Another week, another trip into the BangShift vault o’ fun here at eastern world HQ. This week, we’re looking at some magazine ads from 1965. I mixed it up some this time with muscle cars stuff, sports car stuff, and some product ads that caught my eye. One thing that always strikes me about these magazines when I thumb through them is the diversity of the cars and products shown and the fact that so many of the ads are about production car racing. From companies selling oil and talking about how it lived at Le Mans or SCCA championship racing to muscle car companies bragging on how they cleaned house in stock eliminator at NHRA national events, “performance” ad copy sure has changed over the years.
Today everyone touts their horsepower numbers and that stuff but since there is (comparatively) so little production car racing, companies really can’t jump on that stuff too hard. Mazda has been the biggest manufacturer in the production sports car racing side of things for a long time now but they have so little competition, they can only really brag on themselves as opposed to hard they are stomping everyone else. After all, when a class is “Spec Miata” who do you throw rocks at?
Highlighting the diversity of cars in these magazines, I tried to spread the love from the muscle car guys to the sporty car guys of ’65 and I think you’ll dig it. Here’s this week’s trip in to the BangShift vintage vault…
CLICK THE ADS TO EXPAND THEM!
How can we not open this thing up with some of the most iconic cars and faces in American racing history. This Castrol ad touts the fact that they won the US Road Racing crowd (because they supplied the oil to Shelby and crew) and that the Manufacturer’s Championship was awarded to the Shelby American Ford Cobra team. This is again a great example of how factory racing and his performance efforts garnered them even more love than you’d imagine because every company involved with the car would also tout their successes.
Dealer accessories now are like running boards, floor mats, and a monogramed mug. 1965 meant that dealer accessories were intake manifolds, camshafts, cylinder heads, and other factory proven and engineered pieces to make your car haul ass. We know Ford and Chevrolet have their performance divisions now but back then it wasn’t so much a “performance” division as much as it was the whole damned company moving these parts. Your dealer had this stuff on the shelf and was more than happy to sell it. They made money hand over fist selling hi-po candy back in the day.
“Valves as big a stove lids,” is one of the great pieces of ad copy we’ve read in some time and a 1965 Coronet with a Hemi in it may be our ultimate want for a muscle car at the current minute. These cars looked cool, had a simple sleeper vibe, and absolutely destroyed the other stuff that was out on the streets at the time. There must have been some serious chest puffing going on when you rolled into the burger joint in anything with a Hemi during this time because people must have gone into a frenzy to look at it and no one wanted to choose of with you when it came time to hammer down at the stoplights.
Honda’s brilliant campaign to turn public opinion in their favor on the motorcycle scene in the 1960s is one of the most well remembered of all time. While people cowered in fear of leather jacketed, Harley riding vandals taking over their towns and having their way with daughters across America, Honda went for the complete opposite approach. It wasn’t about being an outlaw or riding off into the sunset, it was about fun times and nice people. It worked.
This is an interesting little car that I had not heard of before seeing this ad. After some searching, I learned that the car is an Austin Healey Sprite with a sexier body designed by Ghia (as it says across the top of the ad…not sure how I missed that whole concept). There were several cars sold during the 1960s like this in Europe. We’re sure this thing commanded a premium over a standard Sprite because it is Italian in name and it was designed to appeal to a more discerning customer.
This ad just flipping rules. Kind of like a prize fighter listing all of the opponents he has KO’d over the year of fights or an army listing battles they have one, this Mercury ad copy reads like a talisman of awesome from 1965. Note all of the strips in all corners of the country the cars were appearing at, the fact that one of them is listed as a 1/5 mile joint, and the legendary list of tracks. Lions, Union Grove, York US 30, etc.
The Olds 425 was one the company’s first tall deck big block style engine and it sure was a muscle car mill….that never actually appeared in a muscle car. Huh? Yeah, really. Unless you are going to call a Toronado, Olds 88 or Olds 98 a muscle car, this thing was kind of hiding in plain site until the 455 showed up in 1968 and landed in the cars we associate with Olds as being muscle cars. Based off of a forged crank and connecting rods, the 425 was a mover and a shaker and although it wasn’t technically available in any of the mid-sized stuff, hot rodders handled that problem in droves.
We’re heard a million times that the 1965 GTO was the lightest one of the breed. While we’re not sure if that is true or not, the stacked lights and crisp lines of the car will forever remain stylish and cool. Wangers and the Pontiac PR machine kicked the ad stuff into high gear after the explosive success of the 1964 GTO caught everyone by surprise. You can see the myriad of axle ratios and performance options a young guy could check off at his local dealer. Fun times if you were a kid with a job!
[divider]
I like this ad because in my mind I think, “Minutes later these people hit a puddle and the car never ran again.” Triumph Spitfires are good looking cars but they suffer the curse (earned or unfairly hung as it may be) of shoddy electronics that not only didn’t age well, they weren’t born well to start with. That being said, I drove one of these a few years back after a friend bought a nicely restored example and it was fun. The slow kind of fun that comes with old sports cars, but it was a car that you felt immediately fond of because it had that great feeling of a machine that was designed around the driving experience. Just avoid puddles.
I love this ad for all the reasons that you’d never see anything like it today from an OEM manufacturer. Firstly, no one sells anything as a “second car” anymore let alone a “second car” that should be raced! Austin Healey Sprites can still be found at virtually every road race in America, proving that the technique the company took to moving their fun little sports machines worked. We think it was a stroke of brilliance to come in with the angle that the car wasn’t meant to be your every day driver but a fun (and cheap!) escape on the weekends for fun drives or racing with your pals in the sports car club. The claim of the 90mph top speed may be a little on the tall side for a stocker.