Text by Patrick Bell.
It has been said many, many times that nothing in life is free, but we weak minded humans are still attracted by a “something for nothing” deal. Today we are going to look back at some of those attractions, along with a few other types of promotions of the day.
“Win a 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 LTD”. It doesn’t say “Win THIS 1965 ….”, and it doesn’t say anything about being new or used. But hey, if it is free, what does it matter? The Big C Market was formed in 1959 when three grocers merged, two in Oregon and one in Washington. As best as I can tell this is the Lake Oswego, Oregon store. It was located in the Oswego Village shopping center and on the left you can see Village Billiards. The contest was sponsored by the Foremost Dairy Co.
I can’t confirm that the Ford is a LTD, nor the body style, but it is definitely a ’65 Galaxie 500. It has a Washington license plate but the cars to the left all have a dark plate which would fit Oregon’s dark blue with yellow gold lettering. On the right is a ’58 or ’59 Rambler Deluxe. On the left side a ’63 Chevrolet Chevy II Nova Super Sport Coupe, ’62 Oldsmobile Starfire Coupe, ’55 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Sedan, and a ’63 Ford full size.
“This 1951 Studebaker Commander to be given away during St. Joseph’s Hospital building fund drive. Ticket donation 50 cents.” And, for a good cause, I might add. It is a Commander Regal or State Starlight Coupe that was well equipped with two tone paint, sun visor, radio, grille guard, full wheel covers, and whitewall tires.
“Win this ’55 Plymouth Sedan from Rank and Son. Let’s go Bowling on TV. To be awarded May 8, 1955.” Rank and Son was a Dodge/Plymouth dealer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They became a Buick dealer as well in ’67, and continued operation until selling in 2006, although I can’t tell how long they were a Dodge Plymouth store. The sign refers to the car being FROM Rank and Son. That doesn’t mean they donated it, but I imagine they and the Miller Brewing Company pitched in and made it happen. The Plymouth was a six cylinder powered Plaza Club Sedan, which was the second least expensive Plymouth for the year with the business coupe the least expensive. It looks very basic, although I do believe the chrome moldings on the fender and door were optional.
“Free! 3 New Cars. 1 each month for 3 months. Get Details at your Jitney Jungle in Hattiesburg.” Jitney is an old slang term for nickel, and they were a chain of self service stores that would be known today as a dollar store. The first one opened in 1919 in Jackson, Mississippi. Of course, the one referred to in the photo was in Hattiesburg. The photo would lead you to believe that this happy young family was receiving their free ’55 Chevrolet Two-Ten 4 door sedan. Across the street to the left is a Buick dealer, where at the curb I see a Buick, maybe a Chrysler product, and a ’51 Mercury. In the street is the back three quarters of a ’50-’53 Cadillac sedan, and the nose of a ’54 Ford is emerging on the right.
“FREE.” There is not much for details on this one. It is apparently related to the SOHIO station in the background, which makes the location Ohio. The Cadillac is a ’54 Series 62 Sedan, looks like it could be new, and was the most popular model of the year. On the other side of it is another Cadillac, a ’42 or ’46 Club Coupe. And in the left background may be a ’53 Packard Clipper.
“FREE! 1956 Fairlane Ford Register Now at your neighborhood Shell Dealer.” Oil companies and their gas stations often had some kind of promotion going on and this was one of Shell’s. The Fairlane was a Town Sedan with a V8, and it was by far the most popular Ford of the year. If the darker color was blue, it was just like my first car.
“HEY, KIDS! Get a picture of yourself driving a FORD junior Thunderbird in the Speed Trials.” Now we are at the 1956 Daytona Speed Trials where they were making friends with kids so they might influence their parents when it came time to buy a new car. The truck is a new ’56 Ford F-100 with an older style tail lamp.
“As Advertised on KNX, brilliant, new 1956 Dodge, New 260 Horsepower.” This three tone Royal Lancer 2 door was on display at CBS Columbia Square in Los Angeles and had a base list price of $2583. KNX 1070 was and is the CBS station in the area. The dealer name at the bottom of the sign was Snyder-Lynch Dodge Chrysler in Hollywood.
“For All Our Customers. 20th Anniversary. Grand Prize Ford Skyliner. Olympic Savings and Loan Association.” There were many Olympic S & L’s and Olympic Theaters so I was unable to quickly determine the location. The Grand Prize was a ’57 Fairlane 500 Skyliner, the first year for the retractable hardtop, and their second most expensive car for the year after the Thunderbird.
