Car brochure scenes take place in a parallel universe where the normal and rational rules of parking simply don’t apply. That’s why car brochures were so expensive to produce; in addition to needing photographers and models and craft services for food (the on-set catering has that name because they service the other “crafts,” which include hair and makeup, special effects, lighting, and so on; I had no idea until just now that’s why it was called that) and finding a good location and so on, they also had to maintain a stable wormhole to this parallel universe where shitty parking is just accepted. And that involves a lot of equipment, usually atomic.
So, let’s take a look at three fine examples of the brochure-parking craft, as seen in this brochure from 1973 for the Mercury Comet. You remember the Comet, right? It was the badge-engineered version of the Ford Maverick, and is a good reminder of all the good model names we lost when Mercury went the way of having to wait for a specific time to watch something on television.
Comet is just a great name for a car. So was Meteor, Zephyr, Cyclone, and Bobcat, now that I think about it. But we’re talking about the Comet right now, and these were handsome cars:
The Maverick/Comet body style was pleasingly tidy and just curvy enough, especially in coupé form. Not great cars, really, but I always sort of liked them. But we’re here to judge parking! So let’s get to it!
Starting with the cover, we have a wonderfully oversaturated picture of some impressively miserable parking. The car has just gone through a gateway there, into what is possibly a private residence, but I think more likely it’s an institution of some kind, maybe a school, based on the kids and the fact they’re holding books.
But look how that car is parked! Diagonally across the narrow brick lane, completely blocking the path for anyone else that may be coming into the driveway. It’s an absolutely self-absorbed, dickheaded way to park, and I salute its boldness. The location is strange, too – why not park like an idiot closer to the actual entrance of the school or whatever? Instead of letting your kids out into some shrubs?
Next we have this amazing picture of a fantastic-looking yellow-with-black-stripes Comet, complete with mag wheels and a hood scoop, in front of some remarkable modernist/brutalist architecture.
I love that building, with its bold post-and-lintel roof supports, and the cascade of staircases leading up to the extensive band of windows there. This feels like a research library or something like that? It has some kind of higher education, or maybe scientific company sort of feeling to it. And it appears these two go-getters have parked their car right in the middle of a pedestrian area?
It’s hard to tell exactly, but this doesn’t seem like a parking lot, per se. It also doesn’t seem to be as inconveniencing to everyone else like the first example, so I’m going to say that overall, this parking job isn’t too bad.
Ah yes, a classic of brochure parking arts: the car out in the middle of motherflapping nowhere. The more you look at this scene, the less sense it makes. They presumably drove their Comet out off the road, over a relatively flat and solid grassy field, which is good because the RWD comet wasn’t exactly renowned for its off-road capabilities, which were usually limited to driving through a neighbor’s flower garden.
So, this couple drove out to Damp Hilly Plains with just one bike sticking out of that trunk? Now what’s the plan? Dude happily bikes off while his Special Lady has to run alongside in (I’m guessing) espadrilles, huffing and puffing, pausing to daintily vomit in some heather? Take two bikes or don’t take any, jackass!
This parking job is stupid, because none of this plan makes any sense. And good luck finding the car again once you go pedaling off into that vast sea of grass, dummy.
As usual for ’70s car brochures, we need to look at a picture of the wild interior color options and lament what we’ve lost, as a culture. Green! Blue! Stripy golds and earthtones! A saffron-colored dashboard! How did we fall under the tyranny of gray so completely?
Also, that radio placement feels like such an afterthought. Surely by ’73 Ford understood people wanted radios, right?
This is good Cold Start material. I could see this becoming a recurring series, maybe 1 day a week?
So much here!
Pic 1: Does Mom have another bun in the oven?
Pic 2: Maybe they were just laughing at the audacity of someone parking the car in the middle of the Quad?
Pic 3: Maybe he went for a ride, and she drove to meet him at some predetermined rendezvous spot. Good thing the grass was short and this was pre-catalytic converter ’73.
Otherwise, those are some wild interiors. I love the green! And what a sad, sad instrument cluster.
That AM radio is irrelevant. A cassette player placed on the bench seat is how you get real tunes. And I’m talking ‘Realistic’ mono here.
In the lead image, the first brochure picture, the kid in the striped sweater leaning on the Mercury looks unsettlingly like one of those creepy time-out dolls so popular with boomers at street rod shows & other car shows where tri-five Chevys proliferate.
Has anyone ever tracked down the origins of that, uh, tradition? When and where was the time-out doll first foisted on an unsuspecting and hapless world? One wonders if this brochure picture was in fact the inspiration. Ground zero, if you will.
(Yeah, I have some strong feelings about those time-out dolls, who in a rational state of mind wouldn’t??)
Speaking of car pictured in middle of nowhere, one time we took my wife’s Suzuki Sidekick up to a ‘bald’ in the Cherokee National Forest. It was a bit dicey, basically driving up sort of a dry creek bed/wash type trail. Get to the top and there’s people up there in a MF’ing Ford Maverick! They were based on the 1960s Falcon platform.
