Nine classic car ads that defined their generations

Ads are so annoying. We block them, skip them or use them as a prompt to get up and see what’s in the fridge. But every once in a while, an ad comes along that, somehow, doesn’t feel like such a huge interruption.

If you find yourself reciting an ad’s jingle, telling a friend about its art direction or remembering it many years down the track, you’ve been exposed to the powers of effective marketing. Will you go out and buy the car? Maybe, if you’re in the market. And will you remember the ad 10 years from now?

Here is a bunch of classics ads in newsprint and on film, from Australia and across the world.

‘Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars’ by Holden

In the ’70s, what was as equally Australian as football, meat pies and kangaroos? Holden. And if you were true blue, you’d get behind the wheel of one. This ad from the ’70s seems like an earnest attempt to distill the classic Aussie spirit down into 30 seconds of television – and sell a few cars at the same time. While it comes across today as a clip of Aussie cliché, there are a whole lot of us who still love our footy, pies, kangaroos and Holden cars (even though Holden’s Australian manufacturing has come to an end). The ad’s singalong refrain almost has us joining in. Almost. Either way, this is a classic piece of Aussie motoring history. It proves that nothing beats a good jingle.

‘Think Small’ by Volkswagen

‘Less is more’ was the thinking behind this ad. And that’s neat, because it squares up perfectly with the ethos behind VW, the people’s car – small, simple, trusty and affordable. It’s for good reason that VW sold bazillions of these cars: they captured the egalitarian spirit of the post-war West, which had been opened up by booming economies and expanding personal liberties.

Anyway, back to the ad. In 1959, a guy called Helmet Krone came up with the visual concept, and Julian Koenig wrote the copy. The ad, even today, regularly grabs a spot near the top of ‘best ad’ lists. The concept is simple but brave: make the small car small on the page. Focus the eyeballs. It’s so simple but immediately captivating. The copy is a good read, but this one is all about the design.

‘Hey Charger!’ by Chrysler

The ‘Hey, Charger!’ ads came in many guises over the years – this is just one example. If you can get beyond the not-so-subtle jokes about infidelity, the twist is a classic: why should men get to have all the fun, right? If you cruised around in a Charger, you were hot stuff.

‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’ by Audi

‘How about we run an ad in a language that most of our audience won’t understand?’ is a sentence not many people in the ad game have said, but it happened with Audi’s slogan vorsprung durch technik. In fact, it’s one of the earliest examples of using a foreign language in English advertising. Translated as ‘advancement through technology’, vorsprung durch technik was lifted by John Hegarty of the Bartle Bogle Hegarty advertising agency when he visited the Audi factory in 1982. The slogan soon became a part of pop culture, appearing in U2 song ‘Zooropa’ and Brit-pop band Blur’s ‘Parklife’, and it even features in TV series Peep Show and classic British film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Ford Falcon, circa 1978

What’s the best way to prove a car’s handling? Use famous Australian racing drivers as witches hats, that’s how. This ad, featuring none other than Allan Moffat, Dick Johnson and a troupe of other racing greats, confirms that if you bought a 1978 Falcon 500, you too could swerve between real-life human beings at 92km/h. Good to know.

Ford Falcon XD ‘Ice’

It doesn’t get more humble than this. In this ad, Ford admit that they’ve taken inspiration from “great motor cars of the world” to create the Falcon XD. They go as far as directly thanking Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, BMW, Audi and Porsche for the creation of this spectacular Falcon. The saying ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ couldn’t be more apt. (Or, at least, ‘piggybacking on more prestigious brands’.)

‘Daihatsu, That’s Who’ by Daihatsu

There’s nothing more classically Aussie than having a tongue-in-cheek go at some sorta rhyming slang. The ‘Daihatsu, that’s who’ slogan ran for a long time in Australia, and came in many forms.

Ferrari x Shell

You don’t need to be a revhead to find this captivating. The roar of the engine, the cinematic vintage vibes, the camera angles, the drama, the red Ferrari travelling through time. It’s mesmerising. You can’t buy this Ferrari, but you can put Shell V-Power petrol in your Corolla and imagine.

‘The Cog’ by Honda

Who doesn’t love a Rube Goldberg machine? Hang on, what’s a Rube Goldberg machine? Well, it’s one of those complex contraptions with a series of devices linked together to create a domino effect. This ad by Honda is an epic – and purportedly real, even if it does look a little CGI at certain moments. Hmm.