Let me preface this post by saying that I don’t ski. I’ve lived most of my life in Ohio, where winters are long and there are precious few mountains. As a result, I’ve developed a hearty dislike for both snow and the cold. While most Americans seem to concur with me, roughly 15 million people in the US are skiers, which works out to about 4% of the U.S. population.
That said, I am surprised at how prevalent the ski slope trope (ouch!) is. This is the second most common trope that I’ve researched yet (second only to the hill climbing trope). Once again I’ve had to winnow down the hundreds of examples I found to the 8 or 10 I found most interesting or significant.
So why do so many ads feature an activity that so few people participate in?
While few may ski, much like golf those who do ski are more likely to be well off, especially at glamorous ski resorts, so there is the usual element of “luxury by association” going on. The ski slope trope also features aspects of the hill climbing trope, since by implication a car on a ski slope had to climb a steep and snowy mountain road to get there in the first place. Lastly, the ski trope emphasized the cold weather capability of your car, insinuating that it will both start and keep your occupants warm and safe, no matter how low the mercury gets.
1927 Dodge Ad
Like all good tropes, the car on ski slopes goes way back. This 1927 Dodge ad, though highly stylized like many 1920s ads, clearly shows people literally skiing right up to their car. Again, I’m no skier, but I gotta believe that ski resorts are no more likely to allow cars onto their groomed slopes than golf course groundskeepers are to allow cars on their manicured fairways.
Here we have a 1940 Mercury, literally parked in the middle of a ski slope. Did women ever actually ski wearing skirts? Please tell me that she is holding someone else’s skis and poles.
1941 Lincoln Ad
As usual, Lincoln checks in with a highly detailed and artistic illustration, this instance being a 1941 model.
1953 Dodge Ad
The driver of this 1953 Dodge Coronet, who bears a passing resemblance to Clark Griswold, appears to be pulling a Griswold move by driving through a ski run and cutting off the skiers in the background. I’m not sure if the skiers are waving at him, or trying to wave him down.
1959 Rambler Ad
Illustrations and studio shots seem to dominate this trope, as demonstrated by the 1958 Chrysler ad in the lede of this post, or the 1959 Rambler above. as I imagine that the logistics of transporting a photo vehicle to a remote, snowy mountain location while keeping it impossibly clean can be daunting. I’m sure the producers of this 1959 Rambler ad found it far easier to haul some fake snow and a few props into a studio than to shoot on location.
That said, someone had to do the thankless job of driving this 1960 MG up the side of a mountain at the Sugarbush resort in Vermont. I hope those are studded snow tires!
While I love this 1960 Dodge Dart, it seems to be parked (with the windows down, no less) right where skiers will be disembarking the slope. Is disembark the proper term? I’m sure the skiers out there will set me straight.
Can someone please explain to me what is going on in the scene with a 1960 Studebaker Lark in Mt. Snow, Vermont? Humorous answers will be accepted.
1966 Mercury Ad
I love this 1966 Mercury ad for so many reasons. For starters, it is set at night (even though the headlights of the car appear to be off). Again the windows are all rolled down to let in that cold, frosty air blow right in. Then there is the reminder that Mercury is the courtesy car for “special guests” at the Sun Valley Lodge in Idaho. I guess that checks out – the couple in the car looks kind of special to me.
But what impressed me the most are the skiers doing nighttime skiing using torches, which I must admit looks cool as hell. I’ve seen this done in movies, but do people actually ski after dark carrying torches? Seems incredibly dangerous to me – not only do you have reduced visibility, but you have to give up at least one of your poles, and of course you are carrying this flaming thing that could badly burn you if you wipe out.
I’m sure the creators of this psychedelic 1970 Datsun ad were aiming for something creative with the double-exposure skiing shot, but to me, it just looks like someone got their car stuck in a snow bank and needs to be towed out.
Much like the golf course trope, later iterations of the ski trope relied upon endorsements of celebrities in the sport. Here we see legendary freestyle Wayne Wong literally flipping over a 1976 Dodge Aspen, probably surprised that it isn’t already rusting from the road salt.
As stated in previous posts, auto manufacturers wanted to appeal to a wide group of potential customers! Cadillac, Lincoln, and Imperial generally used elite backgrounds. This is an appeal to sports minded folks. Notice the car color really stands out against the snow ❄. Ads were (and still are) created to grab attention. BUT the approach today is set for speed, especially TV ads with vehicles flying around dangerous curves!
These are fantastic!
The Mercury one… hahaha. Parking on a ski slope at night in your courtesy car with the windows down while people ski past carrying torches. Wasn’t that made right around the time the CIA was dosing people randomly with LSD at house parties?
