Back before Subaru revised the Tribeca's grille for the '08 model year, but after their marketers realized that American car shoppers were backing away in horror from the crypto-SUV's face, they had what seemed like a great idea: see if they could convince urban gay Americans that the Tribeca would make them look hip! Edgy! Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Still, it's clear that Subaru blew off the focus groups' advice with the first-gen Tribeca's styling, and maybe we need more of that.

Overhead camshaft! Front-wheel drive! Computer-controlled carburetor! Life was good back in '85, because the cheapest Nissan was also the most technologically advanced (though we're pretty sure you couldn't get the futuristic "Door Is Ajar" talking alerts in the Sentra that year). And why don't car ads have voiceovers like the Nissan Guy any more?

What's the best way to show that your car is better than the competition? Slap a huge Malaise decal bearing your car's name on the side, set up the ramps, and jump the competition! It's even got more headroom than the Rabbit, which we all know is roomy enough for Wilt Chamberlain! Then it kicks Honda's ass by having a longitudinally-mounted engine, though we're not sure quite how that's an advantage in a front-wheel-drive car.

"No more sliding windows for Australians considering buying a Mini! Not only that, you can go into multiple spins on wet pavement and recover cleanly- it shows it right there in the ad! We're a little puzzled by the the conversation between the swimsuited man and woman at the beach; we get the "up and down" double entendre, but are we supposed to think that there's some longing for the old sliding Mini windows here?

"30 seconds is hardly a fair amount of time to judge the handling characteristics of any car. One car recognizes that reality." That's why Mercury made a 20-page brochure explaining the suspension of their Tempo clone. We're sure millions dialed up 1-800-MERCFAX so they could read about mysterious features such as front-wheel-drive and independent rear suspension. Hmmm... when's the last time you saw a Topaz?

It's hard to believe there was ever a time without Ford Escorts in North America, but the '81 was the very first (and, miserable as those early Escorts were, they were much better cars than the Pintos they replaced). The SS was the top-of-the-line Escort for '81, with a whopping 65 horsepower driving the front wheels. Thanks to a short flash of a baseball score (and super-obsessed baseball geeks), we know this advertisement was aired on May 23, 1981.

The Porsche 928 may well be the most expensive car ever to get major TV advertising airplay, with the '84 928 listed at $44,000 (that's about 90 Gs in 2008 dollars). It seems wrong that the car in this ad has an automatic, but we can't argue with the sound of roaring engine and squealing tires. However, the 944 Turbo ad of the same era gets a higher rating on the Hoon-O-Meter.

This commercial aired during the first Monday Night Football game in 1970 and proves just what everyone already knew: women can't drive worth a damn and need exceptional tires to compensate for the lack of driving ability. Of course, the woman in the video has to deal with construction, bumpy roads, detours and more while picking up her manly husband from the airport after a very long and manly business trip. It kind of reminds us of the shower scene from Psycho, which is fairly accurate given a woman behind the wheel was like being murdered, at least in the 1970s. [Youtube] (Thanks, Sugi)

Try to imagine a not-so-hot pursuit between a Malaise Triumph Spitfire and a smog-motored mid-70s cop Mopar Ford. Will the single-digit gas mileage of the police car result in a drained fuel tank before the British Leyland build quality of the Spitfire sends it coughing to a halt on the shoulder in a cloud of wire-insulation smoke? We'll never know, because it turns out the Triumph wasn't running from the cops after all. Whew!

Was there any word that summed up the 1980s better than TURBO? Turbocharging was a magical thing back then, with electronic fuel injection finally making the technology work pretty well for street-driven vehicles. Turbocharged cars such as the Mitsubishi Starion and Buick Grand National let everyone know that the Malaise Era was finally over, and Nissan's 200SX Turbo was packed with all manner of 80s-tech gizmos in addition to forced induction. As the man says: "Give me a turbo and I come alive!"

The cage door creeeeeaks open, (perhaps suggesting the rust that will soon assail most Malaise Lincolns and Mercuries), and the angry mountain lion struts out into a field full of parked cars. The Continental... the Marquis... Montego... Comet... Cougar... they're all here, and they're all packing more bloat and less power than ever before.

No car illustrates the concept of Long Term Model Bloat better than the Civic (for a good example of Short Term Model Bloat, compare the 1970 Mercury Cougar with the 1974 version). Here's Honda boasting about the ability of the '78 Civic hatch's ability to swallow four shopping bags. The '78 Civic hatchback weighed 1,708 pounds... about 1,000 pounds less than the '08 Civic sedan.

The Hillman Hunter was the Chrysler Europe machine that eventually became the Iran Khodro Paykan (and was related to many other British cars of its time). In 1970, Australians could buy themselves a rally-ized version called the Hustler, equipped with a twin-carb 1725cc engine, four-speed box, and one of the most bongo-riffic Sideburn Era ads we've ever seen. Here comes Hustler!

