I Think VW Is The Only Carmaker To Ever Have Ads That Showed Its Cars Converted Into Rock Lobster Stands

Volkswagen’s golden age of advertising, which I think spans a range from the late 1950s to the 1970s and was under the creative control of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), is one of the most famous ad campaigns in all of human history, an advertising history that goes all the way back to Ea-nasir’s somewhat deceptive advertising about the quality of his copper from 1750 BCE. I mean, I’m speculating about Ea-nasir’s ads, which were probably just word-of-mouth, but you get what I mean. DDB’s ad campaign for VW was legendary, and part of what made it so was their willingness to show the product in some very unexpected and even unflattering lights.

It’s worth remembering that DDB’s most famous VW ad is one that just shows the car with the headline “Lemon.” The copy explains everything, of course and extolls the humble virtues of the car, but at an initial glance, the ad is pretty shocking. What car maker would willingly call their own car a lemon?

You know these ads. They also showed Beetles all taken apart, and buses rendered in paper as simple boxes:

You know this campaign. They took all kinds of interesting risks, and were a huge departure from the aggrandizing and saccharine ads of the era. They also did something even more daring: they showed their cars in situations and conditions that are, let’s say, unflattering. Like this:

Yep, a Beetle crushed into a cube. It’s a hell of a gamble to show that and expect to sell cars, but it worked. In a similar vein, DDB also did something that I think no other car advertising has ever done before or since: shown the cars they’re trying to sell in an old, non-running, re-purposed state. I was reminded of this while looking through this 1991 South African VW Transporter/Microbus brochure:

Look in the upper left there. Here, let me help. COMPUTER! Zoom and enhance!

That’s an older Microbus that looks like it’s been a non-runner for quite a while, up on blocks and converted into a Weskus Kreef stand, which I had to look up. It’s South African West Coast Crayfish or Rock Lobster, and it seems pretty yummy. The point is, though VW is showing a derelict and repurposed vehicle of theirs in their own advertising.

And it’s not the first time they did this! It’s not even the first time they showed an old bus turned into a food stand; this is an ad from 1966:

There’s no rock lobsters here, but there is the huge command to EAT, and it looks like you can eat snacks, franks, and, surprisingly, soup? Oh, and chili, too. The wheel-less axles are hidden here with flower boxes, a nice touch. Again, here’s a carmaker showing a junked and recycled example of the car they want you to buy, and that’s kind of amazing.

VW did this approach one other way, this time a bit more encouraging than turning one of their old cars into a roadside soup hut:

Here VW is showing the fate of many VWs that were no longer used for daily driving duties: they became Baja Bugs or kit cars or similar. VW had referenced the habit of old VWs to become dune buggies in ad copy before, but I think this was the only time they blatantly showed one.

It’s a daring approach, all of these, and one that I really can’t see any modern manufacturer, even Volkswagen, doing today. I’m not exactly sure what was lost, but it’s something.