If you can’t get the tune out of your head, does that mean you’ll end up buying the car? Rich, corinthian leather will only take you so far.
Here are some of the most memorable car commercials of the past 30 years.
* Volkswagen “Little GTI” –
If you were around in the mid-1980s, you probably know the song, even if you don’t know any German. Some exceptionally clever ad men took the 1960s hit single, Little GTO by Ronnie and the Daytonas – “Little GTO, you’re really looking fine; three deuces and a four-speed, and a 389 … listen to her taching up now, listen to her whine, yeah, yeah. C’mon on and wind it up, blow it out, GTO!” – converted it to “Kleinem GTI . . .” and ran with it all the way to the bank.
Maybe the GTI couldn’t tear up a quarter mile like a tri-power 389 GTO, but the spunky little VW was agile, light and quick enough to be as fun as an M80 with a too-short fuse.
Also, VW did not make the mistake of suggesting the GTI was equivalent to the classic ’60s Pontiac muscle car – and thereby over-reaching and embarrassing itself. The ads simply let people know the GTI was a fun car, like the GTO was.
* Ford Mustang and “Mustang Sally” –
Wilson Pickett’s classic R&B hit, “Mustang Sally” was the no-brainer choice to serve as the theme song for the launch of Ford’s pony car back in the mid-1960s.
If you read the lyrics – “I bought you a brand new Mustang, ’bout nineteen sixty-five” -* you might think that the song was written specifically for the car by a Ford advertising and marketing firm. But it wasn’t. Like Ronnie and the Daytonas’ “Little GTO,” the song arose spontaneously, in appreciation of the car. Ford just got lucky; the Mustang sold itself – and “Mustang Sally” simply fit the groove.
In 1983, when the Mustang was enjoying a new surge of popularity, the theme returned.
Ride, Sally, ride!
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