Unless, of course, the cargo includes a waterbed and a a few hundred hards of purple shag carpeting!

We see an exquisitely mid-80s British couple having a Silvia-style rendezvous, he with the silver manual-trans car and she in the slushbox red one. Sure, they'd both have looked a lot cooler in TVR 280is, but he'd probably have ended up sliding off the road and into a drainage ditch, while she'd have been incinerated by the inevitable electrical fire.

The Celebrity Eurosport was one of The General's many last-ditch attempts to win back all those un-American traitors who defected to the Honda and Toyota camps after a decade of Chevettes, Citations, and J2000s. It had more interior room than the old rear-wheel-drive Malibu and handled better than the regular Celebrity, but after that it becomes tough to find things to love about this car. But maybe we're all wrong about the Celebrity Eurosport! Maybe pristine unrestored examples will fetch six-figure sums at Barrett-Jackson in a few years!

Actually, the Arrow did all right for its time, certainly a more interesting car than most of the other vaguely sporty economy machines of the Middle Malaise Era. We wish more Arrows were on the street today, but most were crushed decades ago. Thanks to Joe Hardrock for the tip!

That approach made sense, because Datsun dealers were getting tired of all the lust-crazed car shoppers passing them by in favor of custom vans equipped with purple shag carpeting and airbrushed bongs that matched the paint job. Emphasizing the car's "SX appeal" shouldn't have been necessary, though, because the Mid-Malaise 200SX was a good-looking machine that offered decent performance for the time: 97 horsepower in a 2,300-pound, rear-wheel-drive car wasn't too bad by '77 standards.

Check out the laughably cramped passenger compartment in the '77 Datsun King Cab. Why, that microscopic truck would be dwarfed by the '10 Versa! How was it possible that our forefathers accepted such hardships? Truly, they were a stoic and uncomplaining breed.

Here we see a trio of hip Cutlass buyers choosing their Middle Malaise Era rides of choice. The Cutlass Supreme offered "style, value and good gas mileage," while the Cutlass Calais boasted bucket seats, special suspension, and full instrumentation." Naturally, the Cutlass Supreme Brougham was the pinnacle, with "richness inside you'd expect in bigger, more expensive cars."

Of course, we all know now that you pretty much need AWD to negotiate your typical shopping mall parking lot, so maybe Chrysler made a mistake by killing off the Eagle soon after gobbling up AMC in 1987. Could Chrysler have beat Subaru at its own game, had they only kept developing the Eagle?

The Omni/Horizon did its job, which was to provide a semi-homegrown econobox to help replace the captive-import Mitsubishis and keep the revenue flowing until Chrysler could start moving K cars into the showrooms and pay back that big government bailout loan. In fact, this platform continued in production until 1990.

We're a little disappointed that GM didn't recycle the "Mini-Brute" name for later vehicles. What if the Vega Kammback had been the Vega Mini-Brute instead?

The only problem with this deal, of course, was the car itself. By 1983, the early GM J Body (Cavalier, Cimarron, etc.) had already made a name for itself as an all-around miserable car, with reliability problems that made owners wish that Fiat would rethink its retreat from the American marketplace. But hey, a new car for cheap!

We've got babes eating flowers, elephants climbing onto flatbed trucks, Patsy Cline singing, and James Garner!
When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite Datsun ads, then continue with our top Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, Citroën, AMC/Jeep, Mercedes-Benz/Porsche/BMW, and Chevrolet ads.

1978 GLC	1983 Cosmo Big Run	1988 929
Bongo Multivan	Titan	1989 RX-7
1980 RX-7	1980 Cosmo	1967 Cosmo Sport

You can tell that Porsche and Mercedes-Benz were just itching to start showing triple-digit speeds and tire smoke in their ads when Ronald Reagan finally 86'd those Malaise Era restrictions on hoonage in car ads. Sorry, Audi fans, we'll have to find some good vintage ads for you next time (though there is an Audi 4000 ad mixed in at the end of one of the Porsche commercials).
When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite Datsun ads, then continue with our top Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, Citroën, AMC/Jeep, and Chevrolet ads.

