Great Commercials--Volkswagen "1949 Auto Show"
This VW Beetle commercial ran in the early 1970s (1974, I believe) and is one of their most memorable. Filmed in black and white to give it a "period" feel, it features cameos by some lovely old Detroit iron ... and some actors you might recognize.
0:03 -- That's disc jockey and game show host "Wink" Martindale (anyone remember Tic Tac Dough?) pitching the DeSoto.
0:13 -- I'm not sure who the actress in the long skirt is, but she seems familiar. (Swoosie Kurtz, perhaps?) The car is a 1950 "bullet nose" Studebaker; the 1949 Stude convertible was more conventional in styling.
0:20 -- McLean Stevenson, who most famously played Colonel Henry Blake on M*A*S*H, is the spokesman for Packard.
0:31 -- The Hudson jingle, which sounds exactly like something from 1949, is performed by the best Andrews Sisters imitators I've ever seen. The car looks to be a Commodore Eight.
0:38 -- Off in the corner, the unfashionable little VW bug with its unfashionably nerdy pitchman talking about such unfashionable things as build quality and reliability ... and nobody paying him the slightest attention.
0:49 -- And here comes the punchline: "Of all the promises made at the 1949 Auto Show, we at Volkswagen kept ours." Packard and Studebaker bailed out of the auto business, Chrysler killed off DeSoto, AMC punted away the Hudson brand name; all of them lost their "coolness"--but the un-cool Volkswagen endures. And there lies the virtue of the Beetle: not fashion, not beauty, but dependability.
There's an alternate version of this spot (not available on YouTube) in which another pitchman appears between the Studebaker infobabe and McLean Stevenson. He's standing beside a 1950 Buick Riviera, confidently predicting that "Next year, every car in America will have holes in the sides." That's one non-VW "promise" that seems to have been kept, in a sense. Maybe not every car in America, but in the twenty-first century holes in the sides (simulated exhaust ports) are still featured on Buicks and a few other makes, and available as an aftermarket accessory for others.
Now, if someone would just revive the Hudson Commodore Eight.
--Cookie the Dog's Owner
David Colborne on September 05, 2008 at 10:23 PM
It's a pity Chrysler killed off DeSoto, though I understand there were some rather egregious quality control issues by the end. Then again, Chrysler can't keep together the few brands they have now, so I suspect DeSoto's days were numbered one way or another anyways.
Charles on September 06, 2008 at 08:19 PM
The VW spokesman: Anthony Perkins?
krautmobile on September 06, 2008 at 11:39 PM
That was Wink Martindale doing the DeSoto gig.
krautmobile on September 06, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Guess I should've read the whole post first. McLean Stevenson, what a hoot to see him. Hello Larry?
OldCarGuy on September 15, 2008 at 06:23 AM
Oh man, I loved this! Thanks for bringing it up, Cookie!