Old TV ads for cars on youtube etc.

Its one of the rare cases where the grumpy old fogies who moan "its all health and safety" and so on actually have a point. The ASA in the UK and whoever the equivalent is in the USA had a right go at the car companies in the 80s and 90s. I remember an advert for the Renault 11 Turbo which was basically a photoshop of the car in a hand held catapult and the ad was possibly banned, got them a huge fine for "overly emphasising vehicle performance"

We went from "buy this car because you are a macho man, you will shag loads of birds" to "look how many cupholders this MPV has!"

I'm all for anything which genuinely improves road safety but I suspect this was a bit of the nanny in action.

I think cars have changed, our relationship with cars has changed, society has changed so the way we advertise cars has changed.

I've not seen much recently, I think that Polestar is the car ad I have seen most recently when at the cinema. I don't watch TV and the adverts on Netflix are for other things (most of which I can't recall)

Some of the best car adverts were odd ones like when Gryf Rhys Jones did those adverts for Vauxhall. Much better than the 2 annoying kids for the Meriva & Zafira. Dean Martin did an excellent one for VW back in the 60s. Papa & Nicole were a remarkably enduring social touch point... Score for Renault there.

The one which ground my gears though was the Fiat Brava / Bravo advert with the 2 kids who go into dad's study and go on his computer "lets see what dad's been checking out on this new fangled internet!" I am amazed nobody did a pastiche of that where it turns out dad was checking out ladyboy hookers or something rather than a new Fiat.

There's a few Nova ads I just uploaded.

Certainly were



I always remember that being a Pirelli advert!

Although they do have the honour of having this:


which paid for Aphex Twins' house (or at least that is the claim)

There's only a couple of car ads that have caught my attention and not because of the cars 2 that spring to mind are:
This 406 ad was the one that introduced me to M People and Heather Small



and the Heycar advert that used a Flo Rida track

Yes, and they had a whole Toyota Camry / Chicken campaign as well

Just remembered another Toyota one 😅