1984 Porsche 928S	1994 Porsche 944	1988 Porsche 928S4
1980 Porsche 924	1987 Mercedes-Benz 190	1986 Mercedes-Benz 190
1998 BMW M5	1981 BMW 315	1988 BMW 5 Series

There's a good cross-section of Kenosha advertising style here, from the 60s muscle cars and penny-pinching economy sedans to the Malaise Era favorites and into the Members Only 80s. When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, Citroën, and Chevrolet ads.

1979 Jeep Cherokee	1983 Jeep CJ-7	1987 Jeep Comanche
1976 Jeep CJ-5 Levis	1975 AMC Pacer	1969 AMC Rambler Rebel
1967 AMC Rebel	1967 AMC Ambassador Wagon	1981 AMC Eagle
1969 AMC Javelin	1969 AMC Ambassador	1969 AMC AMX
1973 AMC Gremlin	1979 AMC Spirit

With that futuristic touch-screen dash display, it's no wonder that the forces of evil will stop at nothing to get their hands on the Trofeo. Why, they'll even blow up a hay wagon in their desperation!

The Spirit was built on the aging Gremlin chassis, and you could even get a not-so-quick AMX version. Still, we'd have taken the Spirit over the Chevette, if only for the possibility of getting a 304 V8 with a 4-speed.

When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, Honda, and Chevrolet ads.

1995 XM Pallas	1975 GSX	1987 BX
1973 GS	1980 2CV	1977 GS
1988 AX	1987 AX Hit FM	1985 CX

Of course, that comparison isn't really fair, since the EPA used to run the "highway" test at a much lower speed, plus the Versa has all manner of safety gear and luxury accessories that 210 owners only dreamed about. Still, you'd think that we'd have made more progress on fuel economy in 30 years, no?

We've got 40 years of Honda ads here, from North America, Japan, and Israel. Civics that love leaded gas, 600s that force towns to resize all their parking spaces, and NSXs marketed with Honda nameplates. Just click on the thumbnail to head straight for the original post.
When you're done here, you might enjoy our favorite VW ads, then continue your car-advertising overdose with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury, and Chevrolet ads.

1984 City Turbo	1988 Cyber Sports CRX	1969 1300
1978 Civic	1978 Civic	1971 600
1994 VTEC	1991 NSX	2004 Civic
1988 Cyber Sports	1995 Civic	1986 CRX

The Triumph Mayflower ad, for a car James May condemns as the Ugliest Vehicle Ever Made, is especially puzzling. Did Triumph think that associating their products with some hookwormy clod pounding on a wagon wheel was a good idea?

When you're done here, you might check out our favorite VW ads, then go right on with the Datsun, Toyota, Renault, General Motors, British Leyland, and Chevrolet ads.

1990 Ford Festiva	1932 Ford Model B	1980 Ford Pinto
1984 Ford LTD	1977 Ford Capri	1979 Mercury Zephyr
1980 Mercury Cougar	1982 Ford Granada	1992 UK Fords
1983 Ford F Series	1958 Lincoln	1970 Mercury Monterey
1955 Ford	1986 Ford Taurus	1991 Ford Escort RS2000
1984 Mercury Topaz	1981 Ford Escort	1973 Lincoln/Mercury
1978 Mercury Cougar XR7	1974 Mercury Comet	1969 Australian Fords
1991 Ford Escort GT	1978 Ford Granada	1969 Ford Torino
1989 Ford Taurus	1984 Ford Ranger	1989 Ford Taurus
1986 Ford Sierra XR4	1997 Mercury Grand Marquis	1970 Mercury Comet
1970 Ford Pinto Squire	1986 Mercury Sable	1980 Mercury Capri
1984 Ford Tempo	1977 Ford Thunderbird	1971 Ford Torino
1978 Ford Futura	1972 Ford Pinto	1982 Ford Cortina
1981 Ford Capri	1963 Fairlane Squire	1990 Mercury Topaz
1965 Ford LTD	1968 Ford Torino GT	1966 Lincoln Continental
1978 Fords	1975 Mercury Cougar	1990 Ford Falcon

Autocar has been around forever- since 1895, in fact- and even has the distinction of having fired James May (for inserting a secret message in an issue reading "So you think it's really good yeah you should try making the bloody thing up it's a real pain in the arse"). I'm definitely looking forward to some enjoyable reading with this haul; just a quick flip through the stack produced this sextet of PCH Gold machines, including the 1951 Hillman Minx Magnificent, the 1950 Vauxhalls, the 1962 Triumph Herald, the 1951 Singer 1000, the 1957 Daimler One-O-Four, and the 1961 Wolseley Hornet. Whoa, it's a red-letter day for Wolseley Hornet aficionados! Enjoy:

If you prefer being a nitpicker to being merely observant, you might then point out that the British Leyland name existed only from 1968 to 1986, and thus several of these ads fall outside those boundaries as well. But here at Jalopnik, we defy categorization of obscure European machinery!