While Farrah Fawcett merely allowed a cougar to sit on the roof of her car in her '75 Cougar ad, Cheryl Tiegs lets a mountain lion ride shotgun in her '78 (equipped with the hyper-Malaise "Midnight Chamois" option package). Not only that, but her hair totally out-feathers Farrah's, and her haunted mansion gives her more of an air of mystery. Did we mention the 134-horse 302 that came standard in this 3,800-pound car?

So we got this babe driving down the coast in an old Jaguar and the Charge light comes on. What to do? Why, whip off one of her Pretty Polly stockings and tie it into the exact right length for use as a fan belt (we don't see her adjusting the tension, but we must assume that she's carrying a major set of tools if she's driving that thing out of sight of her garage). What happens next? It probably went like this: Sure, you'd figure there'd be a strict cause/effect relationship between the broken fan belt and the Charge light... but you'd be wrong! There's no such thing as a single equipment failure on an old British car; the broken belt was just a distraction from the real problem. Bad generator? Several connectors going bad at the same moment? Whatever it is, that other stocking isn't going to be much help when the next breakdown takes place a few miles down the coast!

You'll have fun in the sun, "motoring tops-down" in a spiffy new late-70s MGB, TR6, or Spitfire. Note how the horrifyingly ugly bumpers of the Spitfire are barely glimpsed as we see happy Americans driving hundreds of yards with no apparent electrical malfunctions. Sure, British Leyland gave up on the idea of selling MGs and Triumphs in the US just a year or two after this ad, but can't you feel the optimism here?

With most automakers, a claim that one of their cars was able to drive 31,000 miles in eight days with no breakdowns, at an average speed of 154 miles per hour... well, you'd probably call bullshit. But when Mercedes-Benz makes a claim like that, folks tend to believe it (especially back in the 80s, when this ad was made). No wonder a 190 of this era finished in the Top 10 at the last Altamont 24 Hours of LeMons! Hey, is that soundtrack from Dark Side Of The Moon?

Everyone laughs at the Aztek. Poor Aztek! But at least The General was trying something interesting, either ignoring the focus groups or selecting incredibly unrepresentative focus group members when they made their prediction that their über-cladded crypto-minivan would sell like crazy. And, as part of their ad campaign, they got Queer As Folk actor Gale Harold to do an ad for this fine motor vehicle; watch as he scarfs some sushi, then swings to the beat! Can you hear the marketing wizards bandying about words like "hip" and "urban" and "edgy" in their meetings?

When you're caught in flagrante delicto by your special lady's husband and have to flee on foot while dressed in a towel, you might breathe a sigh of relief when you discover he plans to chase you in a Triumph Stag; after all, the timing chains probably won't hold out as long as your legs. But then, in one of those cruel twists of fate that seemed all too common in Malaise Britain, you find yourself in the waking nightmare of being forced to choose another Triumph in which to make your getaway!

A woman who feels great passion for a Chrysler A-body with Slant Six power and takes one on a test drive through a corn field? While we're pleased that Ethel has such an excellent sense of priorities, her mother seems hell-bent on getting her to stick a big icepick through her Mopar-loving frontal lobes, find a husband, and settle down for some serious breeding. But then why does Mom take A-body-addicted Ethel to the Duster pusherman?

You Chicago-area folks might remember Timmy of Long Chevrolet in Elmhurst, in which case you've already been inoculated against the effects of this stunning combo of Malaise Era machinery, bad suits, brain-scouringly bad UHF production values, and Timmy's shouts. Chevettes Chevettes Chevettes!

American automakers aren't the only ones who play the bechmaltzed patriotism card in their ads, nor even the only ones who break out the mawkish country music in those ads. Here Toyota is letting Australians see how loving their land is the same as loving their Toyotas. It's not quite Morning In America, but it's striving for the same lump-in-throat effect.

You could be stuck in a snowdrift, spinning the rear wheels on what appears to be a mid-70s Buick... or you could head on down to your Plymouth dealer and buy one of the fruits of the US Government's bailout of Chrysler Corporation: The 1982 Horizon, Reliant, and TC3! Remember the TC3? Yes, the Plymouth clone of the forgettable Dodge 024... and who could forget the Horizon Miser? Still, these cars helped haul Chrysler out of the abyss.

How is it possible that a car weighing just over 2,200 pounds and equipped with a 2-liter engine can drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles at the maddeningly geriatric speed of 50 miles per hour and manage only a pathetic 32.4 miles per gallon? Yes, that's the best the '74 Capri could do! We're thinking it was the weight of several tons of Malaise pushing down hard on the car during the trip (not to mention the restrictive first-gen catalytic converters and miserable engine compression ratios of the era). The six-cylinder Comet made the same trip and grunted out an Saudi-oil-baron-pleasing 26.6 MPG, so we shudder to imagine the sort of single-digit mileage a 460-equipped Country Squire would have achieved.

