“Have you ever wondered how the snow plow driver drives to the snow plow?â€
The Ad
The words of a great simple car ad. Brought to us by the same company that introduced the world to Jake from State Farm: DDB Marketing and Advertising. They were one of the original "Madison Ave" agencies. During the 60's they did several ads for Volkswagen. They even won an award for this piece. How does it get any simpler? They ask a simple question. Have you ever wondered how the snowplow driver drives to the snowplow? Sounds like a shower thought doesn't it? Granted Mr. Plow just jumped in his truck. But that's a story for another day. What about the car?
The Car
The early 60's were a great time of growth for Volkswagen in North America. The Beetle in this clip is a 1964 model. Under the hood lives a 1.2L inline four cylinder with a whopping 40 bhp. Standard transmission. There were several color options at the time, including Ruby Red, Bahama Blue, and Panama Beige. Rag top convertible, sunroof or standard roof options too. Over 259,000 Beetles were sold in the US that year alone. Not to mention innovation, Beetle's first year for vinyl upholstery and metal sunroof. I'm sure our snowplow driver wouldn't have minded that metal cover instead of a canvas top. What about staying warm in a Beetle? Seems critical for our snowplow driver right? Check out this video below on how heaters work in a Beetle.
Driving In The Snow
Believe it or not in 1964, the Beetle was one of the best cars to drive in the snow. Shocking I know. There are several reasons why. The primary reason is the fact they were rear engine. All the weight of the was situated over the rear wheels. Which is great for traction. The 125R16 tires are skinny. The car tends to cut through the snow, rather than ride on top of it. The lower center of gravity helps as well. Who would have thought? The Beetle did have one thing against it. It's lack of ground clearance. This car was low to the ground in comparison to others on the road at the time. Very prone to high-centering on ruts and packed snow. But hey, could you imagine the satisfaction of hippy passing a guy in a two-wheel drive pickup stuck on the side of the road in the snow? Check out this clip of this guy whipping around in a Beetle.
Well there you have it folks. How does the snowplow driver get to the plow? In a Volkswagen of course! Till next time, stay safe in the snow.
The commercial clip above kinda caught my eye as I was reading this post on hackaday.com. I do recall seeing this commercial during the late-80s. Note the passenger popping in a cassette-tape! But anyways at the time this commercial won some awards within the advertising community. I can see why. They cleverly synced the motions to the music in the background. The hackaday.com references this video because some interesting folks are experimenting with syncing windshield wipers to music! Very interesting. Sorry this is all I have for the moment. We've been very busy tending to a recent family emergency.
Now for On Screen Car's Super Bowl 2011 Car Commercial Top Pick. The winner is: Miss Evelyn Chevrolet Camaro! Ok, we like a lot of the super bowl commercials this year. However they just were not as funny or clever as usual. But of the car commercials we liked this one the best. We felt it was the most original of the car commercials shown. It does leave you wondering a little bit. What does this have to do with the Super Bowl? Well it really doesn't.
It's just two guys talking about making a good car commercial. Choosing the car, the scene and the driver. Car chase, followed by the lady driving it off a building (a little odd). But all ends well. The driver turns out to be a teacher. All teachers should drive Camaros right? Throw in the specs for the SS model at the end. Leaving me with the words of Tim the Tool Man Taylor, araff araff araff (however ya spell it) more power!. Count'm 426 horses! There ya have it our pick of the bowl.
Above is a commercial produced by General Motors in the early '80s. GM was really pushing "high-tech" in those days. Promoting features like digital dashes and on-board computer diagnostics. Well we can say that on-board computer diagnostics are here to stay. But not many cars use digital gauges. Just seems that it never caught on. But I do remember my brother telling me stories about freaking out the girls when changing the speedo readout from a MPH to KPH. You do the math but 65 looks more like a 100. But hey, it looked cool at 88 miles per hour right?
For those who may have missed one of the greatest Ford Mustang commercials of all time. I've embedded a copy from YouTube. I know it might be a few years late. Especially for late Steve McQueen, whom passed a way in 1980. Using similar techniques used the in the movie Forest Gump, McQueen seems very much alive in this clip.
Field of Dreams
The premise of the clip is based on the popular movie Field of Dreams. Just like in Field of Dreams, a guy is over looking a cornfields with the notion "If you build it, they we come." Quickly a path is cut through the fields and a race track is paved. However instead of bringing back famous Baseball legends, McQueen came out to race a new 2005 Mustang GT. Clips from the movie Bullitt were used to recreate McQueens likeness.
Final Thoughts
As Babe Ruth (fictional quote) said in the movie Sandlot "Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die, follow your heart kid, and you'll never go wrong. " Legends never die here at OnScreenCars.com! See ya next time!
