(first posted 9/30/2016) Advertisers assumed the best way to reach an audience of car enthusiasts back in the 1970s was with print ads, and Motor Trend’s New Car Issues in the fall of 1976 were filled with them. Ironically, most of the ads were for imported cars, though the September and October issues of Motor Trend focused on the new 1977 domestic offerings. Also featured in abundance were batteries, automotive maintenance items, CB radios, home and car stereo equipment–basically anything that could appeal to a car geek was on offer.
Ouch!! Hard to call this fiberglass abomination a sports car, especially as it was designed for a VW chassis. Porsche it ain’t…
Black and Gold wasn’t just for Smokey and the Bandit Trans Ams…
Look at that groovy van!! Perfect for seventies-style cruising, courtesy of Coca-Cola.
Well, if the Bradley GT was sold out, you could settle for one of these…
The Japanese onslaught was tearing across multiple product categories in the 1970s, not just small cars.
Just imagine, in 1977 this car was a competitor for the Chevrolet Chevette. Talk about no contest…
It was amazing how many ads were still in black and white in late 1976. Granted, these ad units were slightly cheaper than the 4-color bleed units, but the impact was definitely less.
What could be better than a CB radio that resembled a rotary dial phone? That was Radio Shack, so cutting edge…
I am quite sure my eyes glazed past most of these back when they were fresh. We didn’t realize at the time that it was the twilight for European cars here in the US (at least those not named Mercedes, BMW, Audi or VW.) Lancias, Triumphs, Saabs and the rest – no more.
I wonder where I would be getting my warranty replacements now if I had bought a JCPenney Battery?
Firestone took over the contract, we replaced MANY back in the mid 80s. People would keep the old clunker just to get a free battery. JCP lost a mint on that deal.
For what it’s worth I still have the “pocket” JCP battery tester and it still works. I haven’t worked for Firestone for 25 years.
Sad that I even knew where it was. 🙁
Can’t get the picture to upload correctly so please hold your device sideways to view.
I should have bought one of those JCPenney batteries for my old ’70 C10 I had from ’76 to ’06. Chief Auto Parts provided about 4 lifetime warranty clutches, and a couple of alternators and starters at no charge as well in the ’80’s and ’90’s. The $46 dollar battery would have been about $196 dollars in today’s money.
We had one in mom’s ’72 Skylark. Eventually Firestone weaseled out of replacing them. I dont remember the year. We did get about four batteries out of that deal.
That gold seat material on the Capri S is incredibly sought after and very hard to find these days in anything other than a shredded mess. One of the hardest replacement parts to find for a Capri.
I think the whole car is “very hard to find these days in anything other than a shredded mess.” I’ve been looking for a 77-78 Capri II off and on for 10 years. Availability suffers from the same problem afflicting the 76-79 Sevilles — in CA those cars still need to be smogged. That’s nearly impossible to do with the old, stock fuel systems, one MPFI the other a VV carb. Ironically if Seville came with a Quadrajet there would be more of them around.
1976 model year and newer is the cut off now for CA smog but that’s moving to 1980+ soon. Means you can convert your Capri II to a non-factory carb (or swap in an engine) and not worry about smog check. But it’s too late, there aren’t any left and the guys who have nice ones never sell.
Here in the Rust Belt (Michigan), Capri II’s are hard to find for another reason…
My sister had a 1976 Capri II for her first car, so that would have been 1986 or ’87. A year to two later she had to get an axle jack instead of the stock jack that lifted on the rockers. That car seemed unusually flat-tire prone, and she found one time that the jack would go up but the car did not (except for the piece of the rocker immediately above the jack).
That said, the car was a lot of fun to drive, and I perfected my power drift technique on snowy roads with it.
The headline font in that Capri ad is the most unreadable mess I have ever seen.
Whoever noted the font…no kidding right? Spozed to look sexy, is just difficult. That being said, give me that capri. While these looked just a bit ?? puffy?? compared to the previous gen, along with the unfortunate bumpers, they were cool. I 1982 remember driving my friends ? 75/77 capri with the 4 spd and dual exhaust v6. I knew how v8’s sounded, but this was the first cool 6 i ever drove. *$&*&ing delightful, and compared to my 85 HP saab 99e, fast. Oh, and i want one of those leopards too, they sound good too!