Nice ads. The attached may be the most famous “ski”-related car commercial. While there is a safety cable clearly visible under the car it apparently was not faked and the car was driven up the jump, the rope/cable was there to prevent the car from slipping back/off when stopped. The ski jump was in Finland, the car was the Audi 100 quattro with studded tires, 50/50 AWD and locked diffs and the driver was rally driver Harald Demuth. The cable held the car, the handbrake had a pawl in it to hold the car once stopped, and there was a non-visible safety net under the jump “just in case”…
Typically German it’s all about the tech focusing exclusively on the car with nothing else to distract. In the end it’s a spectacular advertisement.
https://youtu.be/JgUzL6wrv5o
The ad was also remade a couple of decades later with a newer A6.
This one is easy to explain, unlike the cars in the grassy fields. Skiing is equated with the good life. Upscale leisure, elegance, interesting and sophisticated people. That’s exactly the image car companies want to sell to the masses. Buy our car and you’ll be traveling with the jet set. What they don’t show in the ads is all the broken legs, arms and other body parts when a skier falls!
The “skiers” leaning on some of the fancy cars in the ads without actually wearing skis are orthopedic surgeons looking for new clientele.
Haha, right!
That all happened when Gwyneth Paltrow showed up!
That Lark wagon ad was also done in color, and I found a better copy of it. It looks like there was a steaming hot pool in the courtyard of the lodge, and a buffet line to the right under the overhang. If I was coming out of that hot pool into the cold air, I would want to jump right into a car with hits heater going full blast.
Is this the only ad ever that combined the poolside trope and the ski lodge trope into a single ad?
And you just knew that there would have to be an Aspen at Aspen.
The fine print says the Stude was shot at Mt. Snow, Vermont. I wonder if this is the actual location?
The Mt. Snow resort added a hot pool in the late 1950s, which is shown in its entirety in the your shot here. Note that the pool area is surrounded by a 15-ft. high glass wall, which was used to reduce the wind chill for swimmers. Pool water was kept at 105°.
Here’s another postcard image of the pool in use:
This postcard seems to show the location of the ad shot.
I think that pool was at the Snow Lake Lodge at Mt. Snow. The Lodge is still there and in operation. The pool though is gone. There is an outdoor hot tub, but it’s a dinky little thing compared to the old pool. Mt. Snow was pretty much at its heyday in the mid-to-late 1960s. Unfortunately, the 1970s were quite bad for most New England ski resorts and Mt. Snow nearly failed after going through a succession of owners. Things did turn around this century, as the ski industry consolidated into ownership by a handful of multi-national conglomerates. Mt. Snow at least seems to be pretty healthy now. Albeit without the cool outdoor pool.
Thanks, JPC! I’ve updated the image in my post with the color one.
Good looking car in red. Wouldn’t mind having one of those myself!
Don’t forget this Pontiac ad! 1967 Catalina. Hope I uploaded the jpeg correctly!
Must be wearing All Season tires as I see no chains or snow tires…
I don’t think All Season tires had been invented in 1967.
That is true but if the ad could take a flight of fancy then so can i…
I thought the ad with the Studebaker would look better with the hand of the graphic artist shown, still holding the x-acto knife he used to cut it into that scene. To me it looks like it’s just not there.
Don’t let your sense of unreality predominate in looking at these ads. During the mid-70’s I was living in Erie, PA, cross-country skiing heavily (it was my alternate training once the seasons forced me to put away the bicycles, and while I’ll use rollers, I hate them), and driving a ’76 Monza 2+2 four-cylinder five-speed.
Which meant that, after a good snow, I’d be busting the back roads to the upstate New York ski lodges to make use of their trail systems. No matter how much snow we’d get in Erie giving me a nice 17 mile loop around Presque Isle State Park, it’s still wasn’t nearly as much as what you’d get going fifteen miles south of Lake Erie thanks to lake effect snow.
Never underestimate the ability of rear wheel drive, studded snow tires, and a manual transmission back in the day when 4×4’s were limited to trucks, and AWD didn’t really exist yet, other than Subaru. Never got stuck, and on extreme occasions went busting thru snow drifts that were hood high.
This has a lot to do with my “meh” attitude towards the idea that you have to have an AWD car the moment one snowflake is reported. Of course, I live in central Virginia now, and gave the skis away ten years ago due to them gatering way too much dust.
That lede pic is a ’58 Chrysler Windsor, I had one, i’s now in Sweden
Between Chrysler & DeSoto, Chrysler got a lot of mileage out of that eras Dodge front clip.
