Car Commercials, the good, the bad, and the annoying!

british_rover

I think I have the updated version of this ad some where.

This one stops at around 2002 I will have to find the one that continues to today.

Range Rover

fintail

That's pretty cool

british_rover

I love the shots of the old two door Range Rovers in that video.

They never imported them into the US but you see them from time to time for sale on speciality publications or Atlantic British.

I would love to get one of those in decent shape.

fintail

Those uncluttered original Range Rovers show how great that design was. Hard to believe it dates from the 60s.

I also like those really early ca. 1950 little 2 door open models.

british_rover

Yup those would be Series Is and IIs like the 1959 Series II we have at the dealership.

We are taking that model to the Auto show in two weeks as part of our exhibit. It is so clean when we have it in the showroom people think it is a new model. I have had a couple of people seriously ask if it is a retro inspired 2007 MY Rover.

fintail

Hmmm I wonder if they would do a new retro car. The Defender was kind of retro.

british_rover

The defender was just the continuation of the Series Land Rovers.

For example the door handles on our 1959 Rover will work on a Defender.

Almost the whole door on a series Rover will bolt up to a defender.

The frames are even very simliar just modern metalurgy for the Defender.

The Defender should come back within the next three to four years on the T5 platform that the LR3 and Range Rover Sport share.

fintail

So it's a real retro car, as in a new old car.

I see them quite often in this atea.

fintail

Maybe the Cav Chevy should have made? A real "revolution"...

ateixeira

I've seen that but it might have been on youtube, probably not on American TV.

It's terrible, too. What does it say about its owners?

The LR ad is much better.

-juice

ateixeira

You like that ad?

The exhaust sounds like flatulence, and the kid is going that fast on public streets.

It's poorly done and would only appeal to the wrong demographic anyway.

-juice

anythngbutgm

That was freakin hilarious... Juice, I think it was meant to be a spoof.

Loved the puff of exhaust from the leaking exhaust pipe underneath and then blazing past the Amish horsecart at like 25mph. But the best was when he puched it, you get the soundtrack of a late 60's F-body with the acceleration of a Yugo GV.

That was some funny stuff. Either that or the kid took himself, and his Cavalier WAY too seriously...

british_rover

Yeah not from american TV the RAV4 is RHD and the whole commercial is in english. It was either for the australian or british markets.

Either way it is kind of dumb.

ateixeira

On my screen is was a bit blurry so I didn't catch all the details that you did. I think you paid a bit too much attention to it. :P

-juice

fintail

Yeah, it's a joke, but it still seems more exciting than a real Cav. And that car doesn't exactly have a prestigious demographic to begin with!

Here's an amusing K-car spoof that's been around awhile

And FINALLY, Caddy does a heritage-based ad...not as emotional as some MB ads, but still quite good

british_rover

Funny how they basicly skipped over the 1980s and 1990s with the exeption of the Allente.

Wonder why they would do that?

fintail

Well, they had the bustleback Seville, which in a twisted way, I like.

But yeah, bleak times.

lemko

Heck, I'm not even a big Mercedes fan and I get a bit choked up when the car is shown going to the crusher after all the life events that car went through.

Anyway, per the Cadillac ad, they should've used my 1989 Cadillac Brougham in the ad for the '80s. It still is an excellent car. I'd shown a few more cars from the '30s and '60s in the ad than they did.

fintail

Always think, when you see some old heap...it was once someone's new car. And that car got reborn!

Nothing wrong with a Brougham, yeah. And I didn't like how they had that 56 (I think it was) and then a 59...not enough of a gap. They should have had a 48-49 as well, or a 53 Eldo. I was shocked it had the bustleback, I thought most people still laughed at those.

Here are a few more good ads:

Optimistic mileage claims

Camcord competitor? Was this a joke?

I remember this ad campaign

A friend of mine had one of these in high school...I called it the "Zero"

Dark times

Funny parody

ateixeira

That K-car as is great...very clever.

The Caddy ad is neat, but doesn't tug at the heartstrings like Benz ads do.

-juice

ateixeira

The Tempo ad was weird. Funny how styling alone is not enough, you need a competent car underneath it all. Taurus was a big success but the Tempo was such a flop. Back then one of my friends had one and simply could not give it away when it was 2 years old and he had it for sale. Noone wanted it.

Also remember the Under-Achieva, another flop. Quad 4 has to be the most redundant name ever (even though the 4 meant 4 valves per cylinder, and Quad meant 4 cylinders). Almost as bad as using the 4-4-2 name on the Calais.

Regal, I remember that campaign, too. Never mind the goofy digital dash and the silly seatbelts on the door, what was GM thinking building GM10s as coupes only at the start? How much volume did they really expect?