Wow, what a time machine. Yes, Dad (and I) were heavy into the CB radio fad (Dad was known as “The Georgia Blue Streak”). Ad copy is just as bad today as it was back then, too, although that Camaro ad (first sentence or two) sounds like a Millennial might have written it (“That’s sad.”)
I thought your comment was interesting that most ads were for imported cars, even for an issue focusing on new domestic cars. This is something I’ve often wondered about.
So I checked out my own magazine collection — I happen to have all 12 issues of both Road & Track and Car and Driver for 1977. Road & Track had (according to my counting) 155 total car ads in 1977 — 68% of them were for imported makes. Car and Driver had 179 ads — 60% were for imported makes. It wouldn’t surprise me if Motor Trend fit into that 60% range as well overall.
The magazines seemed to focus more on imports, and advertisers responded in kind (R&T always seemed more import-themed, and I’m surprised that number was as low as 68%).
In my experience, the same companies placed the same ads in all the car magazines for a given month. Of course there were always exceptions, but for the most part, the ads repeated. In fact, the only one of these car ads profiled here that were NOT in either RT or CD was the Honda Accord ad.
Great collection of stuff here. The Le Black Cat ad is particularly memorable.
That Radio Shack CB FONE could really cause some legal havoc today in places that have banned cell phones while driving. It’s not a phone but a FONE and not a telephone but a CB radio. Try explaining that to a cop who wouldnt want to hear it anyway.
Start rant.
I am looking at the Motocraft tune up kit ad and its copy and cannot find the rotor.
Where’s the *&%^$#@#$ rotor?
Also, I am assuming the six vertical plugs are sitting in the distributor cap, but is it a cap? It might just be a cardboard spark plug holder.
I once determined my car needed a new distributor cap when I could see light through an almost invisible crack in the cap at night. It was running poorly in wet weather and a new cap fixed the problem. I don’t recall which car it was, but I do recall the issue and the solution.
You see? This type of attention to detail is why I have no friends.
End rant.
As for the cars, I’d buy that yellow hatchback/wagon SR5 Liftback Corolla so fast it would bounce. It’s perfect!
The interesting thing is that the kits include Autolite branded Spark plugs. I thought they started with the Motorcraft branded plugs shortly after they were forced to sell the Autolite brand by the Gov’t due to monopoly concerns. Ford then created the Motorcraft brand using many of the same graphics as had been on their Autolite boxes.
While that certainly looks like a cap it appears that in reality the TFK-1 did not come with a cap or rotor, just a holder for the plugs that looks much less like a cap than in the ad.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-Ford-Motorcraft-Tune-Up-Kit-TKF-17-Autolite-BRF-42-Spark-Plugs-302-351W-/222263127252?hash=item33bfea2cd4
Unfortunately that seller is an idiot since he “opened the can for photos” decreasing its colectability dramatically.
Eh, sometimes I don’t get the collectability thing. What fun is it to look at a grungy old can? I’d open it too.
What fun is it to look at some old spark plugs, points and condensor?
I certainly can’t see spending that much on it and looking further shows some more reasonably priced ones like this though of course this is the presumably less desirable 6cyl version http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Motorcraft-TKF-6-Tune-Up-Kit-Bronco-Mustang-Comet-ford-mercury/291860333336?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D39240%26meid%3D4453ddd8036f4005afaf7e217cbceb1e%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D262617981331
I’ll take the Cherokee Chief. And a Die Hard Battery, I don’t think we’ve been able to get those in Canada for years…
Times two! That Cherokee Chief is one of the best things to come out of 1977!
DieHard must be the BEST name ever given to a product like that…
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, from a time when saying you had a DieHard battery in your rig meant something, and saying you had a Bradley GT meant nothing (whats that? she would ask). Those Motorcraft tune up cans are somewhat a collectors item these days, sought after by the Ford guys to put on the mantle of their man cave. Gotta run, need to wash my bellbottoms!
