Even when Daryl Bates was old and near death, he still vividly remembered that moment in 1976. Back then he was a pretty optimistic person, but this time he simply couldn’t shake off his funk. His boss had told him that he needed to ‘take one for the team” by writing the copy for a 1977 Plymouth Gran Fury ad campaign.
Everybody in the shop knew that this was a no-win situation — but someone had to do it. So there Daryl sat on a Friday evening, after everyone else had gone home.
As dusk faded into darkness, Daryl hunched over his typewriter, pounding out different approaches while filling up his ash tray with half-assed accuracy. Nothing seemed to click. So in desperation he decided to make fun of the Gran Fury. Just ruthlessly mock the car, the management team that was still trying to sell this turkey, and the people who would pay good money to buy it.
Once he made that decision, it was like someone had turned on a light switch. In only a few minutes, Daryl hammered out a fairly complete first draft. And in little more than two hours he had pasted up an ad (click on image to enlarge).
This would prove to be the beginning of the end
Of course, there was no way anything like his mock ad would ever see the light of day. Daryl wasn’t even going to show it to his boss. But somehow, once he got his disgust for the car out of his system, Daryl was able to come up with a real ad.
What’s funny is that years later Daryl couldn’t remember what that real ad ended up looking like. And perhaps it didn’t matter, because the 1977 Gran Fury sold so poorly that it was discontinued at the end of the model year.
Also see ‘1969-77 Plymouth: Fuselage wasn’t so bad compared to anti-fuselage’
Normally Daryl would feel a pang of guilt when a product he had worked on died. Not that time. When he heard the news, Daryl had to all but bite his tongue to avoid laughing ruefully. “They should have killed it a year earlier,” he thought. “Slap quad headlights on the front of a Volare and call it a Gran Fury Brougham Classic.”
This would prove to be the beginning of Daryl’s slide into cigarette-drenched cynicism. It would end up killing him. Detroit could do that to you if you weren’t paying attention.
NOTES:
Product specifications and production figures from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2013) and Gunnell (2002).
“Ad Nauseam” is a regular feature that parodies automotive ads and brochures. We start off with themes from actual ad copy and riff from there. For further discussion about what is real, go here.
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RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2013. American Cars, 1973-1980. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised Fourth Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Plymouth Fury (1977)
The only men in a more unenviable position than ol’ Daryl Bates was the poor group of Chrysler Corporation designers who were forced to toil and labor day in and day out, attempting to find new and cheap ways to apply massive amounts of lipstick to the pigs they were forced to design.
Lacking the funds for downsizing, updating, or creating anything even close to what their counterparts at GM or Ford across town were working on, they were hoping a different shaped opera window, a slightly adjusted texture on the grill, or perhaps a different font on the ‘Gran’ would create a stampede of customers to the ‘new’ Fury.
Perhaps those who had brand loyalty to Plymouth because they brought their first born home in a used alien-inspired 1961 Sport Fury model could be enticed back into the showroom. The name ‘Plymouth’ still made them feel warm and fuzzy.
Or, perhaps it was that shrinking subset of American citizens who felt that import cars were for college professors and those with communist-leaning political agendas that might still buy a Plymouth. Or those Americans who didn’t watch the news and hear of Chrysler’s increasing gloomy chances for survival. Certainly the target market for the new Gran Fury did not include anyone who ever picked up an automotive magazine and read the reviews of the products that originated on their drawing boards.
While Daryl was hunched over his typewriter after everyone else had gone home, the Chrysler employees tasked with bringing this beast to market were hunched over their third dry martinis at dive bars all over Detroit drowning their sorrows in gin and cursing the fact that they’d turned down the opportunity to go to work for Ford when they were turning the Ford Granada into the Lincoln Versailles. Or regretting not going to GM and being part of the team tasked with turning a Chevy Nova into an Oldsmobile Omega, Pontiac Ventura, and Buick Apollo. Now those were some challenges a ‘car guy’ could sink his teeth into. Assignments that could make a career.
Daryl got to let off steam, go home, and then come back to work on Monday to work on the new ad campaign for Chia Pets, which insiders felt might be the next Big Thing in the fickle American market. The Boys from Chrysler came back Monday morning to a design studio and begin work on making the storied Chrysler Town & Country wood-sided wagon a downsized and gussied up Volare for 1978. That fooled fewer customers than the 1977 Gran Fury.
Back at work, tears rolled down their cheeks, blurring the sketches they were working on as they landed. At least one designer could be heard sobbing, “If only someone with some guts could come in and save us. Maybe get the government to loan us some cash. Show us the way out of the abyss we have fallen into. If only….”
Here’s a criticism that I have to level at somebody: What were the numbers of base Gran Furys and base-model big Dodges that went to fleet owners (police and taxi) and the price-per-unit of each model ? If sales collapsed, the zone managers should have known before production schedules were drawn up and advertising budgets allocated. The Gran Fury was four years old for the 1977 model-year. The tooling was paid for (?). The only justification for the Gran Fury was to keep the dealers happy.