Even worse, the sedans look rushed and incongruous. A band-aid at best.

Precis - very rare, they never sold like the Hyundai Excel twin did. I guess Mitsu got that car because they supplied the engines to Hyundai at first. Both were such crap, though.

Gremlin - no wonder Honda and Toyota made such inroads in that era.

2CV - someone actually owns one of those in my garage. Must I mention he's French and eccentric (or is that redundant?).

-juice

fintail

Funny about the Tempo...that ad claims such huge mileage...we had one back in the day, and I don't think it ever broke 30mpg in any driving. It was an auto mind you, but still. In 1985 my mother had to do some long distance commuting, and bought a 4cyl car. She bought the most loaded old style Tempo I've ever seen...a medium blue GLX with what I believe was every option. She bought it late in the model year, so she might have got a deal. It was actually very reliable until 120K or so, but then started having issues. Key was that "computer" the commercial mentions, which would fail every 6 months or so, no matter who worked on it. Defective engineering. It also had some electrical glitches (power seat started smoking when I was driving it, that was cool), small gasket/seal leaks, etc, and it started rusting at the tops of the doors. The car was driven long distances for several years as a commuter, then relegated to a second car, then a kids car. I beat the hell out of it as a teen, and it never failed on me. My favorite tricks were revving it way up and dropping it into gear, and pegging the sad speedo (I swear it topped out at 80mph) just for laughs. It was SO slow, and it only sounded good when the exhaust rusted away (I'm on the west coast...things don't rust so much here). When the car was 14 years old, at 190K, all the kids were out of the house, so my mom sold it to some guy for $600. I saw it about a year ago, still looked OK.

I knew a girl who got a new Achieva right out of high school. I think they had to lemon law it, she had lots of issues. Last time I knew, she had a Toyota...

Precis didn't crash well either, that's what happened to my friend's example. With how bad those things were, it's sometimes amazing Hyundai is still here.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to locate a 'Cadillac, Cadillac, Cadillac Style' ad.

lemko

Cadillac ad could've been worse. They could've included a Cimmaron, a V-8-6-4, and a Diesel! Odd they used the Allante as the only good one was the last 1993 model. A 1992-7 or 1998-9 Seville STS would've been a better choice for the 1990s. The Cadillac cars I'd have used for that ad would've been:

1933 V-16 Phaeton
1941 Sixty-Special
1949 Coupe DeVille
1953 Eldorado
1956 Series 62 hardtop or convertible
1959 Eldorado
1963 Sedan DeVille
1967 Eldorado
1971 Eldorado
1976 Seville
1979 Coupe DeVille
1989 Brougham
1992 Seville STS
1996 Fleetwood Brougham
2002 Seville STS
2007 XLR-V

fintail

I can go with that...but maybe a CTS or something instead of a 2002 STS, as to the average non-car person, I suspect a 92 STS and an 02 STS are pretty identical.

Some of them, like the 49 and the 76 Seville are very deserving.

ateixeira

Agree 100% about the Excel very nearly ruining Hyundai.

For a while it was the best selling import model, but I guess it caught up to them. Took Hyundai nearly 2 decades to earn people's trust again, they're doing better now.

-juice

stickguy

For BMW X3. Women in supermarket lot pushes cart up to generic bix boxy SUV (which I thought was a Jeep Commander). She puts bags in the back, including one perched on top. Slams the hatch, and all the body panels proceed to fall off, revealing a PU truck underneath.

Funniest piece is when the bag on top, now no longer supported by the window, falls to the ground.

Tag line is something about knowing what is inside your SUV, and for a change, it was an ad that was actually effective.

loncray

I just saw that one last night - thought it was one of the best car ads I've seen in awhile.

ateixeira

Sounds funny, now I can't wait to see it.

-juice

anythngbutgm

There is one similar to that with a mock up Caddy Escalade and a guy driving along has to slam on the brakes and the shell of the Escalade slides off revealing a pickup truck underneath.

I think that one was for the X5.

british_rover

Thats funny and true.

Now if the other commercial really was the Commander then that is not very true. The Commander is based off the platform of the Grand Cherokee and that is a purpose built SUV platform just like the X5 and X3 are.

carlisimo

Datsun's "black gold" ad - the epitome of manliness

andre1969

one thing to keep in mind is that in 1984, the EPA rated cars differently. I think they just published their raw, unadjusted test numbers, which were much more optimistic than what most people were really getting. For 1985 they adjusted them down to a more realistic number. That year, it was EPA rated at 25/34 with the 5-speed manual and 25/29 with the automatic, which was a 3-speed with no OD. There was a Diesel 5-speed that was rated at 36/44.