The Lancia ad makes me cringe. “The intelligent alternative” it was not. I worked in a Fiat-Lancia-Volvo dealership from 1978 to ’80, and we couldn’t keep those things running for more than a week at a time. And the rust! We’d unload replacement Beta fuel tanks from the truck – Lancia had a tank recall going on – and the new tanks would be rusting, right off the truck. The contemporary Fiat 131 was a far better car at a much cheaper price.
Holy cow! No wonder that late model Lancias ended up being sold as Chryslers I’m the UK…
Fun to flip through those ads quickly to get a reminder of what was on the market then.
Knowing much more about cars now and what I enjoy driving, there is only one of those cars I would like to own today – the Toyota.
I remember all of these from pouring over all the car mags as a kid. It really is amazing from today’s viewpoint just how many automotive choices there were at the time. The array of new technologies, old school, new-fangled, and on and on. From about this point forward the range of choices just started shrinking. Malaise aside, this was an exciting time to be into cars. There was just a lot going on.
Now, about some of those ads… Reading the copy in that Starfire ad, I was almost embarrassed for Olds and for the ad agency. Wow, is that some hokey shit.
I had to laugh at the Datsun 710 ad….40 years ago that’s what I was driving…though it did have a lot of standard equipment (for its time, now cars are a LOT plusher even as strippers), the part about “Race Bred” sure didn’t ring true, though mine had an automatic, it was probably the slowest car I’ve ever owned…remember when my alternator went out, how much more power it seemed to have. And the “anticorrosion” sure didn’t seem to work, though I had the car up in Vermont, within 5 years it was pretty rusty. Guess if I compare it to my current car, it isn’t too different in some respects…I have a 2000 Golf, also 2 litre, (fuel injected instead of carburator) 4 door (hatchback instead of trunk) …the Golf weighs substantially more than the 710 (~500 lbs) but that’s probably par for the course with safety equipment. I think Datsun was trying to “channel” the “Z” car to people who instead needed a family car, but I think it was to great a chasm, the 710 wasn’t like the 510 that preceeded it, and it certainly wasn’t a “Z” car either…just an udderly conventional car for its day.
I liked the JC Penney ad for batteries too…I remember when they used to sell bicycles and other things too…more like a Sears store (or Montgomery Ward) back then..Sears did a lot of service work (that I didn’t do myself) on the 710, and we also bought a lot of things at JC Penney (that they no longer sell, like bicycles, electronics and other stuff).
Such an advanced car, all 4 wheels have hydraulically operated brakes and the drums have both a leading and trailing shoe. Better run out and get one right now.
Regarding JCP I just heard an ad yesterday about how they are selling home appliances now (again).
JC Penney used to have a tool department like Sears. I used to camp out there when mom was upstairs in the salon getting her hair done. Most kids my age back then would be camped out in the toy or candy department. Not me. 🙂
suzulight
Like you, I too was in the tool department, but at Sears.
It so happens that same Sears store is still in business. I went there a few weeks ago looking for a 3 drawer insert for my stacking Craftman’s tool chest on casters. Felt like dejavu walking thru the door, but they had it in stock and it was “On Sale”. Same style with bright red box and black painted drawers as my 25 year old tool chest.
I figured I better buy it before Sears closes the door like Western Auto or W T Grant.
Guess I haven’t seen this in 6 years..
We haven’t had a Sears store in the area since about 2018 or so, though they have one of those appliance stores here there hasn’t been a department store in years.
Forgot about WT Grant..and miss Western Auto. Funny thing is that back in the day, we even had locally owned department stores ….not even a big population center, my sister’s friend’s dad ran the “Gaynes” department store in South Burlington near the I89 coverleaf to Williston Rd back in the day…we also had “Forest Hills” which sounds upscale but was a discount center in Winooski…guess no one can compete with the national chains which like Sears and Penny’s are having great problems..only locally owned are specialty stores. It’s been years since Penny’s has stocked hardware, our local store seems to only sell clothing now, though 20 years ago I bought my current sofa there, they no longer seem to sell furniture either (let alone bicycles, tools or other items you could get at a department store back in the day).