Look, steering systems weren’t as precise as we’re used to today, so in that top picture I think we can assume she did the best she could.
That is about the least European looking interior I have ever seen. But I definitely dig the colors. We live in such a monochrome world today.
Comet: when getting the loin spawn off to boarding school quickly is desired. Perfect for the chauffeur.
I would have preferred this on a Monday, but Mercury beggars cannot be Mercury choosers.
The lead image triggers flashbacks! My Mom had 73 Comet, gold w/ tan interior and white painted top. Piece of crap that my Uncle picked up at an auction. Previously she had a yellow 70 Maverick my Dad bought her when he moved on with his 19yo secretary. She totaled the 70 hitting a parked car (it had previously survived being flooded when Mom drove it into deep water in a railroad underpass).
The 70 Maverick was a good car that she loved. The 73 Comet (250 i6) was troublesome. That is the car I learned how to work on cars with when I was 12 or so….Mom got completely shafted in the divorce and so we barely got by.
The autobody class at my High School later repainted the 73 Comet yellow. It was still a pc of junk. She eventually traded it in for Ford Tempo.
My 1st car ended up being a 1977 Maverick with 302, medium metallic blue. I tinted the windows, added cheap stereo, later added some black/chrome Crager BBS-style basketweave wheels w/ gatorbacks. Was a great car and took typical teenage driver punishment in stride. Was very reliable and put a lot of interstate miles on it until the nylon coating on the timing gear teeth cracked off around 130k…multiple bent valves. Got a new Grooms reman. engine. Month or so later the C4 trans went out. Replaced the with aamaco reman. Couple of yrs later the axle bearing let go, axle slid out. Moved on to an 89 5.0 Lx Sport convertible Mustang. Black w/ the gray tartan interior.
I never like the look of the Comet or the 4-door Maverick (grandpa had silver 4-door).
My uncle thought the 73 Comet auction buy had A/C, but he forgot to check under the hood…someone had removed all of the A/C related components.
Posted at 8:07 am! With the withering rye commentary we have come to expect. As your uniquely unqualified self-appointed life coach guru, I can’t help but notice that last nights purging of evil spirits (FF) had a profound restorative effect. I highly recommend you incorporate such cleansings on a weekly basis minimum, just try not to go full Adrian.
No, Torch, you’ve got the story all wrong with the Damp Hilly Plains photo. See, the woman was out driving around and got totally lost, miles from any roadway because, ya know, women drivers, amiright? (haw haw haw) I mean, it was the 1970’s, the era of women’s rights and all that, but we both know that women couldn’t drive for shit and they sure couldn’t navigate. So this dame is out there lost in the wilderness when who should come along but a handsome, hairsome bicycle dude to save the day. See how she’s leaning on him just dripping with gratitude for saving her from certain death? This ad campaign could only have come from the mind of a visionary like Jordan Peterson.
/s
(Note, see that “/s” up there? It’s the sarcasm indicator. I don’t personally subscribe to any of the beliefs espoused in the preceding paragraph. And IMO Jordan Peterson is a massive dickwad.)
“Why yes, I did order a pizza”. Cue the Bow Chicah Bow Bow music.
Yeah. This lady drove up a bike path on the way out to the lake. Guy on the bike is gonna mansplain it to her and she’ll be all set. Having owned a ’70 Maverick in high school, I can confirm that they can get pretty far on a bike path.
I don’t know, they were apparently good enough to park on ski slopes. https://live.staticflickr.com/5208/5344751030_681cf859c5_b.jpg
well originally I guess.
Question I have is if the comet pre-dates the Maverick, is the maverick not the badge engineered vehicle in this instance?
Comet was the Merc version of the Maverick’s predecessor, the Falcon.
My dad had one, it was a coupe in turd brown with a tan interior. He bought it used when I was away at college, so I don’t have much of an opinion of it, as I never drove it that much.
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/cs_comet_1.jpg
is this what prompted the dolls of little kids leaning on cars at auto shows?
This predates the triple hockey sticks in the circle logo… which, IMHO was the best Mercury logo. That goofy crest on the bonnet makes it look like a low-rent Cadillac.
They always were. they were closer to Buick or Olds in the competition race all along. The eventual badge engineering however sunk them and a lot of them, then the trim levels made the reason for being even harder to distinguish.
Not to mention why would you take a road bike out in the middle of a field to begin with…
Did they have offroad bikes in ‘73? I think of mountain bikes (pre-front suspension) as coming out at the end of the 70s or early 80s. I know I bought mine around 83 or 84 and they were still pretty novel.
I recall a few dirt bikes with rear shocks as a kid. I don’t know how many would be considered mountain bikes these days, but gen X made do with what they had. https://www.mtbr.com/attachments/yamaha-moto-bike-drum-brakes-jpg.1983842/
Oh interesting, front and rear shocks. and with a banana seat. The heavy frame makes it look like maybe it was built for a small motor, that is just missing. Any idea what year that is?