When you're done here, you might check out our favorite VW ads, then go right on with the Datsun, Toyota, Mustang, Renault, General Motors, and Chevrolet ads.

1972 Triumph TR6 (USA)	1981 Austin Rover (UK)	1966 Austin Mini (Australia)
1975 Triumph Spitfire (USA)	1970 Hillman Hunter (Australia)	1975 Triumph, MG (USA)
1980 Austin Metro (UK)	1977 Leyland Princess (Germany)	1976 Triumph TR7 (USA)
1973 Triumph (UK)	1976 Leyland Princess (UK)	1974 Triumph Spitfire (USA)
1981 Triumph Acclaim (UK)	2003 MG ZR (Spain)	1977 British Leyland (UK)	1970 Simca 1000 (Spain)

Copyranter has found this 1969 VW print ad comparing the Volks American product line (which would have been the Beetle, Karmann Ghia, Transporter, Fastback, and Squareback) to the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. Tuesday is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, so you can celebrate by buying a Moonlander Captiva, or gnash your teeth over the fact that the supah-cool Lunar Rover wasn't used until later Apollo missions.
[Copyranter]

Yes, yes, we know that the "Umpimp Your Ride" commercials were hilarious, the Beetle-dropped-from-helicopter Corrado ad was a winner, and some folks even mentioned the ad that used that annoying song. We'll get to them on Classic Ad Watch, eventually. Then we heard about this collection of UK-market Volkswagen ads over on MotorTorque and decided it would be best to post it right away. You see, it was so shocking to see that VW's marketers dared to get all eggheady and put a goddamn Dylan Thomas poem in a car ad that we had to share this outrage with y'all! Why, if General Westmoreland hadn't'a kicked Archdude Franz Ferdinand's ass in Grenada, those warm-beer-drinkin' Brits would all be speakin' Afrikaans by now! Anyway, here's the ad, which we're forced to admit is pretty cool… in the same geeked-out-yet-useless way that the Apple Cube was pretty cool. When you're done with that, go watch the other 15 ads.

We've picked out 20 of our favorite VW ads from the Classic Ad Watch series for your enjoyment. From the 1950s through the current decade, from the USA, Germany, South Africa, China, Mexico, and Brazil, these ads cover the highlights of the Volkswagen product line in entertaining fashion

1984 Rabbit	1987 GTI	2005 Caddy	Beetle
1984 GTI	1998 Transporter Syncro	1984 Vanagon	1979 Scirocco
1968 Beetle	1979 Rabbit	1972 Beetle	1981 Vanagon
1970 Karmann Ghia	1958 Beetle	1976 Transporter	1958 Transporter
1955 Beetle	1971 Karmann Ghia	1983 Beetle	1966 Fastback

These ads may not be quite as punishingly 80s as the legendary Cocaine Factory Duster commercial, but they're up there with the rest of the 80s Car Ad contenders. Check out the special scooter, designed to fit in the back of the City!

And that wasn't all! How about a '77 Chevrolet Malibu, a '77 LTD Brougham hardtop, or a terrific '77 Mercury Marquis… all for 2,188 bucks apiece? Or would you take a brand-new Ford EXP instead?

I've learned from my searches for French Project Car Hell candidates that the 505 is by far the most numerous French car available in North America. Is that because the 505's reliability has been so appalling that none of them can wear out, or because they're that good? And what happened to all those 504s?

Admittedly, the 290-horse 318 Poly engine with the twin 4-barrel carbs was a $320 option (the 301 was standard), but what kind of clueless car buyer wouldn't have wanted that setup on a new Mopar wagon? Plymouth Dealer Quick!

10.) Celine Dion Destroys Cities In Her Dodge Colt

Not even musical superstar Celine Dion, seen here in full-on 1980s dance mode, could make the Dodge Colt appealing to a mass audience. In fact, Celine Dion may have made things worse by convincing people they'd scare people away and randomly set fire to parking meters if they purchased one. "Run for your lives! Celine Dion is driving another Chrysler product!"

