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Literature
1965-69 Chrysler: Trying to sell prestige in a rapidly changing culture
(EXPANDED FROM 3/15/2023) The Chrysler brand during the second half of the 1960s was one of that automaker’s biggest success stories. We have discussed the design of its cars (e.g., go here and here), so […]
Literature
1953-73 Chevrolet Corvette ads gingerly showed changing gender roles
(EXPANDED FROM 6/10/2022) One of the more common types of clickbait on auto history websites is to post an old-car ad and throw in a few paragraphs of background. Cranking out lots of short, breezy […]
History
How often did renaming a car fail to help it sell better?
(EXPANDED FROM 6/8/2022) A few years ago Karl Ludvigsen (2022) wondered whether some cars that were renamed should not have been. For example, he noted that Ford might have benefitted by keeping the Cortina name […]
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How would you advertise the 1967 big Pontiacs to revive their sales?
As Pontiac prepared for the 1967 model year it struggled with what to do about a problem. Although overall sales were so good that the brand had carved out a solid third place in total […]
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If you had to write a 1982 Cadillac Cimarron ad what would you say?
Harry Waltz knew that, as the lowest guy on the totem poll, he would get stuck having to write the 1982 Cadillac Cimarron ads. He tried every trick in the book to avoid the inevitable, […]
Links
Popular Mechanics gives AMC one last chance to spin the Pacer before its launch
The January 1975 issue of Popular Mechanics offered a breathless peek at a new generation of smaller cars that would supposedly be “big on the inside but small outside.” Although the story included sketches of […]
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The bogus ad Roger slipped into his drawer and forgot for a number of years
Roger Sizemore had the feeling that Chrysler was going in the wrong direction. The product planners talked excitedly about selling at least 200,000 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Challengers annually. Yet the all-new 1970 pony cars […]
Multimedia
VW Superbowl ad waxes nostalgic for the kind of cars it no longer makes
Volkswagen has received a good response to the ad it ran during the Superbowl last weekend. Titled “An American Love Story,” the 60-second ad and an extended version attempt to cultivate nostalgia for the brand’s […]