One ad I forgot to comment on was the Toyota Corolla liftback…I was working as a transporter for Hertz back then, and aside from a Datsun and this Toyota, everything else I drove was domestic (and mostly Ford at that)…but did drive a liftback, which turned out to be a funny story. About 6 years later, a co-worker had a well used Corolla liftback of this vintage, but his was a manual (all the cars I drove at Hertz were automatics) and he happened to mention being curious that his had a small floodlight that shone down on his shift lever…I told him it was probably intended to light up the automatic shift selector on the transmission hump, but in a rare “inattention to detail” for Toyota, they must have left it populated even for cars with manual transmission (not sure if his maybe was mistakenly built with it else they just put it on all cars). Anyhow, I’ve never heard of a lighted manual transmission lever, guess we’re supposed to shift by feel neven at night, so don’t need to see it.
Since my 710, I’ve become a firm hatchback owner, it was the only sedan I ever owned, but a current day Corolla liftback is on my shrinking list of cars to replace my current Golf …they no longer offer new Golfs, only GTi, and I’m a bit old to go for one of those (had an ’86) now, all I’m looking for is a newer version of what I already have, with concession made for an automatic since none of my family can drive my current one.
Cartoon Joe Garragiola was a Mopar Doctor! Who knew?
That ad is a hoot!
I graduated from college in 1977 and for the first time in my life had a paycheck that would allow a nice car purchase, at least something newer, faster and more reliable than my ’73 Vega GT. Of the cars shown here, I test drove a Monza V8 (slow learner I guess), a Saab 99EMS, a Volvo 242 (do my tastes seem eclectic?) and ended up with a used Alfetta sedan. I kept my Vega though, and in fact hung on to it through my next 3 cars before it finally expired.
Any of you regular Road & Track readers remember their intro line for the new Corolla SR-5? It was something like “This wasn’t the original introduction for the new Corolla, instead we used that for the Accord after driving it”.
The Corolla piece was still very positive but the Accord intro, which they were going to use for the Corolla, was along the lines of a car like this comes out once in a lifetime…
Yes, I remember it very well … Aug or Sept 1976. I still remember how they raved about the coin holder in the Accord. 40 years later, I think an SR5 Corolla may be a more desirable car than a 1st gen Accord hatch. At least to me …
Saab 99EMS..
A bright light in the darkness of the malaise era!
Doubly impressive considering the it was made by a small company, from a small country, which made free-wheeling, 2-cycle cars until the early 70s.
They were among the leading edge in fuel injection, “Lamda-sond”, turbocharging, front-wheel drive.
And now…swallowed up and gone.
Cars are much better today, but much more boring. In the 70s, we had variety–and with so many losers, driving a Saab 99 or a Camaro or a BMW 2002 or a Mercury Capri or a 77-79 GM full-size made one feel special
I tried really hard to like Saabs, but they never really clicked for me. When I graduated from high school, I had a $500 budget for a car. I test drove a 2 stroke 96 and a B16 544, both listed at that price, almost bought the Volvo but ended up on a $175 175cc two-stroke bike instead. Then I drove the EMS a few years later, decided I wasn’t a FWD guy (that soon changed). A year or so on, I got a quick drive in a colleague’s new 99 Turbo. I still didn’t like FWD but remember loving the power, but in any case that was way out of my budget. Last Saab I drove was an ’86 900 non-turbo, when my mom was shopping for a replacement for her 122S. Mehh, she bought a 240 instead. Also mehh, but not mine and probably the right choice for her. In the early 2000’s my employer had some very good employee discounts on GM cars, and a Saabaru could be had for very cheap (9-7’s also!). But it seemed like an orphan and I ended up with a Forester. But I’m sad to see Saabs gone.
SAAB was always doomed. GM just prolonged the inevitable after Scania cast them aside.
What is so amazing about the Honda Accord was it had a subcompact beginning which its size was equal to that of the Chevrolet Chevette. Fast forward about 30-40 years into the future, the Honda Accord became an upper sized mid-size car now similar in size with the current FWD Chevrolet Malibu which was not that much smaller than the 1975-79 Chevrolet Nova its eventual future spiritual predecessor.