My stepdad bought a 1984 Tempo brand new. I remember driving it once. I hated it with a passion. It was slow, and for being a small car it just didn't feel very nimble. At the time my regular car was a 1980 Malibu coupe with a V-6, hardly a musclecar, but it felt like a rocket compared to that Tempo! Actually felt more responsive too, when it came to handling, cornering, and such.

As for popularity, the Tempo was a pretty strong seller its first few years out. In 1985 it was one of the top ten selling car nameplates in America. It fell off fast though, especially once the Japanese competition started getting larger. The Corsica/Beretta, which were wildly popular for their first few years, probably stole a lot of Tempo sales, as did Chrysler's increasingly wide array of K-car permutations.

It seems like whenever they came out with that restyle, which I think was in 1988, the car was pretty much relegated to rental fleets and bargain-basement buyers. I had a friend from middle school whose Dad actually bought two of the things! He was well-off financially but tended to really cheap out when it came to cars. They lived in what was once the nicest neighborhood around at the time, but in 1983-84 were driving a 1972 Satellite wagon and a 1971 or so Comet coupe. Last time I saw his Dad around 1990 or so, they had "upgraded" to ~1988 Tempos.

I hated my stepdad's Tempo with a passion, but it actually did make it to about 160,000 miles on its original driveline, when they traded it for a 1991 Stanza. It had other problems I'm sure, but the driveline was actually pretty solid. Ford had two different 2.3 4-cylinders back then. They had an OHC unit sourced from Brazil that was used in cars like the Pinto, Mustang, and Fairmont, and turbo'ed for cars like the T-bird, but for some reason in the Tempo they just took an old Falcon pushrod 6 and chopped two cylinders off!

jipster

Can't really understand the direction tire commercials have taken lately. It use to be about safety, mileage , and performance... actual video of "real life" tires would be shown. Now you have a bunch of scantily clad young women and men dancing cheek to cheek in the rain.

I guess the next thing we will see, is some commercial where the Michelin Man is walking down a beach wearing a thong and holding hands with a Hooters girl. Who knows.

fintail

LOL that's hilarious, indeed like an SNL commercial parody. Wow, what an ugly time.

Shamefully, I will admit I kind of like those primitive LED warning lights though.

fintail

I remember the 2.3 in the one we had was labeled "HSC", although I don't recall what it meant.

It really was a non-performing car. I am pretty sure my fintail could easily dust it in almost any performance measure, and get almost the same mileage to boot. But for those dark days of domestics...it wasn't the worst thing I guess.

andre1969

but I want to say that "HSC" meant "High Swirl Combustion?" or maybe it was "Carburetion"?

fintail

That rings a bell, something about "swirl". The car was FI, so I hope it wasn't 'carburetion'.

ateixeira

Black Gold was awful. The car had become a caricature of itself by then, bloated and overpriced.

That must've appealed to the gold chain set, I guess.

-juice

andre1969

that '88 Regal ad brings back some bad flashbacks! And now that danged jingle is going to be stuck in my mind for awhile.

Must...get it....out! :surprise:

Maybe I can get it out by singing something else.

"Good morning America, how are you?
You may not know me, but you know my name...
I'm the car they call Cutlass Ciera...
And I know the roads from Oregon to Maine".

Wait, that's not helping. :P

lemko

I wonder if they have the Buick Park Avenue commercial from the same time? Probably used the same theme.

fintail

I remember that Ciera ad too!

Back in the day when that thing was in the top 10 of sales.

lemko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mv4dnBkrYU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3OVyjhwSzk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etZrYYTOlMQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjErtQro5NQ&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGU__unveig&mode=related&search=

ateixeira

Those are so bad they're painful to even watch. You should have warned me.

-juice

rockylee

LOL, I gotta agree with you pal.

Rocky

i_luv_toyota

"Look ma, I don't need hands to parallel park!"

I get the point that the car can park itself, but I don't need to see it every commercial break during a football game!

ateixeira

Annoying, yet effective. Everyone is talking about it. My wife hates cars yet she talks about it.

-juice

kyfdx

Well...that's just it.. It is an option for people that hate cars... :surprise:

british_rover

Fits lexus to a tee.

Just washing machines on wheels.

ateixeira

After attending the Taste of Lexus, I said this to my wife:

You know, as successful as Lexus is, and as compelling as many of their offerings are, I would not want to own a single car in their lineup. The IS350 comes close, but no manual transmission rules it out.

Incredible for a division with so much success and innovation.

-juice

fintail

Indeed. No soul. More cars for people who don't like cars.

I suspect there will be many fender benders will come from that parking aid. People will hit the gas or grab the wheel or do something stupid.