1927....Since mostly what we see from this era are black and white photos and silent movies, it's interesting to me to see this era more as the people living in it experienced it—with a taste for sometimes over-the-top color. This top cover of the Post by Joseph Leyendecker shows an older man dreaming of a Thanksgiving of the past. Those colorful pajamas in the ad lower down apparently can help give you the feeling of "eternal youth."
You would have thought that maybe this ad would have helped Studebaker change its image a bit into one of a manufacturer that offered fast cars, but clearly it did not work.
It's sort of like Cadillac touting their performance in ads, but the dealers still selling the "Florida" edition with the fake convertible roof and the gold trim.
A few short quotes from the book "Fins: Harley Earl, the rise of General Motors, and the Glory Days of Detroit." It's clear that director Cecil B. DeMille's lifelong friendship had a big influence on Harley Earl starting about 1913
"The director was then in his early thirties and no doubt sensed a kindred spirit in the 19-year old, a fellow showman in the making. It was impossible not to notice Harley. At six foot five he was almost freakishly tall for the time, with piercing blue eyes and a manner of speaking that combined country colloquialism with a Jimmy Stewart-like stammer to charming effect....Harley idolized DeMille, and studied the way he carried himself....But what bound the two together ultimately was their shared loved of automobiles. Like many early filmmakers, DeMille viewed them metaphorically, not as self-propelled conveyances but rather as expressions of mankind's dreams and desires."
By the early 1920s Harley Earl was designing lots of custom cars for stars, execs and other rich people in Hollywood, year after year, with custom bodies and custom features. The custom cars were often built on a Cadillac chassis because of Cadillac's good engineering.
"In the summer of 1925, Don Lee placed an order with the Cadillac factory in Detroit for 100 chassis. The plan was to used them with a series of five-passenger sedan bodies that Harley would design. But the unusually large order attracted the attention of Cadillac's new president, Lawrence P. Fisher, who decided that before he shipped that many to the West Coast he wanted to go there and see what was going on....He was particularly impressed with Harley's use of modeling clay to build full-scale models that were painted and trimmed with in such detail that they looked as if you could open the door, climb in, and drive off. In all of his years of coach building, Fisher had never seen anything like them."
One of Harley Earl's hires—after he was appointed in 1928 by Alfred Sloan as the head of GM's new "Art and Colour Section" (a name Earl didn't like)—was Frank Hershey, whose affluent mother had purchased custom cars designed by Harley Earl. Frank Hershey was an influential car designer for decades, and helped design the 1949 Cadillac fin, and helped design Ford's 1955 Thunderbird. Earl liked designers who, in his words, "had gasoline in their veins"—and Hershey fit that. For instance, Hershey could identify almost any car of the mid to late 1920s just by their sounds, as he remembered in an interview in the 1990s a few years before he died....
"The Marmon had a hollow, spooky sound, partly because because they didn't have any louvers in the hood, Studebakers were distinctive because their rear axles whined all the time. The Pierce-Arrow had a swishing sound, sort of like it was riding on water, almost like steam, it was so quiet. And I could always tell a Cadillac because they sounded like the valves needed adjusting."
I saw a new Mr. Norm's Challenger made into kind of a Barracuda on the B-J auctions last week. He was quite the Mopar muscle car dealer years back in Chicago.
Wow, those Lebanon Ford folks have got it goin' on.
The newest episode of The Grand Tour was released last week and features Clarkson, Hammond and May hooning around derelict parts of Detroit with Clarkson in a Mustang RTR (which was sporting Roush Performance graphics) with 700HP, Hammond in a Challenger Demon with 1000HP, and May in a Hennessey Camaro also with 1000HP. While the latter two were quicker in a straight line, all 3 agreed that if they were buying one of them with their own money it would be the Mustang because it was both a handler and fast for significantly less money.
Enjoyed that article. I always felt that while the 55 Pontiac updated Pontiac's image away from a staid, old car, it was the 59 that changed Pontiac's image completely. I felt it was a shame when the latter Pontiac's before its demise resorted to gimmicks like red instrument panel lighting. I also think Oldsmobile kind of stole some of Pontiac's thunder and market in the 70's when the Cutlass and 442 took off. Having said all that, I still really like the 58 Bonneville exterior and interior, as well as feeling that the Bonneville was one of the best styled of the 1977 downsized big cars.
When was the last time you saw a Buick police cruiser? For me I think it was on one of the old mid-1950s Highway Patrol episodes with Broderick Crawford. But they were still pitching them as a choice in the 1970s:
Still one of my favorite cop shows! When I was a teenager there was a ritzy suburb near us that had Buick cop cars (pretty rare sighting). But by the time I graduated from college they were using common baseline Ford's I believe. The residents may have been wealthy, but taxes are taxes.
I watched the excellent documentary "The 24-Hour War" on Prime last night, about the Ford-Ferrari war at LeMans in the '60s. This car featured prominently in the lead-up to Shelby American taking over Ford's LeMans efforts:
It is interesting to read ad copy and follow how it has changed over the years, Today's seem less descriptive, briefer copy with emphasis on "action" verbs.
