Car Ads

The Skoda Cake

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Skoda has made a big comeback in recent years so there adverts have been hitting TV screens in a lot more places then they would have at the time when they were churning out outdated cars mainly to communist eastern block countries. Since 1991 Skoda have been owned by the VW Group and they now produce modern styled cars with decent quality like their VW cousins, unlike some of the Skodas of the 70s and 80s. A popular Skoda ad to hit the screens in Australia since their launch has been the Skoda built out of sand, we found this clever earlier version that involves building a car out of cake and our love of cake makes us want to share it here. Take note of what gets used for engine oil too.

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VW Type 3 fastback

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The VW Type 3 also known as the 1500 or 1600 was produced from 1961 until 1977. Called the Type 3 because it was VW’s 3rd design with the Beetle being the Type 1 and the Kombi van being the Type 2. The Type 3 shared much of its mechanical’s with its older relatives but with a few revisions. One example was the motor that despite being the same basic unit as in the Beetle and Kombi, it now featured a redesigned cooling system that let the motor sit flat under the rear floor parcel area. This was a huge marketing win at the time as shown in the classic ad above with a very young Dustin Hoffman. The Type 3 come in 3 body styles a sedan known as the notchback, a wagon known as the squareback and a coupe known as the fastback.    

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Daewoo Maepsy, a Gemini with a familar face

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The Isuzu Gemini was one of the most popular of GM small cars during the late 70s and early 80s with versions produced is Japan, Australia, Brazil, and the UK  to name a few. While most of these models started life as a carbon copy of each other some did get a unique from end treatment to suit their own market.  As the South Korean Daewoo version progressed along its lifespan it obtained a Opel Rekord or Holden Commodore looking frontend with a dashboard that looks remarkably similar to the Holden Camira dash (that was proberbly derived from another GM J car). The Daewoo Maepsy in the commercial above is dated around 1985, it was about then Gemini’s in the rest of the world moved to an all new front wheel drive platform. 

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WB Statesman “World’s Best”

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The ad above is for the 1982 Statesman by Holden, its interesting to note that the Statesman brand was a luxury marque created by Holden but most Aussies still just refered to it as a Holden Statesman even though Holden went out of their way to drop the Holden name from marketing material. We like the WB as it shows how a company (who had very little money at the time) could take an outdated model and do some clever design changes to make it into an all new model. one example is the huge rubber strip down the side that is almost hollow in some parts in order to hide the huge bulge above the guards left over from the 1970’s Kingswood.

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Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars

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Any Aussie out there should remember this marketing campaign for Holden from the late 70’s and early 80’s. The catchy Jingle was featured heavily around the footy season as Holden was a major sponsor. We couldn’t decide on our  youtube feature ad of the week this week, so after you watch the above video featuring the Commodore hit the read more to see the 70’s version with featured the Holden Kingswood. Be warned you may be singing the jingle all day!

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Car ad of the week

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This weeks car ad is a funny one from Italian car manufacturer Fiat for their supermini car the Palio. Apparently if you buy yourself one of these you will love it so much you will do anything to protect it. If you know what country this ad comes from drop us a note in the comment box as we love to know. The Palio has been produced since 1996 in various countries from South America to eastern Europe and Asia.  

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Yugo – the car for when you can’t afford a decent car

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Our classic car ad of the week features one of the worlds worst cars, the Yugo. Produced since 1981 in Serbia by Zastava the car was imported into the US in 1985 and sold as the cheapest new car available. Based on the Fiat 128, a car that dates back to 1969, the Zastava was popular in eastern Europe where the choice of other cars on offer made the Zastava look like a good buy and economical motoring. By the time the car got to the US under the Yugo name, the unrefined and sluggish box was bought up by cheapskates who would of been better off finding a decent secondhand car. Not only did the car suffer from poor build quality and performance, the market of customer the car was aimed at were often too tight to service them properly making the cars mechanical woos worse. Sales in the US stopped around 1992 when UN sanctions against the former Yugoslavia stopped exports. NATO later bombed the factory that has since been rebuilt to churn out a face-lifted version of the car that is known today as the Zastava Koral.

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