The Accord eventually grew to the point that the 4dr version fell into the EPA’s full size classification for a few years but has lost interior volume and it is once again considered a mid-size.
Really? My partner bought a Fit at the local Honda dealer a couple weeks ago and while I was standing int he showroom I was looking at the latest Accord sedan. It is HUGE! I am surprised it is only considered mid size.
Honda’s are nice but the Civic/Accord have gotten way to far away from their original market niches.
Indeed of ALL established lines of Automobiles regardless of brands and makes, the Accord made a drastic leap in size going from a Chevette subcompact size all the way to full size category in which in all actuality its nearly as large as the Holden based Chevrolet SS Sports Sedan and then going back to mid-size almost as large as today’s FWD Malibu. The Civic meanwhile started as an entry level mini-compact automobile much like today’s Fit but smaller and then it nearly morphed in size as the mid-1990s Accord. Well this is almost true with many car makers of today. If I can cite the size of the Toyota Camry of today compared to the early 1980s version, its very much like comparing the 1990s Corolla with lets say today’s Lexus GS in size.
It seems like the continuing classification of these now-standard-sized cars as “mid-size” is an industry-only carryover from past eras, EPA or rental agency size categories notwithstanding. As we’ve seen in CC recently, the traditional full-size cars like the LTD and Impala/Caprice outsold their “intermediate” brethren in 1977, Today, larger cars like the Impala, Taurus, Charger/300 and Avalon are for the most part low volume and/or fleet cars. To me, and I suspect many Americans, a Fusion or Camry is the modern equivalent of the 1970’s full-size cars, and the Taurus and Avalon are more equivalent to a ’70’s Caddy or Lincoln or Olds 98 (an old person’s car). Only the Charger seems to buck that demographic trend, but it’s still not a high volume car. But the industry still sticks to a 1970’s perspective.
Good and interesting reference points of comparisons and observations on the size categories of today’s sedans vs. the ones made 40 years ago.
http://fueleconomy.org/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=21960&id=29658&id=36852 click on the Specs tab to see that the 2016 Accord falls into the EPA’s Midsize category though it was in the Large in the past. Note the EPA classification is based on interior volume, not external dimensions, and there are nuances as how the measure it.
Accords against Chevettes? Yeah, the American automakers received the Japanese invasion with arms wide open.
Really nice collection of ads…. wouldn’t be nice to travel in time and spend a week back in the 70s????? And then back in the 60s…. 50s…
with enough non anachronistic money (ala Stephen King’s 11-22-63) to buy two cars and arrange for long-term storage.
Love the Cherokee Chief. I used to own one back in the day, that thing crawled over just about anything.
🙂
I had a similar Dodge Warlock pickup, IIRC.
So many goodies, here! GN, I’m fairly confident I Xeroxed most of these ads from old magazines from the public library… much of the ad copy read as if from memory, especially “A Lesson In Arrow-Dynamics”. I kept copies of these ads in several three-ring binders that are probably still in storage somewhere.
This “Le Cat Black” Capri II is the one I commented about in one of your earlier posts from this week – love, love, love that car. What’s crazy is that this magazine featured *two* ads featuring the Capri II, while by ’77 its sales had tanked due to unfavorable exchange rates.
I’m not dissing the Mustang II, but I wonder if anyone ever, ever custom-painted red-white-and-blue “fire” on the front clip of one.
The Bradley GT still looks so homemade. When one got stolen in the original “Gone In Sixty Seconds” from ’74, I was wondering if the poor sheik it was being stolen for actually knew what it looked like.
The Lancia Beta HPE – one of the best-looking shooting brake I’ve ever seen.
So much fun to look through these ads. It’s like watching an episode of CHiPs without all the car crashes (which, admittedly, I thought were awesome).
“I’m not dissing the Mustang II, but I wonder if anyone ever, ever custom-painted red-white-and-blue “fire” on the front clip of one.”
Well, if they did, it probably wasn’t on a gold one. 🙂
Joe, I figured you’d enjoy seeing the “Le Cat Black” ad 🙂
I forgot all about the Bradley GT in “Gone in Sixty Seconds”–I’m going to have to rewatch again soon.