A black over off white ’56 Buick Century 4 door Riviera is making a turn on the left side of the photo. Beyond it in the traffic lane is a pale yellow ’57 Cadillac Sixty-Two Sedan, followed by a white over brown ’57 Oldsmobile and a black ’53 Chevrolet. The first car on the right side is a blue over white ’56 Ford Customline Fordor Sedan.
Here is another one with not much to go on. It is obviously a Ford Dealer, likely in a small town given the neighborhood. The sign written in the window seems to say “$100.00 Off? Guess the weight of this pickup. Ford #1 in May in USA.” Directly above the cab is “Air Cond. your car”, so it is a warm weather location. And below that “___ Money Down.” It would seem the prize is $100 off the price of a car. The truck is a ’65 or ’66 Ford F-100 Styleside with a bed full of sand. And standing nearby were two gentlemen ready to help you find a vehicle to fit your needs.
“Free one years supply of Kleenex when you purchase your ’59 Pontiac from Bill McDavid Pontiac Co.” My first thought was, do you need that much Kleenex while recovering from buyer’s remorse? After some research it turns out it was a unique promotion apparently only by this dealer who was located in Fort Worth, Texas. They ran an advertisement that read “America’s Favorites…. Bill McDavid, Pontiac and Kleenex Tissues.” Perhaps they had a relative who was a Kleenex distributor. I wonder how they determined what a year’s worth would amount to. It looks like more than enough to me.
Raggedy Ann was sitting at the base of the windshield of this Catalina Convertible Coupe, and it was the least expensive and most popular drop top of the two offered that year, the other being the Bonneville. Outside there is a Vista 4 door hardtop on the left and a 4 door sedan to the right. Both of them could be any of the three trim levels.
“Win This ’66 Meteor Rideau 500 at Telegram Fun Days.” The Toronto Telegram apparently held the fun days in the summer as a promotional tool of some sort and the car giveaway was a part of that. You can see the Ferris Wheel on the left edge. 1966 was the best year ever for Meteor sales with over 31,100 out the door. I could not find any individual body style breakdown, but the American Mercury Monterey 2 door sedan was the least expensive and the second least popular with just under 2500 built. That worked out to 1.44% of total full size sales. That percentage of Meteor sales amounts to less than 450. So this car was a rare one. No wonder this was the last year for the 2 door sedan.
“The Following Stores are participating in… Summertime Jamboree.” There are 29 store names on the list, with four having ‘Coral Ridge’ in the name and one with ‘Lauderdale’, so this is in the Coral Ridge area of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The photo is obviously at a grocery store, and the only one on the list as far as I can tell was Publix Super Market. Evidently this V8 powered ’66 Oldsmobile F-85 Club Coupe giveaway was part of the Jamboree. The six cylinder model was the least expensive way into an Oldsmobile with a base list of $2348.
“Germania Club WIN This Beautiful 1968 Buick Skylark and many other… prizes. Drawing May 10th(?), 1968.” There were more than one Germania Clubs in the U.S. and Canada, with perhaps the most prevalent one headquartered in Chicago. The prize car is a four door sedan, and from the looks of the wheel and tire, it was not brand new. Buick offered three trim levels in the intermediate line for ’68; the Special Deluxe, Skylark, and Skylark Custom. The mid range Skylark was the most popular of the three with 27,387 units produced and a base price of $2666.
Thanks for viewing and have a great day!
For years every late September, the Central Canada Exhibition in Ottawa, would have multiple car giveaways. Car were never premium, consistently economy cars. Like the Vega, Pinto, Chevette, Valiants, etc. Cars would be fixed on booth roofs. Sometimes, at angles. I used to wonder as a kid, how they got the cars up there.
I have no idea how they got the car up there, but am more amazed that the structure of these very unpermanent booths can support the weight of it.
I recall seeing Vegas and Pintos, at roughly 9-10 degree angles, as well. There looks like two longitudinal metal beams under this Valiant. And within the central part of the booth, there appear to be additional vertical posts. There may have been a metal framework to support the cars. Within the booth itself. I don’t remember. No mishaps, to my knowledge.
Compact Valiants were the largest/heaviest cars, I recall spotting.
Perhaps a mobile crane to lift the cars? Or a long ramp. No idea, today.
September of ’48, Ford gave away 20 sedans, 4 a week for 5 weeks in the Kraft Parkay Margarine “Name the Gildersleeve Baby” contest. Those of us who enjoy old radio shows will remember The Great Gildersleeve. (Patrick, I’m glad you found a new home!)
Thanks, Jim!
The Starlight needs brake work judging by the chock under its wheel on a mild hill.
The ’66 Meteor promo happened as part of the Canadian National Exhibition (the Ex, or the CNE) during the last two weeks of August. The CNE still operates in that same time slot annually, in Toronto.
