When Car Marketing Had No Brakes

Flick through a motoring magazine from the 1950s, 60s or 70s and you will find car adverts that are jaw-dropping by modern standards. Safety warnings were rare, claims were bold to the point of fantasy, and the tone often makes you wince and laugh at the same time. Here is a tour through some of the strangest motoring marketing ever put in front of the public.

Smoking at the Wheel Was a Selling Point

In the mid twentieth century, cigarettes and cars went hand in hand in advertising. Manufacturers proudly showed off dashboard lighters and ashtrays as luxury features, and print ads regularly featured a relaxed driver puffing away with one hand on the wheel. One famous campaign leaned on the idea that a particular saloon was so smooth you could enjoy a cigarette without spilling any ash. Try running that past an advertising watchdog today.

"Built for Men" and Other Cringes

A huge slice of vintage car advertising divided the world neatly and awkwardly into what it assumed men and women wanted. Powerful engines and rugged styling were pitched squarely at men, while smaller cars were marketed to women with lines about how easy they were to park and how they matched your outfit. One notorious advert suggested a compact runabout was the perfect "second car" for the wife to do the shopping in. These campaigns now read like a museum of attitudes we have thankfully left behind.

Speed With Zero Consequences

Before modern rules on promoting dangerous driving, adverts happily celebrated flat-out speed. Cars were shown roaring along country lanes, kicking up dust, overtaking on blind bends, all presented as pure joy with no hint of risk. One campaign boasted about how quickly its model could leave everything else behind at the lights. Advertising standards bodies now clamp down hard on anything that glamorises reckless driving, so these ads survive only as period curiosities.

The Miracle Fuel Claims

Motoring adverts of the past loved a big number. Fuel economy figures were quoted with wild confidence, sometimes based on gentle downhill test runs that no real driver would ever replicate. Some ads implied a tank of petrol would practically last forever. Others claimed near-magical reliability, suggesting the car would simply never break down. Modern rules require claims to be substantiated, which would have deflated a good chunk of these campaigns instantly.

Children Bouncing Around the Cabin

Perhaps the most startling thing to modern eyes is how family adverts treated safety. Children are shown standing on back seats, leaning out of windows, or sprawled across the parcel shelf, all with beaming smiles and not a seatbelt in sight. The car was sold on space and comfort, and the idea of restraining passengers barely featured. Given how central safety is to car marketing now, these images feel like they come from another planet.

Animals, Celebrities and Sheer Oddity

Some vintage campaigns were just plain strange. There were adverts featuring animals apparently endorsing a family estate, talking cars decades before films made it fashionable, and slogans so odd that nobody was quite sure what was being sold. One campaign compared a car to a tiger for reasons that made more sense in a boardroom than on paper. Weird worked, and plenty of these oddities became more memorable than the sensible ads around them.

Why It All Changed

Advertising standards tightened across the decades as attitudes to health, safety and fairness shifted. Rules now govern claims about performance, fuel economy, emissions, safe driving and stereotyping. That is why today's car adverts tend to focus on technology, efficiency and lifestyle rather than smoke rings and blind-bend overtakes. Something is lost in charm, perhaps, but a great deal is gained in honesty and responsibility.

From Showroom Star to Scrap Yard

Many of the cars that starred in these bonkers old adverts are long gone, recycled decades ago as newer models arrived. Every era of motoring eventually reaches the end of the road, and today that final chapter is handled far more responsibly than it once was. If your own car has reached the end of its story, you can get an instant scrap car quote or learn more about responsible vehicle recycling (https://www.motorwise.com/index.cfm/about). The adverts may not have aged well, but proper recycling certainly has.