9.) Susan Lucci's Ford Windstar Star Trek Ripoff

Is All My Children actress Susan Lucci really the best choice to be selling a family van? While it's true she's part of a family, they've had some bizarre things happen to them. Perhaps this concern explains why, for no apparent reason, Susan Lucci is playing a thinly disguised character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since they didn't secure the rights to Star Trek she doesn't get "beamed up" but rather beamed into some sort of strange space above the vehicle just a few feet away.

8.) Jeep's Engineers Kidnapped And Taken To Woods

Chrysler hoped, in vain, a series of minor upgrades to their unpopular models would mean enough sales to prevent them from going under. It didn't work. This ad doesn't work either. Though it's trying to show off how Chrysler engineers are listening, it instead comes off like the company's engineers are so dumb they required a complicated and somewhat creepy trip to the woods to make the connection.

7.) Triumph Wants You To Drive Slowly

Triumph gained a bit of a reputation for poor performance, poor handling, and poor quality in this country. This advertisement for the Triumph Spitfire is meant to be "clever" but instead reminds us of all the problems the car faced. We've watched this commercial many times and have yet to fully ascertain the meaning. Perhaps there was a mistranslation from English to English? Talk about being divided by a common language...

6. )Toby Keith Is A Working Man

Every time country music star Toby Keith touches a Ford truck he has an Amerigasm. Most of the Keith + Ford commercials are light-hearted fun, but this "Working Man" commercial puts the musician into the role of a modern day blue collar worker who, perplexingly, is a one-man construction team. We imagine he probably scared the rest of his crew away by randomly breaking out the guitar and jumping on equipment. Given Keith's wealth and spectacular grooming we don't buy the Willie Loman act.

5.) Renault-AMC Is So Excited!

Before Renault went off to buy Nissan and AMC merged with Chrysler, they briefly tried to sell their own cars in America. And to sell cars in America in the 1980s you better have The Pointer Sisters singing "I'm So Excited." Unfortunately, the product wasn't quite as exciting as the song. Sure, there's a Jeep driving off road, women flashdancing, and 80s yuppies laughing but it doesn't work for all vehicles. Why is the woman leaning all the way back in that Alliance? Why do they all live in a ghost town? Why do they show the same video of a Jeep Wagoneer twice? I'm so.. I'm so... scared.

4.)GM Robot Suicide

This ad, which aired during the Super Bowl, was so bad GM quickly released an edited version and tried to purge the original from our memories. But we remembered. In this commercial a friendly, WALL*Esque robot accidentally drops a screw and is treated like an outcast, sent to live on the streets. After a series of odd jobs the robot decides to jump off a bridge. Given how many people GM had to "let go" and the glib portrayal of suicide, it was a massively stupid thing to do before an audience as large as they one they got during the Super Bowl

3.) Black Gold Datsun!

Hey, remember the 1970s? We wish we didn't either after seeing this commercial for the Black Gold Edition Datsun 280ZX. We're fairly sure this concept was dreamed up in the back room of Studio 54 after a long night of enjoying black tar heroine and goldschläger. Why is everyone so sweaty? What's with the huge porn-stache? Why can't we stop watching it?

2.) Toyota "Saved By Zero" Ad

Toyota deserves an award for alienating the most people possible in 30 seconds without the use of politics, violence, sex, or profanity. At the center of this commercial is the chorus from the song "Saved By Zero" by the band The Fixx. Unfortunately, Toyota used only this ad for a major blitz and it was therefore possible to watch TV during certain sporting events and see it at almost every commercial break. It was so bad a number of people launched online petitions to "make it stop!"

1.) 1980s Plymouth Duster Spandex Nightmare

If you haven't noticed by now, the 1980s is the best decade for the worst car commercials. We can't imagine how expensive this ad was to produce, but it's like a German surrealist film combined with a Cyndi Lauper video to create what we imagine is the closest approximation of one of Prince's nightmares ever put to celluloid. Men in jorts with suspenders, unitards, bad 80's hair, and a chorus that's more infectious than the Ebola virus combine to seriously freak us out.

Do you think the rubber-burning pipe smoker is supposed to be driving some sort of British sports car, or a small-block-powered Deuce Coupe? Thanks to BoingBoing for the inspiration.