I see them marked as 1977 most of the time, but I think it was available earlier, like maybe 73.
No, not really. We had 20″ “BMX” bikes, but they were single-speed and for jumping over hills and shit like that.
The 10-speeds in the ’70s had impossibly skinny 26″ tires and were for hauling ass on pavement (like the movie “Breaking Away”.) The few times I was stupid enough to take mine off-road, I regretted it.
Oh yeah, I had forgotten about BMX bikes. The forerunner to X Games (I think). They did have knobby tires. But like you say, no speeds, so not for trail riding. and IIRC high handlebars maybe, which would make them bad for going up inclines.
And if you were poor your grandfather added a BMX handle bar and one knobby tire on the back, and you were damn happy to have it! (I was poor and my grandfather did this.)
I remember buying pads for the neck, the handlebar crossbar, and the “boy’s bike” crossbar, the were big money back then on a paper boy’s salary.
Oh yeah, and you had to have the cool-ass Oakley grips, otherwise you were a plebian.
Hairy ’70’s guy was biking down the road just out of the picture. Road bikes aren’t as incompetent off-road as people think. The granny gears help a lot. It’s just not highly recommended unless shaking fillings loose and dislocating discs is desired.
Mountain bikes hadn’t been invented yet. There were just “bikes” back then. 10spd, 3spd, or 1spd. Though some of the chopper style kids bikes were kinda cool.
Came here to say this. They’re not going very far with skinny tires and no suspension. Popped tire in 3-2-1
You know that ancient Mercedes-Benz press photo with the lady and the car right in front of the Le Corbusier building in Stuttgart‘s „Weissenhofsiedlung“? Well, being a (sort of) local one day I went there and tried to re-create the picture using my own Mercedes car. Arriving at the spot I realized it was impossible to get the exact same perspective, since I would have to park the car right on the intersection. When I checked the press photo again I realized that in 1928 they obviously didn‘t care and parked there nonetheless. So much for Germans always obeying rules.
https://mercedes-benz-publicarchive.com/marsClassic/de/instance/picture/Weissenhof-Siedlung-838-PS.xhtml?oid=180880
The first picture kind of makes it look like she hit her son while parking. The daughter is unharmed though, so she still has one kid alive and well. In nature keeping 50% of your offspring alive is actually pretty damn good, so I’ll give her a solid B- for her parking. Can you imagine if lizards all got 50% of their offspring to adulthood? We’d have lizards coming out of our damn ears.
I have to park at an A+ level because I only have one kid, leaving me and my wife one errant stab of the throttle away from ending our lineage.
Well, my home must be a safe haven for salamanders, because my house is covered in them every night. Fair number of frogs, too. Even had to use a 2×12 as a ramp for a turtle to get out of my pool. Hell, I should have my home certified as a reptile/amphibian refuge. There’s tax breaks in that, right?
I’m also a parent of an only child (not to mention the son of an only child and being an only child myself). There is something to be said for the “put all your eggs in one basket and guard the hell out of that basket” strategy.
Yes! Only having one kid means we can watch her very carefully. Not that she seems to appreciate it with her becoming a teenager.
Yeah, our daughter chose a college in another country to escape our tyranny.
“You were always Mom’s favorite, Kathy. She always made sure not to run you over!”
These were indeed handsome machines. That’s something that I only appreciated once sufficiently removed from my late 70s-early 80s youth, when the few survivors were pretty much just crusty background noise.
The text in the brochure describes even MORE interior color options! Insane! …
Tan
Black
Medium blue
Medium ginger
Beige
Avocado
Orange
Yes and it has me questioning whether the ‘saffron colored dashboard’ is Orange or Medium Ginger?
Yes. But with a 70’s flair.
Can’t have just stripes, though. Upbeat Stripes! No faffing about with just regular stripes, oh no, we’ve got Upbeat Stripes!
In 2025, I’d take any kind of stripes I could get.
The last photo looks like the Comet was brought out to nature to watch one final sunset before it expired due to cancerous rust. The bike was their only way home. The car is still there. Well, no it isn’t, but if you test the soil you’ll find a higher rust count at that spot.
We took the Comet out for one last look before we had to put it down.
Its like my Dad always said “Mercury Comet drivers were the 2020 BMW drivers of 1973”.
Turns out this was a really weird thing to say in 1992.
Your dad knew that but didn’t tell you all of the future Super Bowl winners? Seems like a missed opportunity to me.
The driver obviously parked that way in hopes of protecting that fragile ‘Bunkie Beak’ that Mercury was so fond of in the early ’70s.
What I like to call 10/10 car, 0/10 parking. Reminds me of the time walking out of Sam’s Club and saw a nice MB wagon parked crooked in the striped space between two handicap spots. Although this is also the same Sam’s Club where shopping cart etiquette…and etiquette in general seemed to be optional.