I was looking up some rumors about the original Dodge logo – which was, essentially, a Mogen David, or Star of David or Jewish Star or whatever you’d like to call it – just to see if there was any contemporary associations with Judiasm for the company. There really wasn’t; the Dodge Brothers, Horace and John, were not Jews, and it does not seem like the chosen logo was intended to reference anything Judiac or biblical or anything like that at all. In fact, the brothers never really explained why they picked that logo, and it seems like they just liked it. There’s been theories that it’s two interlocked deltas for the two Dodges or some other vague spiritual connection, but there’s no evidence for any of that.
Personally, I like the rumor that they picked it just to piss off notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford, but they were on good terms with Ford and at that time, around 1914, the Star of David wasn’t even really tightly associated with Judaism. It would be pretty funny if that was why they picked it, though, and ghoulish old Henry would ball his bony fists up in rage every time he spied that confounded symbol on a passing Dodge radiator.
Anyway, this rabbit hole eventually disgorged me at this 2014 Dodge commercial that featured actors playing the brothers, shot for the company’s centennial:
The commercial is a pretty simple premise, just some healthy sibling rivalry, as the brothers race against one another in Dodges from representative times in their history.
What I found interesting about the commercial is which cars they chose to feature, and, as a result, which eras they chose to feature, and even more importantly, which ones they didn’t, because the absences hear scream pretty loudly. Let’s take a quick look at the cars that did get featured in this little race between some long-dead gentile brothers:
Okay, so it all starts with the first Dodge Brothers car, the Model 30-35. This was quite an advanced car for its time, with an all-steel body and was one of the first with a 12V electrical system! That’s way ahead of its time! They went to the industry-standard 6V a few years later, but still. Also, I like the sort of surprised-looking face these old Dodges had.
What’s next?
Okay, we jump a couple decades to 1939, where we see this Dodge Luxury Liner. That’s what they called them!
These were good looking cars, and I guess skipping the entire 1920s makes some sense here.
Next we see a 1956 Dodge Custom Royal; I’m a little surprised Dodge’s wartime years weren’t represented at all here; you’d think Dodge would be pretty proud to show a WWII-era Power Wagon or something, but no, we’re leaping to the mid-’50s here.
From the ’50s we take a predictable leap to the muscle car-era, with this 1969 Dodge Coronet R/T 440. Look at those twin hood scoops!
Okay, here’s where things get really interesting. Look what comes next:
That’s a 2015 (model year) Charger SRT Hellcat, tearing ass down the road, shortly followed (and passed) by this next car:
… a 2015 Challenger SRT.
It’s pretty telling of something that Dodge managed to skip a solid 40 years of their own history, the entire 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. That’s a huge block of time; in fact, it’s a full 40% of their centennial. This is a pretty huge and loud absence, and just made me think about all those Dodges from what seems to be their Time of Shame:
Where are the Apens? With stripes?
Or the K-Cars? The legendary K-Cars that saved Chrysler!
And all the captive imports of the ’80s! Like the marvelous little Colt!
Or, if they’re so proud of Chargers, what about a prime ’70s personal luxury-era Charger, for classiness?
This was a solid decade ago, but I suspect if Dodge were to make this same ad this year, we might see the exact same set of cars. Maybe they’d throw in an electric Charger Daytona, just to mix it up a bit? But I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t be any Darts or Journeys or Nitros.
Or, more seriously, what about the Neon?
Or a huge revolution in pickup truck design!
Stop being so self-conscious, Dodge! You can’t just try and pretend 40 years of building cars didn’t exist! It’s time to confront and accept and even embrace your past all of your past. Otherwise, how can you expect to grow and move on?
You left out all the Dodges I grew up with! Time to re-evaluate, I think.
The ad is aimed solely at boomers.
If you’re under 70 or Canadian, you can fuck off as far as Chrysler is concerned.
That ad was 11 years ago? Good grief, time flies.
Nitpicking (because why not?): The interlaced star is properly the Star of Solomon. The Star of David is flat.
Skip Barber used manual trans Neons when I took my class in ’00.
No Shelby Omni GLH? No Viper? No FWD Daytona? No Stealth?
“Where are the Apens? With stripes?”
In a landfill where they belong.
That said, their banger 1990s lineup (Intrepid, Neon, Stratus, Caravan and Viper, all in red) should have been featured prominently.
You’d think a ’96 Viper GTS would have featured…
Isn’t that a red Viper that splits them apart and makes them turn around at the end?
That fills in some of the gap years.
All the cool Dodges I grew up with were actually Mitsubishis.
That sounds like a sad car themed country song.
They could have bridged the gap between the Coronet and Hellcats with a first gen Neon or a Caravan. Either of those vehicles fit the image Dodge wanted to project in 2014 however, because the Neon was cute and the Caravan was utilitarian and domestic.
A be-striped Neon ACR would have fit the bill for this ad for sure.
I meant neither of those vehicles.
What happened to my 15 minute window to fix my typos? Do you have any idea how badly I need that?
Is it a timed edit window, or is a situation where once someone has replied to your comment, your comment can’t be altered anymore?
Torch, you are barking up the wrong tree here with the Dodge logo.
Wait a minute… Barking. Dog. Mad dog. MD. Mogen David. Mogen David 20/20!
Now all the pieces are fitting into place. It explains everything!
I mean, come on; throw in a Shelby Charger or a Daytona Turbo Z at least.
