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newVideoPlayer("/56_Dodge_Welk_494.flv", 506, 423,""); Lawrence Welk's band performing a brain-damagingly bouncy rendition of "The Camptown Races" around the campfire with a '56 Dodge as the subject of their serenading? Bring it on! We're a little skeptical about the claim that the Dodge broke all the records at "Bonn-E-Ville" (though a '55 Dodge did set 306 records after driving 31,224 miles in 14 days there); we think Lawrence should have done a big brake-stand burnout with that 315 Hemi on live TV.
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newVideoPlayer("/56_Olds_88_476.flv", 506, 423,""); A 1956 Olds 88 was the first car I ever rode in , so it was pretty cool to find this ad, in which "Pete," apparently under the influence of then-legal peyote, speaks of himself in the third person to the local Oldsmobile dealer and explains why GM would never, ever dump the Oldsmobile marque. You got a big (for '56) 324-cube Rocket V8 with your 88, plus the knowledge that the very first rock-and-roll song used the Rocket 88 as its subject matter.
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newVideoPlayer("/58_Lincoln_476.flv", 506, 423,""); Given 60 years of hindsight, the argument that the '58 Cadillac looked "hardly distinguishable from the rest of the General Motors line" doesn't hold up real well. Still, Lincoln was rolling out the big guns in the ever-escalating chrome-and-gingerbread arms race of late-1950s Detroit with their cars' design. Thanks to SOS10 for the tip!
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newVideoPlayer("55_Crown_Vic_476.flv", 506, 423,""); When was the last time you saw a car ad with some geeky intellectual explaining how the styling builds the "feeling of motion" into the shape of the car? It's impossible to imagine a present-day Ford being pitched with the line "When the design of a car expresses its function forcefully and imaginatively, of course we derive more pleasure from owning and using it!" The '55 Ford really was a good-looking car, and it sold in greater numbers than its Chevrolet rival... but which one starred in Two Lane Blacktop ?
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newVideoPlayer("Pretty_Polly_Stockings_Jag_476.flv", 494, 410,""); So we got this babe driving down the coast in an old Jaguar and the Charge light comes on. What to do? Why, whip off one of her Pretty Polly stockings and tie it into the exact right length for use as a fan belt (we don't see her adjusting the tension, but we must assume that she's carrying a major set of tools if she's driving that thing out of sight of her garage). What happens next? It probably went like this: Sure, you'd figure there'd be a strict cause/effect relationship between the broken fan belt and the Charge light... but you'd be wrong! There's no such thing as a single equipment failure on an old British car; the broken belt was just a distraction from the real problem. Bad generator? Several connectors going bad at the same moment? Whatever it is, that other stocking isn't going to be much help when the next breakdown takes place a few miles down the coast...
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newVideoPlayer("55_Chevrolets_476.flv", 463, 387,""); Most 1950s car ads are full of gibberish and nonsensical feature names, so it's understandable that we tend to tune out most of the hype and focus on the great styling when we see such ads today. However, the 1955 Chevrolet really was an important milestone for Detroit, with the first of millions of cheap, reliable small-block Chevrolet V8s and a profile that even non-car geeks can recognize today. Here's a series of what appear to be dealer promo ads for the '55- quick, in addition to "Motoramic™" and "Glide Ride™," how many trademarked features can you name from these ads?
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You could be getting soaked at a bus stop that's colder than a Stalingrad winter, musing film-noirishly about your crimes and the lack of inner moral compass that led to your current state (not understanding German allows us to put noir interpretations on the protagonist's monologue)... or you could be crammed behind the wheel of a 36-horsepower machine equipped with a flower vase and rust-enhancing floorpans. What's it gonna be?
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You think we're all done with the Goggomobil ads? Think again, Helmut! This short film documents the takeover of a small German city by hordes of Goggomobils, with a bouncy accordionic soundtrack to mask the ominous implications. Goggo! Goggo!
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newVideoPlayer("gogomobil_ad_gawker.flv", 475, 376); This profoundly disturbing puppet-show advertisement for the Goggomobile will have you singing the little "Goggo! Goggo!" cuckoo-clock song until you get Tazed by your enraged coworkers. Goggo! Goggo! We're just disappointed that they didn't make a Goggomino version (though there was a van ).
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