The newspaper box is blocking the model name of the car, it looks like it says Rideau 500.
The Toronto Telegram newspaper went out of business in 1971.
I love these! Each one of these pictures represents a great story.
The Ford Skyliner from Olympic Savings and Loan was from Berwyn, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. Below is a then-and-now comparison of the street scene.
Google StreetView link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/z7Vrz7aMSKjZY7DD6
Wonder how long the roof “hung there”? I’d think leaving it that way for long would be hard of the “mechanicals”, related to raising/lowering.
It sure is a pretty car.
” BERWIN?!?!?! ” is a joke slogan on the Svengoolie TV show that plays old monster movies… he’s from Berwyn…
The unsynchronized mechanicals of the early Skyliners were a disaster. Would get jammed up all the time… don’t recall which came first, electric or hydraulic, hydraulic I think, but as I recall, Ford did a recall/replacement on the mechanisms…
A few years ago, was it KIA or Hyundai, would give you a new car with each new car sold… they had to have been getting them really cheap, but wanted to sell them at American made prices… and their salespeople made 2 – 10 times on each car as people selling USA made cars…
Fantastic work, researching a beautiful boulevard-style street. Love the architecture on the building across the street. I appreciate, that the city retains the structure.
Thank you for this!
Thanks, Eric! I knew you could handle it.
The first picture is really interesting to me. In 65 or 66 my father (well before I was born) won a new Ford station wagon. Being a young guy at the time he immediately traded it in ……….on a 65 Ford Galaxie convertible. In another coincidence my understanding this was also a grocery store that did that giveaway but here in the north east.
Wow! I’m born “comfortably”, before “65-6”. Worked in same office as a lady who won a “Fiero” in the mid “80’s”.
Glad your dad could get his “convert”.
The Kleenex promotion is the oddest of the lot here, so I looked into that one a bit more.
1959 was when Bill McDavid Pontiac opened for business, and Bill himself was just 19 years old. Bill’s father (Bill Sr.) was a successful businessman, involved in banking, and also the owner of an Oldsmobile dealership. I presume that Bill Sr. provided his son’s financing (even in 1959 it would have been tough for a teen to acquire the capital to open a new car dealer) and Bill Jr. provided the work. He apparently worked successfully, since he remained in business into the 1990s, both with Pontiac and other brands as well.
My guess is that the Kleenex promotion was a low-cost marketing stunt that Bill Jr. used to get his new dealership noticed. Pretty clever – though I wonder if customers had to return to the dealership to get their periodic ration of Kleenexes?
Given that the prize car is full of them, I suppose that WAS your year’s supply and it’d be on the winner how to store that much Kleenex.
There was also a David McDavid in the Pontiac chain. These men have to be related. For many years the McDavids had a very large Great Dane named “Wide Track”. At the end of their TV commercials the presenter would say Right, Wide Track? and the dog would bark. The dog also appeared in their print ads.
Yes, David McDavid was Bill Jr.’s brother, and I think he started his dealership in the early 1960s.
And here’s Widetrack!
Wow, that is an odd one. First, that is A LOT of Kleenex. It’d probably take my household a couple of years at least – if not a full decade – to go through that many boxes of Kleenex. I’d have to come up with a lot more imaginative uses for the things than nose-blowing for that promotion to make any sense to me. Second, back in 1959, I’ll bet each box was selling for around 50 cents each (the pocket packs were advertised nationally at 5 cents). So, even if there were say 144 boxes back there in the rear seat that’d be $72 worth of Kleenex. That hardly seems motivational; even less so when you consider that there’s hardly any way that the average family used half that much Kleenex in a year.
I’d forgotten that Little LuLu (the cartoon character pictured in the rear seat in the photo and there’s a small doll of her on the windshield) was the national spokes-cartoon for Kleenex. I never cared for Little LuLu (which always reminded me of Nancy from Nancy and Sluggo…another reprehensible cartoon 😉 ) so her association with an entirely non-inspirational product just fits.
Finally, Bill has a typo on his banner. It’s a “One Year” supply, not “One Years”.
You can bet that if I had visited Bill’s showroom, I’d ask him to keep the Kleenex and instead knock $50 off the car’s price.
Imagine how many Kleenex boxes you could go through if you had one of these books for your kids – Things to make and do with Kleenex Tissues!
I didn’t know about the Little Lulu connection until now, reading your comment. To me, it looks like most of Kleenex’s Little Lulu ads and promotions were in the late 1940s to early ’50s, so this 1959 appearance seems a bit out of place.
