One of the more exhausting parts about the modern auto world is that it seems like every vehicle has to be bombastic, disrupt something, have “dynamism” or something otherwise crazy amazing.
Jason loves to look at old car advertisements, and lots of car manufacturers weren’t afraid to have a little fun, and even layered on self-deprecating humor. William Domer:
What’s lost is self deprecating humor. We needed that humor back then as the world was pretty much a shit show. We need these ads again for ‘reasons’. I think Slate would be a candidate. And again my rant regarding VW: your effing name means peoples car, not $50,000 SUV’s. You are lost in the wilderness and birds have eaten the bread crumbs you dropped to lead you back. Sad.
(I started with a Karman Ghia and followed that up with Bug, Another Bug, a bus, a square back, a Westphalia, a Jetta, a Rabbit GTI, a cabriolet, another cabriolet and sort of wanted a new Bug. Their offerings and pricing have humped the damn shark.
To William’s point, consider this Subaru commercial:
Matt had a story in Friday’s Morning Dump about how Rivian’s RJ Scaringe thinks AI will be as accessible as running water someday. Username Loading pulled no punches:
‘I Think Artificial Intelligence Will Become As Accessible As Running Water, Or Electricity’ RJ Scaringe
Probably correct since AI will make both running water and electricity more scarce.
I love car ownership stories, and Mark’s Shitbox Showdowns are a treasure trove of them. Today’s matchup was a 1988 Toyota Van vs a 1992 Geo Tracker. 86TVan:
Well, my Autopian handle is a nod to the Van, so that’s what I’m going with! My parents bought a Toyota Van in 1986. It was an LE in Burnt Sienna paint with the dual-sunroof, refrigerator/ice maker, and captain’s chairs. Even had custom pinstripes that looked amazing. Loved that van SO much, it became mine when I started driving in 1995. Served as the band-van for my 3-piece bar band and then in college we used it to follow phish and festival camping. Even though it wasn’t powerful, that mid-engine / rear drive layout made it fun as hell. Love and miss that van…
Finally, I wrote about how I slept under a car cover that was doused in cat pee and gasoline. The Murano CrossCab was also the worst car I ever slept in because of the permanent rear seat cupholder. 3WiperB pointed out something I missed:
The Nissan Cross Cab feature list includes a hostile architecture interior.
Now for a bit of housekeeping. We try our best to make the Autopian a welcoming community for enthusiasts of all stripes. Discussion is encouraged and disagreements are inevitable. All we ask is that you consider your words before hitting that submit button. Remember what your parents (most parents, anyway) said when you were a kid: If you don’t have something constructive, kind, or funny to say, perhaps you should keep it to yourself. If we find you attacking other readers or contributors, your comments may be removed or heavily edited into something kinder, with an editor’s note, of course. Please be considerate to your fellow Autopians!
Update: Not sure how we doubled the “When” in the headline, but that has been fixed!
Top graphic image: Citroen
As a kid that Subaru commercial was meme gold, or would have been if we had memes, “does it have a motor? does it have a motor?” classic. Those and the Joe Isuzu commercials. I feel like Slate could maybe do some, they’re kind of already with the maker who 3d printed a motorized crank for their roll up windows(they’ll have a power window option), and now a Lego maker accessorized one, and of course their original wraps. Here’s hoping!
Wait. Comment of the day? It was supposed to be jumped the shark but I kinda love humped the shark. Hey Mercedes: next year in Oshkosh. EAA one of many amazing things about WI.
LOL, I thought you were just elevating the expression to the next level. And now I’ve already used it a few times this morning.
Hope I still have a job.
Yes that’s the ticket. I was elevating not misspelling. Or was it not , not editing.
That’s why Autopian is the bent, after all!
If Fonzie did THAT in his leather jacket…well, that’s ratings gold right there.
It’s been some time since the last reminder to be kind in the comments. I think that infrequency is a good sign for this community, and I am glad that you’re keeping a good eye on these things.
The infrequency is a good thing! I only issue that reminder when there’s one or two people who constantly bring toxicity into the comments. Thankfully, the troublemaker this time isn’t a regular reader, but someone seemingly offended by my very existence.
I’m sorry you have to deal with that, but I am glad it is pretty infrequent here and that it’s not a regular this time.
Is the headline supposed to be “Car Ads When Better When Automakers Made Fun Of Themselves?”Or “Car Ads WERE Better…”
Since the success of the salami-borne message about Autopian being the bent, they’ve decided to inject some other harmless typos to see what takes off 😉
I’m not even entirely sure how I made that typo, or if maybe something got goofed up during the edit. Either way, it’s now fixed.
I still remember the VW Corrado launch ad — previously, the only way to get a VW up to 140mph was….(Beetle dropped from helicopter)
Similarly, Porsche used to have really good ads, too. The ’90s campaign for the 911 had everything from engineers cringing at a crash test and closing the blinds; or the one where they decided on new, fun colors by looking at M&Ms or funky socks.
I try not to overly glorify the ’90s because nothing was perfect, but often it felt like the culmination of fun and innocence. Maybe 9/11 was the turning point — hard to tell for sure, I’ll let you know in 20 years if I’m still around. So far, I think “us destroying ourselves” might end up being the culprit. Cable news and then Internet 2.0…
Agree on 90s being peak of ‘fun and innocence’ in my mind also.
90s was also beginning of the offshoring of manufacturing/call centers which many of the more rural areas around us have not recovered from.
Yep, definitely not all rosy — I know plenty of people’s families from tires to textiles who were irreparably damaged by offshoring back then — job losses across entire communities, ripple effects of alcoholism and drug abuse, all of that.
Sadly, those offshoring experiments quickly became the norm and now we’re in a political environment where they’re trying to overcorrect and “fix” 30+ years of missteps in a couple years. That has its own problems.
Hard to say. On the one hand you had the collapse of the Soviet Union. We won! Fuck socialism! Yay capitalism! Now we can import all those cheap, desperate, highly educated eastern block STEM workers to displace spoiled, overpaid, complacent domestic STEM workers and kick them on the unemployment line.
On the other band you had the beginnings of a ruinous multi-decade long war for oil rather than shifting away from oil. Boo capitalism!
I thought part of the push for ethanol fuel, solar, wind, EnergyStar crap, etc was to cut down our reliance on Mid-East oil, so we could stay out of their regional conflicts and ensuing consequences (9/11).
But, what does this GenX know.
As you point out that was post 9/11 thinking. Those same jerks tried to destroy the same building with a bomb in 1993 but failed. So the lesson was ignored right up to the weeks before 9/11 for business as usual.