Viper? Neon? 400 Convertible (the rebirth of American convertibles???) WTH man?
They have a Viper in there, just a newer one.
I mean, Dodge is trying to sell cars right? Reminding people of the Nitro (if regular people can even be reminded of something they probably have no memories of) sure as hell isn’t going to help.
The Omni, Neon, and maybe even a 90’s Durango would have made sense though.
I’d add the ’71 Charger, the Omni GLH, and the Intrepid to fill that gap.
The Intrepid is a great call. It was hugely influential in the 90s and it managed to rescue the overriding jelly bean styling ethos of the time and point it to what the 00s would look like. And as strange as it sounds now, car reviews at the time praised it for a masculine yet restrained look.
I’m going to recommend that Dodge not fill that gap with the Intrepid. When marketing your new cars, you typically don’t want to remind people of the vehicle they owned 25 years ago whose powertrain failed a few hundred miles outside of the warranty period. Sure it’s anecdotal, but both the first and second gen Intrepid had an absolutely awful reputation among those I know. Mostly for transmission failure.
They may want to wait till a few more of those Intrepid owners are dead before using it.
My wife and I owned a ’97. Drove it through ’04, put on about 150k, the only problem was a corroded positive battery cable.
Anecdotal for sure, but LHs were also quite fast, handled great, and provided lots of room.
Glad to hear a good experience!
My dad had a Stratus that I’ve frequently lampooned here. Thing unfortunately was hot garbage. Which was sad, because it was a nice looking car that theoretically, was a good value.
You don’t talk about my Dodge Stratus that way!
Had a ’00 300M. It was fast, comfortable, roomy… and a reliability and rust challenge that destroyed front tires.
For some reason I was less enamored with the second-gen LHs. Too jelly bean for me, and that’s saying something. Also, is this about when Daimler accountants started messing things up?
Cadillac almost did something similar in one of their Led Zeppelin ads, except they did briefly show a bustleback Seville, I guess because they felt they had to show SOMETHING from that period and settled on that after lengthy internal debate
I mean, it was either that or the Cimarron….
The sad thing is that the last, stretched nose, restyled, V6-powered Cimarrons were actually OK and no longer looked quite so much like Crapaliers. Just wildly overpriced due to the badge. Typical GM, get it pretty good, then kill it off.
But it should have at least been ‘pretty good’ from the start.
I had an ’88 W-body Regal during college. I swore I would never buy another GM product for life after that turd. I’m chasing ghosts on a friends 1.4L Turbo Cruze right now. I had to replace the entire intiake manifold and valve cover (due to piss poor design) to clear a lean engine fault. The car still only has 40k on it.
Of course. The very idea was idiotic to start with, and so was the price. That they thought ANYTHING based on a Crapalier was going to compete with a 3-series (and be price equivalently) was just asinine. But pretty much everything GM did in those days was completely half-assed at best.
Interestingly it was a Cadillac choice not a GM one. Cadillac division management in 1980,very late in the J-car development program,decided they wanted a “3-series fighter” right now. Corporate tried to get them to wait a year or two and launch with at least the 2.8 V6 as standard if not set their sights on the mid ’80s and take the time to make a Cadillac N-body a full Caddy, but the division guys were set on a 1982 launch which meant there wasn’t even time to build a minimum acceptable product.
Tracks – an N-body with a 2.8/3.1/Quad4 might not have been such an embarrassment. Would have needed at least an OD auto though, I think all N-bodys only had 3 speeds.
Delusional, even if the 3-series was also a four in the US at that time. The difference in build quality and engineering was chalk and cheese.
I can’t fault Dodge too much for this omission. In my own life, I tend to skip right over 1988 to 2008. It makes for a better narrative.
Screw the Nitro, Dart, etc.
They left out, arguably, the most influential truck design of the past 40 years and god-knows how many years before that.
I hated the ’94 Ram upon intro… 30 years later I give it full respect. I have driven a few and the overall design is solid.
They didn’t skip it. They Dodged it.
Dodgy Dodge dodgily dodged dodgy Dodges?
And speaking of Chargers, no ’81, eh?
(I actually liked them back in the day, at least styling-wise)
I noticed a similar thing in a recent GM commercial leaning heavily into their “last 100 years”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToDIYZ_hW7M
A brief glimpse of a 80’s S-15 Jimmy, a couple mid 60’s light duty pickups and the new ones. That’s it. GMC doesn’t have quite the malaise-era turd counts Dodge does but 100 years and that’s all you show?
This is my favorite car commercial of all time, and you left out the very best part!
I haven’t seen it, but when I saw the red Viper, I assumed they would catch up and see that it was their sister driving? Did I guess right?
Do you mean when the Corvette sneaks in there and scares the Dodge brothers? I’m pretty sure that was a Vette, right? Maybe it was a Miata… I don’t recall.
*The Dodge brothers died on the way to their home planet*
If they really cared about their heritage, they’d tip their cap to the Dodge Aries. They sold over a million of them. The Aries walked so the Challenger could run. When there was only one pair of footprints in the sand, it was the humble Aries carrying a Ram 1500 through dark times.
*cue Sarah McLaughlin* Innnnnn the armmmmmmmmmmmms of an angellllllllllllllll
“Where are the Dusters? Even the rare Feather Dusters?”
Probably ignored because those were Plymouths.
SHIIIIIIIIIIIT, that’s right, lemme fix that.
Remember Plymouth?
Yeah I don’t either.