My mom used to give me empty food boxes and cans as “toys” to play with. Empty frozen orange juice cans were the best.
But even she never suggested that I entertain myself with a box of Kleenex.
I suppose it could have been a different story if she’d won a half-Pontiac load of Kleenex.
The Ford pickup has the illusion of a bed full of sand. It would be squatting on the floor if it were actually full.
Why, “no bumper” on a new truck? One paid extra for a bumper?
I bought a Mazda pickup in 84 and a Toyota in 87 and had to pay extra for the bumpers on both of them.
These things were low profit so anything to squeeze a few extra bucks out of the deal.
Yes, my ’71 Chevy pickup came with no rear bumper nor spare wheel. When I factory ordered another one in ’93, both were still options.
There was a choice of bumpers, either a regular basic bumper or a heavier duty kind that had an integrated hitch ball mounting hole.
That F100 is just like mine, and yes, a full load of sand would have it down on its rubber axle blocks. Plus there would be a growing pile of sand under the tailgate where it inevitably would be leaking out between the bed and tailgate.
Great pictures all .
My crappy monitor makes the ’68 Buick appear to have mismatched front tires .
-Nate
I checked Perry Zavitz’s book on Meteor and Monarch. In 1966 Meteor sold 1798 Rideau two door sedans and 778 Rideau 500 two door sedans for a total of 2576 or just over the sales for the 1966 Mercury Monterey two door sedan, which wasn’t sold in Canada. With the demise of the two door sedan Meteor offered a Rideau 500 two door sedan which sold 5607.
KCOP-TV, channel 13 in Los Angeles had a weekly sweepstakes and first prize was a Su-bar-u 360.
Remember seeing a white one of these in traffic. Was mid-late “80’s”. Puzzled me for quite many years. I was late getting ‘online, on/to the internet”.
Anyway, “years, later” I found out what that white thing was I’d seen.
From the pics, guessing I saw a “70ish”, edition.
Great feature, Rich!
Radio stations, especially in larger cities, did a lot of car giveaways in the 60s. KHJ in Los Angeles premiered its Top 40 format in April of 1965, and that summer, gave away the hottest car of the moment, maybe not knowing it would be an all-timer:
KHJ did a “Seven Car Sweepstakes” in ’66, giving one lucky winner their choice of one of seven cars:
…later in ’66, his and hers Camaros, a single Camaro and a Ford Ranchero in separate contests in ’67, a Pontiac Grand Prix in ’68, a Ford Maverick and Ford Thunderbird in ’69, and then…the last of the big car contests at KHJ, in March of 1970.
The all-new Pontiac Firebird 400 filled with cash (coins, but still..):
They tried to bring the car giveaway back in 1973, linking in with the sighting of a comet—but—this wasn’t exactly the glory days:
My favorite car give away? That free Toyota…..
The McDavid family had a number of dealerships in Texas, mainly Pontiac/GMC and Oldsmobile and Buick. They had a couple of dealerships in Houston as well as San Antonio and the DFW area. Sold out to others as the main makes were closed; I think they still sell Nissans.
“Phone 5120” Hawkins Electrical Supply.
Things were so much simpler then.
Does that ’65 Ford in the first shot have a ’63 plate?
Phil: That is a ’63 plate. I looked it up—Washington simply added a ’64 sticker to the rear plate, so if this shot was taken before the new 1965 plates (which spelled out “Washington”) were issued, then that car would be wearing ’63s.
Jitney Jungle in Hattiesburg, MS
As time went along, Jitney Jungle morphed into a grocery store chain, mostly in the south. I remember the specials of the month (rice, cans of soup, etc) would be stacked to the ceiling at the end of the main aisles.
Also, most of the car dealers in Hattiesburg were grouped on West Pine Street. That’s where I bought my ’97 Camry CE (as in Cheap Edition as the dealer installed an aftermarket cruise control to the car) and ’12 Ford Escape. Most of the dealers moved to the suburbs in the ’00s, but I noticed on Google maps that the Ford, GMC/Cadillac, & Chevy dealers are holding out for now.
I cannot peg the location of the Buick dealer in the background. Probably torn down as time progressed.
The Buick dealer in the background is Farrior Motor Co., at 400 W. Pine St. The building is still standing, though it’s been extensively modified.
I hope they didn’t close, due to providing inFarrior customer service. lol
The highlight of our yearly parish carnival was the raffle drawing on the last night where the winner would get a new Oldsmobile, donated by a local dealer who was a parishioner. In 1961 our neighbor and good friend was the winner, receiving an Olds Dynamic 88 4 door sedan, whose only options were Hydramatic and back up lights. Blackwalls, hubcaps, not even a radio.