CHiPs was awesome–that’s another show I want to see again. I can only imagine all the cars that they trashed…
The Plymouth Arrow ad boasts of Chrysler’s warranty for their //1976// cars. Did they rerun their ads between two model years?
Black and Gold were John Player Special colours and a generic low cost supermarket brand in Aussie, that Capri looks great in those colours,
I used to do a standard tuneup every year on my petrol cars points, plugs, leads, dizzy cap, rotor and condensor all replaced and a fuel miser carby kit if required there seem to be things missing from that Motorcraft kit,
A CB is a handy thing to have except for the power restrictions and licences imposed on them here, its open slather now but not in the 70s. same with FM then, nice buzzing sound,, but no stations so no music.
If you replaced the cap, rotor and wires every year your local auto parts store was quite happy to have you as a customer. The standard tuneup back in the day was replace plugs, points and condensor and inspect the cap, rotor and wires and only replace them as needed. A quality cap and rotor with brass contacts will last a very long time and quality wires will also last many years and miles.
That Bradley GT is plain ugly – what is with the separate parking lights out in front? It sort of defeats the purpose of the retractable headlights.
Do any of the Denimachines still survive? Apparently a similar promotion was run in Canada, with 15 vans – at least one survives:
http://phscollectorcarworld.blogspot.com.au/2016/02/1977-denimachine-ford-econoline-van.html
I collect late ’60’s and ’70’s HiFi equipment and IMO it was a golden age. SONY was a bit late to the game and Pioneer was on top. Hence the comparison ad.
Although they’re the same size and body style, I don’t think the Accord and Chevette were ever direct competitors, as the Accord was much more expensive. It may not have appeared that way on the sticker, but it was impossible to get an Accord at below list price (and often had substantial dealer markups) whereas the Chevette was highly discounted.
That Pioneer Supertuner stereo head unit looks amazing, but it doesn’t look like it would fit most cars, especially American cars that still used the two-shaft setup with a small rectangular cutout between them.
What does the “reject” button on the Sony turntable do? Skip over a song you don’t like?
That opening publicity photo of the Camaro reminds me a lot of an early Avanti shot – white car with a lit-up red/orange interior. It is an unusual effect – I wonder if that trick has been used in other promo shots, surely it must have been.
As an ad agency graphic designer earlier in my career, a few two-cent observations/opinions:
Honda was still a few months away from widely adopting their distinctive, consistent, and long-lived white backdrop and Times New Roman Condensed-like typeface headlines for print ads. Looks like they used Fritz Quadrata here. As their popularity grew, their marketing improved accordingly.
The Datsun 710 ad has too much copy, with a small photo. Many readers would pass by it. They also knew the car was ugly.
Great art and design on the Toyota Corolla ad. They remained with this look and feel for years. Very distinctive, and modern ads for the era. Plus their ‘You Asked for it!’ and ‘Oh What a Feeling!’ taglines, were fantastic. Some of the best late 70s car ads.
Oldsmobile commonly used lifestyle photos for all their car lines during this era. Helped convey their popularity with the American public.
I noticed later ads for the Bradley GT emphasized its hood and pop-up headlights. The profile was too unattractive.
I find the Camaro ad highlighted in the lead photo, places too much visual emphasis on the long, heavy doors from that view selection. The photographer should have come in tighter along the body, with the door partially opened. Have a model (driver) included would have drawn the readers attention more so. Readers love looking at people.
The Porsche Turbo spread was one of the most memorable of the era. Great ad.
Bad choice of typography in the Plymouth Arrow ad. They used a dated 1930s era Art Deco style typeface in the headline, and elsewhere, for a modern car targeted at young people. Did Chrysler even have a brand look for their Don’t recall Chrysler having a strong brand for their Mitsubishi products into the 80s.
A number of these ad styles lasted well into the 1980s. Including the Pioneer ad.
Volvo used the same typefaces from the early 70s, into the 80s.
The Lancia ad is calling out for a distinctive headline. A photo is not enough.
