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Ad man goes too far in trying to sell the 1984 Corvette to its aging clientele
Greg was mostly impressed with prototypes of the 1984 Chevrolet Corvette he inspected while helping to prepare an advertising campaign. The all-new design was much roomier than the previous model. That wasn’t an accident. General […]
Data Dive
1968 full-sized Mercury: A pioneer of brougham was overshadowed
(EXPANDED FROM 8/20/2021) One of my lingering questions from a Collectible Automobile story on the Mercury Park Lane was why it didn’t sell better in 1968 (Biel, 2021). This was arguably the first year that […]
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Literature
If you ran VW in 1959 how would you prepare for Detroit’s compacts?
(UPDATED FROM 8/15/2014) Imagine that you run Volkswagen’s American operations in 1959. Detroit has finally woken up to the public’s growing interest in small cars. Studebaker and American Motors are already seeing dramatic sales increases after introducing compact […]
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What happened when a secretary secretly wrote a Jaguar XK-E ad
Back in the early-60s men mainly wrote ad copy. So when Joan Maisel landed a job at a major ad agency in New York City, she got stuck doing secretarial work even though she was […]
Quotes
Chevrolet Corvair advertising shows gender roles in 1960s
“Chevrolet marketers wanted to preserve ‘sportiness’ and ‘performance’ as masculine activities, but at the same time realized that women appreciated a good-handling car as much as their male counterparts. So, Chevrolet repurposed the performance attributes […]
Data Dive
1965-68 GM big cars: The end of different strokes
(UPDATED FROM 12/26/2020) General Motors had one of those “be careful what you ask for” problems. In 1962 the automaker captured three-fourths of the premium-priced, big-car market. This was a key reason why GM sold […]
History
Four ways Lee Iacocca contributed to the decline of Ford and Chrysler
(EXPANDED FROM 10/11/2021) The death of Lee Iacocca in 2019 brought forth much praise for one of the American auto industry’s most visible leaders. Generally lacking from the obituaries was an acknowledgement that Iacocca’s success […]
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DeBest ad for the 1981 Pontiac Trans Am that was never printed
Pete DeBest thought he had it made. He followed his dad into the car business by landing a gig at Pontiac’s ad agency as a copy writer. Things went great at first. For example, one […]