The good, the bad and the confusing world of celebrity car ads

Most of the time they will be enticing us to grow more hair or lose some weight, encouraging us to borrow money from people of whom we have never heard or help infest the planet with used coffee pods.

People who are involved with cars separately from their mainstream celebrity will often endorse that brand of motor vehicle. In the case of late actor Paul Newman, a Nissan Skyline was named in his honour but that was fitting since he had just won the US Sports Car Championship for the brand.

Most don't have any long-term links at all to the cars they promote and enter endorsement contracts hoping that advertising the new Atomiser Mark 2 won't leave them forever associated with a dog of prodigious proportion.

Here are a few samples that explore the good and bad of celebrity car connections.

There never was a car like Ford's Edsel. And fortunately since the model disappeared in 1960 there has never been one like it again. The new model took four excruciating years to develop, then when it did appear it was unreliable and ugly in the extreme.

To launch the Edsel on television, Ford sponsored an entire hour of musical entertainment punctuated by advertisements and advertorials for the new car. Fronting the show and with their credibility as celebrity endorsers well and truly at stake were three of entertainment's biggest stars, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney.

In effect they didn't need go anywhere near the product as stars in other car ads might have done. Bing did read a few links to introduce the ad breaks and a convertible sat in the background as Rosemary sang one song. Luckily, months would pass before the enormity of Ford's blunder became fully apparent and by then the trio's roles in its promotion were hopefully fading and the cheques had cleared.

Bob Dylan never came across as any kind of Car Guy. He allegedly fell off a motorcycle in the 1960s at the height of his fame and spent a year away from the spotlight but it took until 2007 before Dylan appeared in car ad; suitably anonymous in shades and leather driving gloves 'living large' at the wheel of a monster Cadillac Escalade SUV.

For two full minutes of very expensive Superbowl screen time, Dylan said not much at all about the Cadillac as he cruised through miles of barren nothingness. Eventually he arrived at a crossroads where he discovered that neither the Devil or Robert Johnson had bothered waiting for him.

We don't know how many Cads might have been moved from showrooms courtesy of Bob's endorsement but obviously the ad attracted attention within the industry.

Seven years later and also aired during the Superbowl, Chrysler hired Dylan to voice what may rank as the most cringe-worthy piece of automotive propaganda ever set to music. If Bob was worried that his wild protest singer/activist persona of the 1960s would follow him to the grave then this two-minute puke-fest of US nationalism and import bashing would have sorted that out.

Superstars don't always sell cars by pounding a fist on the steering wheel while yelling 'You just have to buy one of these'. Subtlety sells too and memorable for that reason was Audi's 2015 mini-feature starring Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee.

Renowned for roles as a cameo actor in many action movies, Lee again displayed his range of persona-adopting talents before finishing the two-minute piece as a chauffeur behind the wheel of an Audi A8. In the accommodating back seat was of course Stan Lee, finally portraying himself.

Daniel Craig in the guise of James Bond has driven plenty of exotic vehicles but rarely looked more nervous or bemused as when taking the most convoluted of routes (obviously he had spoken harshly to the Sat-Nav) to deliver a Range Rover to its New York dealer debut.

Not one to bask in his own adulation, Daniel smiled, bowed and legged it before the applause had a chance to subside. That left the Rangie alone on an empty stage at a loss to explain how after being driven through slush, roadworks and a sewer it could arrive looking pristine in the middle of a hotel ballroom. Probably used the same SFX crew that a few years earlier had 007 jumping out of a chopper accompanied by Queen Liz.

Ever wondered why shady or downright villainous characters of the British cinema have traditionally driven Jaguars? Jaguar Cars wondered that too and in 2015 seized the chance to poke a bit of fun at the brand's typecasting. With a cast of celebs all renowned for villainous roles, Jaguar spent two minutes exploring attributes of its cars that might appeal to miscreants. In the process it showed corporate cousin Land-Rover just how to make an epic car ad.

As the action unfolds, professional film villain Mark Strong swaps his private jet for a Jaguar F Type R and is then is pursued by a helicopter across large swathes of UK countryside. Arriving in darkness at a palatial country house, it is left is for Sir Ben Kingsley to deliver in malevolent tones the tag-line; 'Oh yes, it's good to be bad'.

Heading back to the 1970s when opportunities for sexual success were often used to sell motor vehicles, one Geoffrey Rush can be seen behind the wheel of a Chrysler Charger. While various young women wave and screech 'Hey Charger' as the car passes by, Geoff vainly attempts to convince a female companion that he barely knows any of them. Such was the Charger's sexual symbolism that it was also chosen to appear in the Alvin Purple series of cinematic sex romps.

Motor sport has been crucial to selling cars to Australians and the men who drove those cars became familiar faces and household names. So how confronting would it be to see six of Ford's finest act as traffic cones while another of their talented colleagues weaved between them in a fast-moving Falcon to demonstrate how well its new suspension worked?

That did happen in 1978 when the likes of Allan Moffat and Colin Bond stood with others on a windswept concrete skid pad while Bathurst 500 winner Fred Gibson piloted the car. No a tyre didn't blow and the power steering didn't fail but the stunt was for real and the field at next week's Touring Car event would have been a bit diminished had Freddie not been on his game that day.

Looking in a completely different direction, who remembers the lumbering and lethargic Toyota Avalon and the icons of Australian culture who were hired to sell it? Yes of course the car was the Toyota Avalon, introduced by the Grand Dame herself, Edna (aka Barry Humphries) Everage, ably assisted by the ebullient Sir Les Patterson.

Between them Edna and Les - who except where money was involved rarely spoke - vainly attempted to portray Avalon as 'The Big Australian'. In fact the car was mostly American and seriously past its prime and not even the sight of Les sprawling across it as a living, drooling metaphor could convince buyers otherwise.

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