The Mopar Joe Garagiola comic book-style ads were losing their appeal by 1977. They started around ’74-’75. By this time, many would have passed them by.
A number of Ford ads during this era, used illustrations as their primary image. With product photos inset. I might have done the reverse.
The Mercedes ad, has a late 60s/early 70s look and feel. Conveying consistency. Ironically, Ford adopted a very similar look for their early 80s print ads. Using a large photo on white background, with the same tightly kerned ‘Goudy Bold’ typeface for their headlines.
Mercedes 1977, and Ford Spring of 1984. Same Goudy bold face, and general layout. Ford added the hairlines. Emphasizing quality being job #1, why not follow a look used by MB?
You’re speaking my second language; I’m married to a graphic designer, so let me have a go:
That Mopar battery ad is all kinds of thoughtless and bad. Not only was the comic-book style as outmoded as you say, but…um…this is late 1976, and what’s that car we see in this ad? The one with the dead battery? Why, look, it’s Chrysler’s new F (for awFul)-body Aspen/Volaré. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of that car, izzit. Also, who the hell cares what some baseball guy has to say about car batteries? I also don’t ask my dentist for advice about nectarines, or an avid Dungeons & Dragons player for dishwasher detergent recommendations.
The Capri II ad is a steaming pile of mishegas typography; There’s a spurious comma after sinewy , and that outlined, white-on-black treatment spoils the legibility of whatever goofy typeface this is. Oh, and ‘Le Cat Black’ manages to mangle both English and French. Renault pulled it off with “Le Car”, but this version doesn’t fly.
+1
Always enjoy your POV. Because of your inside advertising knowledge, strength for questioning narratives, and are such a great consumer advocate, you see through so much of the misleading marketing. 🙂
Yes, the Capri ad is somewhat insulting, playing upon people’s ignorance. The car deserved better.
Regarding the Capri ad, I have to suspect — purely surmise from experience with corporate creative decisions, not based on any specific evidence — that it was originally supposed to be “Le Chat Noir,” but that someone several steps higher up the food chain insisted that Americans wouldn’t know what that meant and demanded that it be changed, possibly quite inconveniently late in the process. (If so, the awful headline and too-small main copy might have been a sloppy last-minute paste-up job, although that still doesn’t explain the extra comma.)
Well, hey-hey-hey, you know’t they say: Whaddya call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. Whaddya call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. Whaddya call someone who speaks one language? American! The same Americans—including car salestypes—who pronounced the Chevrolet (then Cadillac) Concours as though they were referring to part of an airport, and who tripped and skinned their tongues over the Lincoln uh…Ver…uh… Ver-sales? Ver-sallies? Verisales? would have wondered what the hell Luh Tchaatt Noyer was supposed to mean.
It should’ve been the Black Cat edition, or Le Black Cat, if they absolutely had to. I don’t reckon the Black Panther edition would’ve gone over well.
No, particularly not at conservative Lincoln-Mercury.
They might have had trouble clearing “Black Cat Edition” from a trademark standpoint, as there were a bunch of “Black Cat” marks registered in the U.S. at the time.
A correction. The Bradley GT ad is using the ‘Fritz Quadrata’ face. Not sure of the face used in the Honda ad.
The tilted photography and graphics in the B.F. Goodrich ad, became quite popular, in print ads in general. Helped project motion in car ads.
Ford used the term ‘SuperCoupe’ (one word) to describe the Mustang II. But it wasn’t a specific model. In 1978, Chrysler introduced the Aspen and Volare Super Coupes.
What is the car in the Jensen ad?
mid 50s Bentley Continental
Bentley S2 Continental Park Ward Drophead Coupe (1959-1962).
I really detest the fact that I remember many of these like it was yesterday. As an ad guy, that “you asked for it, you got it” work on Toyota was so in step with the times and what they were making. Perfect tone. On the other hand, one read of the painful Starfire copy is one read too many. That said, when it comes to the cars, I’ll take that XJC thank you very much.
Is everyone still talkin’ bout Royce?
↑ Back then, they were talkin’ about Rose Royce.
The Jag XJ6 coupe is still a beauty. Rare then, even more rare today.