You can't say that! Old car ads part 3

By: Andy Enright, Photography by: Unique Cars archives

Date: 07.04.2017

Part three 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.

If you can read this copy without wincing, you might just be the last unreconstructed bastion of Cortina target market. It’s fair to say that things have progressed a bit since this 1969 ad that ran in South Africa. So next time somebody tells you how things were always a lot better in the old days, show them this.

File this one under ‘Me and My Greatest Error of Judgment’. Imagine emerging smugly from a Volvo dealership having paid $4000 for the admittedly handsome P1800, rather than sinking another few grand into a depreciation disaster like a Mercedes 300SL convertible, a Ferrari 330, an Aston DB4 or a BMW 507. Your whole life would be a recurring Cliff Chambers ‘Gotaways’ nightmare of regret.

FORD seemed to be trying to corner the market in sex pests/magician’s assistants/swing bowlers with this ad for the Escort Mexico. It’s charmingly of its time and the car is enough to have us a bit weak at the knees, but we like to think Mexico owners wore polyester rally jackets and fast shoes rather than looking as if their other vehicle was a Transit with ‘Free Candy’ written down the side.

Here's another one that probably wouldn’t scan so well today, although there’s a delightful old-school innocence about this. Minis were a bit of a gay icon, a poster car for the happy-go-lucky generation who just wanted a big smile behind the wheel and who didn’t know when to say no to wickerwork luggage.

| Part one: old ad shockers

| Part two: old ad shockers

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