When media critic Marshall McLuhan uttered those famous words “the medium is the message,” he could have very well have been talking about the relationship between advertising, consumer behavior and automobile engineering.
The Cadillac LaSalle, the Chrysler Airflow, the Lincoln Zephyr and the Chevrolet Corvair are just some of the cars that have left an impression on the American public with their creative styling and advertising.
“A New Set of Wheels” exhibit, which opened in October at the William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design in Milwaukee, examines this phenomenon through a series of case studies.
Curator Charles Sable said the museum decided to do the car exhibit because he thought it would be interesting to talk about the relationship between car design and advertising. “It’s something people don’t think about,” he says.
The exhibit, which ends March 31, makes its case with vintage print ads and television commercials, including:
Fit to a T
Car magnate Henry Ford sold more than 1 million Model Ts in 1920.
But by 1927, General Motors turned the heat up on Ford. GM President Alfred P. Sloan hired a Stanford University dropout named Harley Earl to create a new car unlike the Model T.
“He [Sloan] really pushed Henry Ford to the max by the mid- to late-’20s,” says Sable. “The idea behind the model change was to get people to buy. Before Sloan, there was no such thing as a model change.”
Earl came up with the 1927 LaSalle, which was advertised as “the companion car to the Cadillac.” Ford grudgingly responded with the Model A.
With the introduction of LaSalle also came automobile advertising as we know it. Automakers began hawking their merchandise via newspaper, magazine and billboard ads. One magazine ad showed the LaSalle in front of a biplane, another in front of a dirigible, beginning an industry trend to showcase the latest automobile model with its counterpart in other types of transportation.
“It was to show how modern the car was,” notes Sable. “And the advertising played right in.”
Moderne muse
In the 1930s, automotive designers such as Earl and Raymond Loewy borrowed streamlining, the technologically advanced aerodynamic look from trains and appliances.
Loewy’s creation was 1934 Chrysler Airflow, the first car whose styling was based on wind tunnel tests to reduce drag and increase performance.
“It wasn’t designed to look streamlined, it was streamlined,” says Barry Dressel, manager of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Mich. The car’s styling dictated a new approach to body construction–all steel, with body trusses bolted directly to the chassis and panels connected to the trusses, a departure from the partially wood framed bodies that were then common.
The Airflow was introduced with great fanfare at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. Ads posed the Airflow against airplanes, boats and trains, and was, in the words of one ad, “The New Way to Travel.”
But the Airflow failed. “The public wasn’t ready for it,” Sable says. “They were dumbfounded; they’d never seen anything like it.”
“It was vastly influential on a worldwide scale but never sold well as a model,” says Dressel. “Unfortunately, the car was so different it took months to sort out major production problems and quality problems engendered by the new type of body. By the time they were sorted out, the launch was spoiled and the reputation of the car was ruined.
“The advertising clearly pointed out the good features, and the car should have sold itself but the other problems doomed it,” he says. “It was the last time anybody simply engineered a good car and let the styling take care of itself.”
Wind song
Though a commercial failure, the Airflow became the model for other cars.
“It became the design leader after it was discontinued in 1937,” says John Heimerl, president of the Airflow Club of America in Akron. “Most competitors used portions of the styling for their new products in 1936 through 1948.”
One of the cars the Airflow influenced is the Lincoln Zephyr, which was produced between 1936 and 1939. Named for the streamlined train, it was natural to set the Zephyr against other types of transportation in its ads.
The 12-cylinder Zephyr was a great success, considering it was the Depression–30,000 were sold in 1937.
Automobile advertising continued full-throttle even during World War II, when production stopped in 1942. The museum displays some wartime Life Magazine ads that depict dramatic battle scenes and essentially say that when the fighting is over, all the technology used to support the war efforts will be applied to new cars.
And technology did make its way onto post-war cars.
Earl was again in the forefront, adding tailfins to cars that mimicked a jet fighter design. The first car to show tail fins, albeit small ones, was the 1948 Cadillac.
“People loved it,” Sable says. “There was actually a waiting list, it was such a popular car. People would buy a Cadillac and share it.” The full-color ads showed the Cadillac beneath the famous Cadillac emblem, which is based on the Cadillac family’s coat of arms.
Compact cool
In 1939, radio pioneer Powel Crosley launched the Crosley, America’s first compact car. The black and white ad for that car emphasized its practicality.
“4,000 miles for $27,” referring to the amount of miles that this gas-efficient car could cover with $27 worth of gasoline. But the Crosley was 20 years before its time, Sable says, because Americans had little interest in an economy car in the post-war period. The car failed and Crosley was out of business by 1952.
Hot wheels
The ’50s were the height of the chrome and tail fins phenomena. And the advertisers milked the look for all it was worth, posing cars in front of the traditional images of jets and boats as well as in front of hotels.
By that time Cadillac had an agreement with Tiffany and Cartier to showcase those companies’ jewels in their automobile ads.
“It was all about luxury,” says Sable. The highest fins at 33 inches were on the 1959 Cadillac, the last car Earl designed before he retired.
“It was the most ostentatious of all Cadillacs,” says Sable. “Of all 1950s cars, I would argue.”
Flower power
Just as the luxury car was at the height of its popularity, small cars such as the Volkswagen Beetle and Chevrolet Corvair began to make inroads. Both had novel rear engines and ads that appeal to a young, hip generation by playing up the cars’ economy and hip look.
Ads were similar to those in the past, but they had more sex appeal. One 1961 ad shows a naval officer with his date in his Corvair parked overlooking a bay with a ship in the foreground. The Corvair failed, not because of its looks but because of the early propensity of the rear axle to fold up while driving.
Volkswagen’s pitch was as a car that never changes, and until it was overtaken in 1997 by the Toyota Corolla, the Beetle was the top-selling car in history.