I was just talking about the 75 Fury on another Edmunds forum. I always liked that car because I thought it was pretty cleanly styled. Now you throw in that bric-a-brac version. The front seats look like lawn chairs and the trunk looks like someone tagged it with a magic marker. - Yikes Didn't they call that something like a Sundown or Sundance option back then, at least on one of the vehicles they offered that scheme on?
Pretty isn't it? Somehow those bucket seats would look right at home on astroturf. About the trunk... It was supposed to be a 3D effect tunnel graphic inspired I think by the Roadrunner cartoon. 2 years later some started calling it the "Star Wars" decal referring to the movie opening crawl. And 2 more years after that Kirk Douglas recreated the Road Runner tunnel scene in The Villain directed by Hal Needham who also directed Smokey and the Bandit and anyway, you had to be there. Good times!
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Another in the category of not-quite-politically-correct ads from the 1960s, this one from Ford for their Select Shift automatic.
The '68 Mustang advertising theme was all about changing one's image by buying a Mustang. The music they used was catchy to me as an 11 year-old and still makes me happy today.
I messaged Ben and he replied that he was happy with his TLX and involved in dealing with things in his daily life so he has taken a break from the forums. Nothing bad apparently, just otherwise occupied.
Back to the topic, this appeared on Hemmings yesterday and is such a good example of '60s psychedelia that I had to post it. It expands to a large size if you click on it:
I think the '66 Bronco may have been the first Ford labeled as "Sports Utility" vehicle but others may have used it before the Bronco came along. Later on the Sports Utility Bronco was just called a pickup.
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
Getting ready for the next one? I've seen conflicting 2021 and 2022 introduction dates, but I don't think anyone knows for sure outside of Ford leadership.
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"The director was then in his early thirties and no doubt sensed a kindred spirit in the 19-year old, a fellow showman in the making. It was impossible not to notice Harley. At six foot five he was almost freakishly tall for the time, with piercing blue eyes and a manner of speaking that combined country colloquialism with a Jimmy Stewart-like stammer to charming effect....Harley idolized DeMille, and studied the way he carried himself....But what bound the two together ultimately was their shared loved of automobiles. Like many early filmmakers, DeMille viewed them metaphorically, not as self-propelled conveyances but rather as expressions of mankind's dreams and desires."
By the early 1920s Harley Earl was designing lots of custom cars for stars, execs and other rich people in Hollywood, year after year, with custom bodies and custom features. The custom cars were often built on a Cadillac chassis because of Cadillac's good engineering.
"In the summer of 1925, Don Lee placed an order with the Cadillac factory in Detroit for 100 chassis. The plan was to used them with a series of five-passenger sedan bodies that Harley would design. But the unusually large order attracted the attention of Cadillac's new president, Lawrence P. Fisher, who decided that before he shipped that many to the West Coast he wanted to go there and see what was going on....He was particularly impressed with Harley's use of modeling clay to build full-scale models that were painted and trimmed with in such detail that they looked as if you could open the door, climb in, and drive off. In all of his years of coach building, Fisher had never seen anything like them."
"The Marmon had a hollow, spooky sound, partly because because they didn't have any louvers in the hood, Studebakers were distinctive because their rear axles whined all the time. The Pierce-Arrow had a swishing sound, sort of like it was riding on water, almost like steam, it was so quiet. And I could always tell a Cadillac because they sounded like the valves needed adjusting."
"Of course not, dear. Your father is just taking a shortcut."
1960 Buick Electra illustration from a print ad.
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Maybe a good place to make a movie...
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
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http://haircutspray.blogspot.com/2011/09/chevy-427-biscayne-street-racers-special.html
And a page from Baldwin Chevrolet's brochure:
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427 SS Impala Coupe with a 4-speed for $2995? Yowza!
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https://www.lebanonford.com/performance.htm
https://www.lebanonford.com/lfp-800hp-mustang.htm
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
The newest episode of The Grand Tour was released last week and features Clarkson, Hammond and May hooning around derelict parts of Detroit with Clarkson in a Mustang RTR (which was sporting Roush Performance graphics) with 700HP, Hammond in a Challenger Demon with 1000HP, and May in a Hennessey Camaro also with 1000HP. While the latter two were quicker in a straight line, all 3 agreed that if they were buying one of them with their own money it would be the Mustang because it was both a handler and fast for significantly less money.
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Pontiac’s Wide-Track first wowed buyers 60 years ago
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I love the simplicity and tagline of the first ad.
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2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R / 2024 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX Prestige
It was supposed to be a 3D effect tunnel graphic inspired I think by the Roadrunner cartoon.
2 years later some started calling it the "Star Wars" decal referring to the movie opening crawl.
And 2 more years after that Kirk Douglas recreated the Road Runner tunnel scene in The Villain directed by Hal Needham who also directed Smokey and the Bandit and anyway, you had to be there. Good times!
The '68 Mustang advertising theme was all about changing one's image by buying a Mustang. The music they used was catchy to me as an 11 year-old and still makes me happy today.
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Back to the topic, this appeared on Hemmings yesterday and is such a good example of '60s psychedelia that I had to post it. It expands to a large size if you click on it:
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Back in those days you would probably have enjoyed driving a Scout (properly equipped) more than the equivalent Bronco.
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