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El Diablo Went Down To Georgia: The 1981 VAM Rally AMX
Sales of the Gremlin-based AMC Spirit in the United States were pretty dismal, but perhaps that was just the result of the suits in Kenosha choosing the wrong ad agency. Let’s head south of the border...
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Adventures In British Leyland Marketing: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Like the MG...
Even though I’ve never been in a Austin/MG Maestro, I feel fairly confident in stating that the Rover Group’s little front-drive compact was unexciting at best. Still, the advertising folks must have...
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The Greatest— and Sexiest— Car Ad of All Time: 1980 Black Gold Datsun 280ZX!
The latest crop of Super Bowl car ads boasted some high-production-value salaciousness, but no car advertisement will ever come close to the perfection of the Quaaludes-and-disco Black Gold Man and...
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1979: You Asked For It, You Got… a Toyota Corona Liftback Sedan?
The Junkyard Find ’79 Corona we saw earlier was a pretty nice car, but it was a regular sedan with an old-fashioned trunk. Just as Chevrolet buyers could buy a Nova with a hatchback in 1979, Toyota...
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Harry Belafonte’s Kids Sing Olds Troféo-ized Version of Dad’s Big Hit,...
After creating today’s Oldsmobile Toronado Troféo Junkyard Find, it becomes my duty to share one of the most brain-scrambling examples of the “What Could GM Have Been Thinking?” genre of car...
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Adventures In Marketing: Outrun Satan’s Temptations In a Renault Clio
In 1999, you could still buy a brand-new Peugeot 504 in Argentina. With such a classic French automobile available, Renault’s marketers had to come up with an extra-special advertising gimmick to move...
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Adventures In Marketing: The Cocainiest Car Ad of All Time!
Right before AIDS and Reagan ruined the party, the early 1980s were a time of meaningless random sex, 20% inflation, sub-100-horsepower midsize sedans, Quaaludes, and— most of all— mountains of white...
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Daewoo! The Lost Art of Macho Korean Car-Commercial Voiceovers
Daewoo never had much of a presence in the United States, though I do see the occasional Nubira in the junkyard. That’s too bad, because Korean-market Daewoo ads of the 1970s and 1980s have some of the...
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Adventures In Marketing: 1970 Toyota Corona Beats Green Monster Jet Car In...
Since my first car was a 1969 Toyota Corona sedan, I always look for these cars in junkyards. I toy with the idea of getting another first-gen Corona sedan someday, into which I will swap a 1UZ-FE...
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