CA. If there has ever been a car which stylistically belongs to a specific place and time, it is the Avanti and early ‘60s Palm Springs.
Many of the “vintage” neighborhoods are still around and are still in period form, so many old car shots get taken curbside or in the driveways of Palm Springs. If one is out this way and it is not in the middle of summer, grab a camera and spend a bit of time there.
Here’s a photo of Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson attempting to park his Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow poolside!
How about a few ’67 GMC’s:
Parking poolside was actually pretty popular in the late 40s and early 50s as suburbia grew and pools became more common. However local regulations requiring fences for child safety became much more common, rendering the practice obsolete by the late 60s.
The car parked by the pool is better than the classic rock and roll cliche of a car crashed in a pool.
What a great post, Tom. This is one of those things that one just gets so used to seeing and seldom pauses long enough to consider just how ridiculous it really is. Perfect.
Nearly all of those photos are clearly attempting to convey sophistication, as you point out. Except for the one from Rambler…which is really just conveying awkwardness and weird. As they say…that tracks. I wonder how many models they had to interview before finding one who was just the right weight to teeter over the car without slamming that buoy chair thing into the side of the car? Might have needed to call in the guys with the slide rules to work that one out.
Oh, here’s a picture from the present…2023 Porsche…still flogging the car by the pool trope.
In the long run the car is cheaper!
Especially nice art direction for the ’54 Eldorado image, you included. Composition, layout, and lighting of the various elements, is well-planned. The elevated view selection works great. As do the colours. Compliments, when professionals do their job well!
Yes. Very well done!
It took a bit to find, but anyone interested in what that thing is that is teetering over the Rambler, it’s “The Aqua Bobber”. It seems to have been something of a minor (perhaps very minor) sensation in the summer of 1961. I guess I missed that as I was too busy being born in the summer of 1961.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/06/10/and-now-the-bikini-bobbers-of-the-summer-of-1961/
It seems that the thing to do was to have lovely young women bob over bystanders…who handed them fruit. Such as the banana in the Rambler ad, or the apple in the attached.
Fruit.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Here’s a press release from when the Aqua Bobber was introduced:
“For jaded water sports, the Aqua Bobber Co. of Maumee, Ohio, has a seagoing bobbing platform that combines the thrills of skin diving and pole vaulting. The Aqua Bobber has a crow’s nest mounted atop a 12-foot-high aluminum mast stuck into a watertight spherical buoy. By shifting his weight within the crow’s nest, the rider can tip himself into the water for a dunking, experiencing a roller coaster sensation on the way down. When concrete ballast is added, the weight of the bottom-heavy 2,000-pound buoy catapults him up into the air again, some 15 feet above the water. With practice, the Bobber can also be twisted and spun during its flight. Price: $1,125.”
A few comments here:
Did anyone ever wish to combine the thrills of skin diving and pole vaulting??
How many people suffered catastrophic injuries trying to do this? Being catapulted around by a giant weighted buoy??
Oh, and it weighed more than a ton.
And it cost $1,125. That’s $11,000 in today’s dollars.
I hope that fruit was good!
If only someone managed to somehow combine riding this thing with throwing lawn darts they’d have the perfect recipe for carefree summer fun.
I guess we had more engineers than lawyers back then. I saw in the old black white Price is Right a lawn chair helicopter waterski tow machine. Talk about a death trap.
I love the poolside trope, even if it’s a bit daft. I also like the ‘parked on the beautifully kept lawn’ versions, too.
Actually driving in the pool is strange, though.
I am so happy to see these because I have collected a few off of the internet. They are ridiculous which is why I enjoy them. To add to the silliness is that the models act as if this is normal and EVERYONE IS SO HAPPY to see this noisy-engined, oil spilling hulk of metal adjacent to and capable of polluting the swimming pool. Great collection and lots of laughs. It’s a shame that the heavy-duty truck manufacturers do not advertise owner-operators coming home in bobtail and parking their monstrosities poolside for everyone to admire. Time to think out of the box – Madison Avenue, where are you? Why not advertise Oreo Cookies in hydroelectric plants?
Lol – someone really ought to advertise a heavy truck by a pool.
Also, cars advertised at airports: “Yes, I’ve driven right up to where the plane has landed to collect my spouse. What do you mean you’re calling security?”
The Pool Trope gives advertisers the opportunity to use sex to sell their cars. How else can you justify having beautiful girls in bikinis and boys in trunks hanging around your cars?
It’s all about muscles, boobies, and skin!
“Let’s get those girls over here for the day of shooting!”
That’s actually a really good point that I somehow missed.
The palm trees certainly don’t hurt the ambience. I think we can assume that the photos weren’t done with Photoshop.