Apparently the wholesome singing-and-dancing advertisements Ford used for the '69 American models were so good that they recycled the same concept for their Australian ads the following year. The Aussie musicians and dancers are at least twice as hip as their American counterparts, but that's not saying much; Geetz Romo would likely judge them to be square with slightly rounded corners. Still, check out those Australian Falcons and Fairlanes, all destined for the Lord Humungus' motor pool!

With its crypto-Billy Idol soundtrack and jiggly graphics, this ad for the '91 Escort stands with one foot in the Eighties and the other in the Nineties. Check out that extraordinarily plastic-looking grille, which warned the unwary of the 127 horses under the GT's hood. Perhaps Team Make:Way is onto something with their choice of an early-90s Escort as their 24 Hours of LeMons entry!

Looking for a car with stepless fan blower speed? The '87 Peugeot 505 GTI has you covered! The well-dressed gentleman in this ad (which seems intended for the Canadian market, judging from the "zed" pronunciation of ZF) appears to be a somewhat bewildered car thief who just grabs any parked car that appeals to him. Some nice dirt-road hoonage, too. Too bad Peugeot pulled out of the North American market just a few years after this ad.

Fuselage fenders! Flathead straight-8 engine! Double-duty bumpers! The '42 Olds was a great-looking machine, but unfortunately the real bombshells that were dropping in depressingly large quantity that year put the kibosh on its production. At least you could get more or less the same car in 1946!

While the ol' Chrysler K platform (or, in this case, its AA cousin) was getting a bit long of tooth by 1990, Chrysler was still able to slather plenty of Virtually Velour™, Simu-Leather™, and Petroleo-Wood™ all over the interior, then pay Tina Turner to reference some Willie Dixon:

Some folks built like this, some folks built like that
But the way I'm built, you shouldn't call me fat
Because I'm built for comfort, I ain't built for speed
But I got everything all the good girls need

And, now that we've got that song on our minds, let's hear what Herr Schenker has to contribute to the discussion:

Remember the "Dustbuster" GM minivans? The Trans Sport? The Lumina APV? The Silhouette? Sure, it's only been a little over a decade since they stopped making the things, but just about every last one has disappeared. They can't all have been crushed by now, so where did they go? Into space, of course! Let's let the daughter of famous poet Leonard Nimoy 'splain how UFOs are really time machines!

Can you believe it? Test-drive a new '87 Yugo and you'll get more than 1% of the purchase price in cash, even if you don't buy the car! That's because New England Yugo dealers know that one taste of that vaunted Yugoslavian build quality is enough to make you sign on the line that is dotted. Is it just us, or does Yugo's "Buy yourself a little freedom" theme song have ominous overtones of payoffs to the secret police?

As a young proto-hoon, I was more of a fan of the Smash Up Derby SSPs than of the "standard" SSP cars; since all SSPs were going to bash into baseboards, ankles, etc. at parent-enragin' velocity (which is probably the reason they're no longer made) the ones that featured parts flying off at impact were more entertaining. Still, it's impossible not to love the Railbird, the Flapjack, or the Dodge Super Stocker. If only there had been some way to combine SSPs with Lawn Darts!

After a decade of their vehicles getting vandalized by enraged Rust Belt residents whose local economies were failing faster than the mechanical components in a Ford EXP, Japanese automakers figured they'd better start working on the whole image thing; you know, associate their products with wholesome values from the American heartland, that sort of thing. Toyota went with the happy American farmers schtick in '85, and Nissan decided to break out a rodeo theme for their trucks the same year. The "Major Motion" slogan seems to have been a short-lived one for Nissan- anyone remember it?

So The General makes this seriously 80s-looking ad for the '88 Grand Am, so much of its time that a fine sheen of chlamydia-scented cocaine crystals will form on your TV screen just watching it. But wait! The General notes that nobody is actually buying Grand Ams, so he orders his admeisters to splice in some stuff about desperate-smelling discounts in between the shots of the undernourished-looking Grand Am-lovin' 80s babe. Hmm... you don't see many of these cars around any more...

Those of us who appreciate a Turbo Yugo or a potential 24 Hours of LeMons Yugo know that the little Yugoslavian Fiat 127 shouldn't be considered a mere object of derision. However, Midas joined the Yugo-bashing brigade with this ad making light of a fatal-looking hubris-fueled Yugo wreck. Whatta ya gonna do?

Here's another in a long line of jittery Japanese-market car ads, this one showing how a pack of tie-wearing Toyota shoprats can whomp together an '84 Corolla for fashion-deranged monogloved chopsocky experts and fedora-wearing, flask-in-bottom-drawer newsies alike, all thanks to the mighty powers of the Munificent Plutonium Wrench.

Yes, 53 highway MPG... 24 years ago. The little rebadged Suzuki got the kind of gas mileage that many Prius drivers will never see in real-world driving, but we're betting that today's car buyers would find its noise and lack of cupholders absolutely intolerable. Still, can you do this in a Prius?