You can't say that! Old car ads - part 2

By: Andy Enright, Photography by: Unique Cars archives

Date: 05.04.2017

Part two of our old car ad shockers

We wind back the clock and trawl through more ads from years gone by. Some are great. Some are toe-curlingly awful but very few of them would work today.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that what drove Lance was EPO, testosterone, cortisone, human growth hormone and illegal blood transfusions but back in this more innocent time, Subaru USA threw a big bunch of dollars at the world’s biggest cheat in order to glom off his unbelievable cancer recovery story. Still, could be worse. For some time OJ Simpson was the face of both Chevrolet and Hertz.

If you've missed the boat on a BMW Z3 M Coupe, here’s the next best thing. Or not. The Allegro Estate, described here as ‘beautiful’. We’ll leave you to be the judge of that, but we do love the promise of 'intelligent design'. Unfortunately, not too many people agreed with Austin’s creationist agenda and the Allegro’s designer, Harris Mann, has spent the intervening 45 years making excuses for the car. We’ll give Mann the benefit of the doubt. He designed some cracking cars and the Allegro answered a specific need. The square ‘Quartic’ steering wheel though? Why?

"You could become a real man, today, by visiting your Ford Dealer Performance Centre." Just drink in those words. Imagine being a sorry excuse of a man who gets sand kicked in his face and then, after visiting a Ford showroom, you come waddling out with a chest rug like Chewbacca’s and gonads the size of rockmelons. And the ‘I’m on a horse’ non-sequitur halfway through? Now we know where the Old Spice ads cribbed from.

Who could fail to be moved by the promise of an advanced car at a retarded price? Especially when it also boasted 42 (count ‘em) safety features. We love big Citroens here at Unique Cars and can even forgive the ad writers for crowbarring in a sales pitch for the Dyane at the end. All of which raises one question. When was the last time you wrote a cheque for something?

 | Part one: old ad shockers

 | Part three: old ad shockers

 

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