There’s something about the staging of brochure photos in the early 1970s that always feels somehow off. I think it’s the result of two powerful yet conflicting urges: first and foremost, it’s to get the car shown prominently in the composition, clearly the focus. Then, there’s the impulse to have striking, even majestic scenery in the picture, an environment that imparts that powerful, numinous feeling that is crucial to making people want to buy, say, a Mercury or Plymouth or whatever. The combination of these two powerful urges, though, often ends up just, you know, weird.
This 1972 Mercury brochure is a great example of this. Look at that top image, for example. What the hell is going on there? Why are those women sitting on wrought-iron lawn furniture in what seems to be a volcanic plain or maybe a dry lake bed? They’re parked right there, next to the table and chairs, but that environment looks like there’s nothing else around for possibly miles. They just drove out to a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere to have a sit and chat? Maybe.
I guess those could be paving stones on a large patio type of thing. But it all looks rougher, more geological. Are they having brunch?
The car out all alone in some rough natural environment thing comes up a lot. Like our fisherman here, driving his Mercury Monterey Custom Hardtop out onto that rocky shore. I can’t think of a worse car to drive in that terrain, really. These RWD Mercurys would spin their tires on a parking lot that someone had dropped a banana on a month ago. Traction wasn’t their strong suit. Maybe the rocks give more grip? Even so, nobody was doing this in a Mercury coupé.
Then there’s the photos where I just don’t get the logistics of everything. You have a lovely yellow Marquis Hardtop out there on the beach, no trailer or anything, and the lone person in the image – presumably the driver – is there with a horse. How’d the horse get there? Was it sitting in the passenger seat, looking for horse news on the radio?
Did she just find the horse there? Did the horse drive and find her? None of this makes any sense.
Similar to the horse situation is this glider one. So, the red Montego GT, what, was chasing the glider as it came in for a landing, followed it onto the field and … now what? That’s a glider, it’s not taking off again without a tow plane. The Montego has no trailer or anything, and I doubt they’re strapping that thing to the roof. So what’s the plan here? Are they just leaving the glider? This all makes me uneasy.
And this one of the painter with her Monterey: I get that there’s plein air painting, where you go out into the world to paint what you see right there, in natural light. But what has she painted there? It looks like some manner of abstract expressionism. That she could have done in a studio. Maybe they’re abstracted versions of those rolling hills of brown grasses? Again, I have questions.
Then there’s this family cookout. In a big, empty field. As usual, they parked their lovely yellow Montego nice and close to the action, and they have a smoking grill of what I hope is some manner of ethical meat, but no furniture.
And then there’s the one kid by the trunk of the car, as far away from the rest of the family as possible, holding what looks like a handkerchief up to his nose. Is he bleeding? Did someone deck this kid and banish him behind the car? And now they’re all just sitting there smiling as their burgers burn into cinders? The hell is going on here?
Honestly, this one with the cougar on the cougar flanked by the cougar is the only picture that makes any sense. Just a woman taking her big cat out for a day at the beach. This at least I can understand.
Top graphic image: Ford
I’m not sure that’s what happened. I think his yacht (complete with inboard Mercury engine) was beached and he is waiting for the tide to come back in so he can float away.
Also the general theme of these pictures seems to be “We are interesting, adventurous, and affluent people of leisure. Buy a Mercury and you can be like us.” Which I guess has been more or less the theme of advertising since the first ad was vertised.
Showing how young you are with the first pic… Crazy paving (as it was called) was a big thing all over the civilised world in the 1970s.
My dad, the world worst builder, even spend a month of Sunday mornings putting in some lovely orange sandstone crazy paving around the first house he and my mum ever owned.
Looked good too and probably still there.
And it looks like America, so using bigger if not better crazy paving you have to use a digger to carry and lay is probably about right….
The most time-consuming part of the ladies-in-a-lakebed shoot was positioning all the furniture so no legs were dropping into the vast gaps. Perhaps there was a blooper reel of sorts with the models toppling repeatedly onto the stones.
The questions brought on by these pictures:
Picture 1: What Bond villain is about to emerge from that sleek black death machine?
Picture 2: What ancient tradition is this local villager about to tell you that you’ve broken by parking your car here, and how terrible will your impending demise be?
Picture 3: Is this forgoing the modern world, or accepting it?
Picture 4: Is the world really an apple spinning silently in space, like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind?
Picture 5: Is that painting an artistic expression, or just the result of standing too close to the exhaust pipe?
Picture 6: What happened to the family that was actually having that picnic, and where did this family hide the bodies?
Picture 7: Will anything else ever be this awesome?
Cougar lady, with a cougar, juuuust got divorced from Doug. Doug had to buy 2 cougars to replace the one cougar he lost because he had a cat fetish he could not hide.
I have a picture my uncle took of his buddies tiger on a leash in a garage he brought back from Vietnam in the late 60s early 70s. So the cougar with a cougar on her cougar maybe not so far fetched.
Mom’s 1972 Mercury Monterey Custom sedan was the same Medium Blue Metallic as the Monterey in the painterly-lady in the California foothills pic – but ours was a “pillared hardtop”, had a white vinyl roof, no fender skirts, and the optional cornering lamps.
The ladies in the first photo are on a flagstone terrace – Probably a reference to “Garden Party” by Rick Nelson, or “Ladies who Lunch” from Company.
The lady with the yellow Marquis – She’s clearly got “A Horse With No Name” (by America)
The young couple with the Montego GT – That’s a reference to the glider scene from “The Thomas Crown Affair” (and “Windmills of Your Mind” by Noel Harrison) BTW – Steve McQueen’s character was picked up by a young woman in a white Cadillac deVille Convertible – and she didn’t have a trailer either.
As a kid of the 70’s – we didn’t bring a bunch of furniture with us to our picnics – tho we didn’t bring a big rolling grill either. We used a hibachi and we sat on the grass or a blanket.
The Monterey on the rocky beach – it’s almost certainly an early version of photoshopping. You can look at the concurrent Canadian catalog and see how the photos are retouched to change the emblems to Canadian spec.
Fully agree the rocky beach car just looks “off” – like it is a composite photo.
As a late Gen-X I can confirm that childhood picnics, beach days, camping, etc… were far more minimalistic affairs than is common now.
Then there’s the photos where I just don’t get the logistics of everything. You have a lovely yellow Marquis Hardtop out there on the beach, no trailer or anything, and the lone person in the image – presumably the driver – is there with a horse. How’d the horse get there? Was it sitting in the passenger seat, looking for horse news on the radio?
Just out of frame to the left, Charlton Heston is rehearsing the line “You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to Hell!”
Unless the daughter (I assume) has some kind of anatomical anomaly, that’s a hot dog she’s holding down by her crotch. Her father and brother are also holding hot dogs. Only Mom seems to not have one, but no doubt she’s already just finished her Metrecal as she’s watching her figure.
The couple in the glider were just soaring by when they spotted that bright red Montego on the ground and they just had to check it out. Now they need a ride, presumably from the Montego driver who snapped this photo.
The last photo could hold three cougars depending on the age of the model.
There’s no point in trying to understand a Mercury in retrograde.
’72 Cougar? Yes please.
Better than AI or CGI generated images used in car advertising these days. Heck, automakers don’t even make brochures anymore. Not paper ones, at least.