Pontiac's bosses had taken the radical step of dropping the "J" from the J2000 name for 1983, and a year later they figured the Sunbird name might as well get slapped onto the end. After all, memories of the Vega/Monza-based H-body Sunbird were still fresh in 1984, and the marketers must have figured that so many potential car buyers had eaten so many dangerous drugs during the late 70s that they might hallucinate a sheen of reliability over their hazy recollections of the H-bodies. Laser sound effects! Coal-powered CGI graphics!

In this series of Pontiac print ads, which covers the postwar period through the Malaise Era, we see how the marketers repositioned Pontiac's image (or whatever the marketing term is) several times over the decades. Prior to the late 1950s, Pontiac was all about car-per-dollar value. Then came the "impress the sophisticates at the country club" era, and you can tell the exact moment at which John Z. De Lorean finally established full control of the division by the focus on engine power and youthful hijinks. Then, of course, Malaise Pontiacs were all about the tape stripes and miles per gallon. The gallery below holds just a fraction of the ads at the original site, so be sure to make the jump and see them all!
[John's Old Car And Truck Ads]

Watch as that Model B flies up Fish Ranch Road (which looks exactly the same today) in top gear, and check out that cool tracking shot through the dealership- why, you can even catch a glimpse of the closer sweating a customer into signing on the line that is dotted! Thanks to Maxichamp for the tip!

We get ads for the 1966 (410), 1967 (510), and 1971 (610) Bluebirds here. The last one, for the '71 Bluebird-U, is a masterpiece of bewildering Japanese salaciousness and makes me want to offer the owner of the DOTS 610 too many dollars for his car. Thanks to LTDScott for the tip!

But if you're building Ford Festivas, you don't need to put in a steel-grate floor in the brake-test area so as to avoid tides of brake fluid ruining your inspectors' steel-toes, as The General was forced to do in Van Nuys. Brakes don't matter! In fact, engine function doesn't even matter. The only thing the Festiva needs to do is be happy! But woe be unto the little Ford that remains as dour as a Camry when its turn comes, because it will never live to become a 24 Hours Of LeMons racer. Thanks to Bubs for the tip!

Ford's marketers seemed to have a special focus on pitching the Mustang's transformative powers to the ladies. A dowdy, lab-coated scientist- no doubt cooking up new varieties of napalm to drop on Charlie Cong- becomes an irresistible man-magnet when she grabs the keys to a new '68 Mustang, while an '81 turns your average Jane into the Queen Of The Club Herpes Discothèque. We've got some good examples of this in our Top Ten Mustang Ads (plus a bonus pair of Mustang siblings to round out the selection).

You like the old-timey car ads? Oh, we got us plenty more! When you're done here, you can head over to the Top 20 Vintage Renault Ads, Top 20 Vintage GM ads, Top 20 Vintage Chevrolet Ads, Top 20 Vintage Datsun ads, Top 20 Vintage Toyota ads, and Top 20 Vintage Chrysler ads. Not enough for you? Go to the Top Car Commercials Of The 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

1981 Mustang	1978 Mustang II Ghia	1985 Mustang
1968 Mustang	1986 Mustang	1979 Mustang
1969 Mustang Mach 1	1968 Shelby Mustang GT	1974 Mustang II
1968 Mustang	1980 Mercury Capri	1968 Mercury Cougar

We've got nearly 50 years of Renault madness here, from North and South America, Africa, and- of course- Europe. And if you manage to slog through every last one… well, you know the drill by now; if this collection is just insufficient Classic Ad Watch action for you, continue with the Top Super Bowl Car Ads, then keep going with our Top 20 Vintage GM ads, Top 20 Vintage Chevrolet Ads, Top 20 Vintage Datsun ads, Top 20 Vintage Toyota ads, and Top 20 Vintage Chrysler ads. Need more? Go to the Top Car Commercials Of The 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

1981 Le Car	1988 5	1961 Dauphine	1986 21
1980 18 Diesel	1987 18	2008 Kangoo	2007 All Models
2002 Mégane	1981 Fuego GTX	1982 5	1982 18i
1983 Fuego Turbo	1999 Clio MTV	1981 5	1985 Encore
1959 Dauphine	1984 Encore	1998 Clio	1966 4