Our Rambler had a ski rack – as did most cars you’d see at a ski slope. Seems kind of funny not a single car ad features a ski rack save the Datsun. Of course, ad imagery has never been about reality – as the Rambler ads so aptly shows.
As a kid, I always wondered why my dad could never park our Rambler with the R on all 4 wheel covers right side up. Rambler ads always showed it right. My dad’s explanation was it was just random.
By the time I understood that word and concept, that question had been pushed out of mind by the far more important one of how to get a date in a Rambler.
Looking at the MG and Datsun ads, couldn’t help thinking those guys would have thought twice about driving those cars in the Winter if they’d had access to a crystal ball, with their propensity for rusting and the $$ values they’d eventually achieve if kept from doing so.
This is my favorite of these: the Cord 810. And with its FWD and chains on the front tires, it’s a lot more realistic and credible than almost all of the others here.
BTW, that Mercury coupe zooming up that steep snowy hill has truly exceptional traction!
I think in this case it’s as simple as suggesting travel. Getting away and enjoying leisure. “Our car will get you right to the slopes safely and comfortably”.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s it seamed like every car maker was racing their cars across the Bonneville Salt Flats. I’m pretty sure the number of motorists in the US that do that is far less than 4%.
And what about today’s ads. No imagination, all the makers show their cars and trucks sliding sideways on dirt roads and jumping hills, trying to convince the customer to do everything that would never be covered by warranty under normal wear & tear when their vehicle breaks.
Amazing! None of these cars have as much as a snowflake on them!
Here you go with snow all over it.
Another snow/ski scene.
As an occasional cross-country skier at modest ski areas in the West, I don’t think the Datsun 510 (I’d forgotten all about the /2 naming that was briefly used) ad’s claim that “the interior is as comfortable as a warming hut” is very inviting. Most warming huts here have some hard splintered benches, a few recycled single pane windows and maybe a big Coleman jug of icy water and an empty paper cup dispenser. No actual warming appliance or wood stove, or even insulation.
Love these ads and this post!
Not really being a downhill skier, but being quite familiar with driving in snow, all I can think of when looking at most of these images is “bring a tow truck”. 🙂
The Jensen FF was driven up a ski slope by Autocar magazine journalists back in 1967. An article appeared in Autocar.
https://www.jensenmuseum.org/ski-slope-adventure/
AMC leaned heavily into ski settings with the Eagle promos/ads, albeit with the actual capability
And another
And yet another!
What about Bond girl Diana Rigg driving the Cougar convertible? OK, not an ad but a movie works just as well..
Ahh, yes, the lovely Ms. Diana Rigg! Beautiful in that movie!
“Tell Cersei I got up here with rwd. I want her to know.”
All this glitz and glamor, high end vacations, sparkling clean cars.
The reality:
Naw, it just got on the chairlift.
I can’t quite tell, either, which finger(s) they’ve any of them raised. Perhaps that’s deliberate—1953 and all. But I’d buy a car in that green, sure.
Wasn’t there a Bond movie with a heated pool at the ski lodge? Goldfinger showed the miniature ice rink (gone when I went in ’83) in the lobby of Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hotel. Very conspicuous consumption, but still not as expensive or exclusive as polo.
I blame the 1971 Peggy Fleming TV show with The Carpenters and Jean Claude Killy at Sun Valley for bringing skiing to the masses–or just me. It changed figure skating, too.
The Manic GT, was a rear-engined sports car based upon the Renault 8 and 10, built in the province of Québec, Canada from 1969 to 1971. Pic might have been taken in the nearby Laurentian Mountains.
In its natural habitat:
this must be one of the latest/last car ads with it sitting in the snow? 1979?
Surely in the Studebaker ad we see a variety of folks ‘larking’ around. And I reckon the MG got a lift up on the back of a truck.
A Mercury for you.
You asked for quirky comments for the Studebaker wagon ad?
“Wow honey! I’m sure glad the lodge offers that car detailing service, they did a great job cleaning all the snow and salt off the car, I hope they hosed out the area at the back edge of the front fenders so they don’t rust out next year like our ’54 Conestoga wagon did!”
OR . . .
The man unloading the suitcases from the back of the Lark wagon is none other than the automotive designer Brooks Stevens, and he is not happy about how that old-fashioned rear window opens upwards, having bonked his head on it twice. This is the point where he has a great idea: a sliding rear roof and disappearing tailgate glass. Much to Mrs. Stevens dismay, Mr. Stevens spends the rest of the week locked away in their hotel room, designing the new 1963 Wagonaire sliding roof!