The word “meh,” despite its meaning, is interesting. The origins could be from Yiddish, but most now agree that it was popularized by the Simpsons. The usage, however, is not in dispute at all: boring, dull, unremarkable, unable to have shits donated, bland. We use it in our own Meh Car Monday series, and recently…
Back in 1969, a full-page ad for a car in a major magazine like Road & Track wasn’t cheap, especially for a company like British Leyland, which didn’t exactly have the resources for their American operations like, say, Ford or GM. That’s why you’d think you’d make a full-page ad with some actual pictures of the car…
To us humans, the Ford Focus RS doesn’t really need a flowery description to sell it. Most already know it’s one of the most powerful and enjoyable hot hatchbacks on the market. Apparently our future electronic overlords disagree, and now a bot for Autotrader has penned an overview of the RS for an Idaho dealership…
Swiss artist Adrian Falkner, who signs his work as Smash 137, has filed a lawsuit against General Motors for featuring his commissioned graffiti artwork in a Cadillac campaign ad, claiming the automaker’s photos featured on social media infringed on the copyrights of his work.
Chrysler has somehow managed to highlight the Chrysler Pacifica’s biggest flaw in this commercial featuring actor Kathryn Hahn. That biggest flaw, as we noted in our review, is a shifter dial that can easily be mistaken for a volume knob, and Chrysler appears to show Hahn doing just that in this commercial.
Today’s carmakers are thrilled with all of the new features they can integrate into their digital dashboards but all I can think of is how Toyota put a working TV right in front of your face all the way back in the Bubble Era. Well, not in front of your face exactly.
Back in the 1980s, Japan’s carmakers were on a tear to make the most advanced, well-engineered mass produced cars the world had ever seen. Also, they were committed to making the trippiest ads promoting those cars as humanly possible.
In these dark times, I find it is helpful to submerge myself in a bath of liquid car-nostalgia. I forget my pain and my troubles by going back to an era when people wanted nothing more than two doors, a silky smooth inline-six engine, plush leather seats, and extremely questionable business models. Friend, let’s go…
The famous Disney pantheon of characters—Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto, and so on—have never really needed to shill for non-Disney products, because, let’s face it, for cartoon characters, they’re all richer than God. But, once, very briefly, this wasn’t the case: Disney characters went out and hustled…
Jeep, which is a car company, ran an ad during the Super Bowl which showed one of its Jeeps driving across a stream. Now, the fish people are mad. Really mad.
Ram debuted an ad at the Super Bowl last night featuring the appropriated words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. If you haven’t seen it, it was bad and dumb, and has been derided pretty much across the board. But it’s not just the use of King’s words to sell trucks that got it wrong—it’s what the rest of…
The Super Bowl! It’s the big football game when all the brands try and make you feel deep feelings in hopes you’ll buy their dumb shit. I don’t want to speak for the man, but I’m guessing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wouldn’t have been a great fan, seeing as how he once said “the evils of capitalism are as real as…
For those of you out car shopping this holiday season, you will likely see some dealers advertising some “free” giveaways with your car purchase. These things could include a TV, some oil changes, or even a free vacation. I hate to be the one to break this to you, but none of this stuff is actually “free.”
Back in 2008, Honda wanted to be cute and destroy a stretch of California road with grooves spaced out to play “The William Tell Overture” in tire noise as you drove across it. Well they got the grooves wrong and it sounded terrible. Not just the first time—the road workers got it wrong again when they had to relocate…
Toyota, determined to make every last one of you believe the universe’s flagship beige sedan is cool, will now let the emojis do the work. But they’ll be straight from your nightmares—animated on the heads of humans, in a more terrifying manner than any Headless Horseman or Jack in the Box guy you’ve ever seen.
You probably thought things were bad when Chevrolet’s oblivious marketing team decided the company’s awful “Real People. Not Actors.” ads wouldn’t be going away anytime soon. But the world has a funny way of making bad things worse, and now Mazda has started doing the same style of commercials.
Depending on your sense of history, you might remember when Volvos were deemed “boxy but nice.” Maybe even farther back you recall the sleek P1800. But no matter what era you’re from, you almost certainly equate Volvo with safety. And believe it or not, Volvo’s advertising hasn’t followed the plot in a long time, and…
