Oct 17: A different time

Car advertising sure has changed over the years. It doesn't seem so long ago, but time flies when you are having fun. But long ago, starting in 1959 and continuing until 1971, there was a phenomenal duo in the car advertising business that, made such an impression, they are still celebrated today. The two that I'm talking about are the famous artists, Art Fitzpatrick and Von Kaufman, the "AF and VK" shown on all the painted Pontiac ads from 1959 until 1971. These guys were so good, that for a time in the '60's, John DeLorean, head of Pontiac (and creator of the Back to the Future DeLorean) ruled that no Pontiac ad would be a photo, only the art of these two gents.     

VK died a few years ago, but AF is still going into his '90's and attending events to celebrate their famous ads and the artwork in each one.........

.......Art's mission was to make those big cars seem even longer, lower and wider, but set in a beautiful background painted by Von. The '59 ad above certainly accentuates the length and a key styling feature of those new for '59 Pontiacs. And with that background, we immediately knew that this car was upper class.
       

 Year after year, these beautiful renditions of the current model year Pontiacs graced their ads. How many advertising ideas last for 13 years these days (aside from that darn Energizer bunny, of course)?

 Based on the above pic, this '68 Pontiac was huge, but what beautiful art. Or this '63 Bonneville in front of that columned mansion. Gets the point across, doesn't it?

 When Pontiac introduced the new for '62 Grand Prix, they wanted to emphasize its European flavour, so what better way than to have Von Kaufman do some exotic European locales.......

Sure looked great, but if you've driven these roads, you'd know that anything the size of this American car, just wouldn't have been able to negotiate those twisty coastal roads of France and Italy. The European locales continued throughout the '60's in the GP's ads...........

 And the backgrounds were so good, that you could even identify some of those foreign rides, such as the Peugeot 404  in this French street scene. One might want to question those US licence plates, though.

If you loved cars, these ads would certainly get your attention. If you didn't love them so much, I think that these ads would still get your attention.........

But either way, one has to give credit to this duo for some stunning advertising. Those Pontiacs are particularly beautifully drawn. I even have one of their ads framed and hanging in my office. An attention getter? Absolutely!

And in this one below, you can almost hear the little white suited guy calling out, "The plane, the plane!". Remember that TV show? If not look up Fantasy Island.

In putting together this blog, it was difficult to select just a few examples of Art Fitzpatrick's and Von Kaufman's wonder ads. Almost every one that I saw was blog worthy. Decisions, decisions.

Car advertising sure has changed. Times change. But whichever period's ads one prefers, there is no denying that these were impressive. Miniature time capsules featuring beautiful art. Really representative of the actual cars? Well, maybe not, but that's what showrooms were for.

Until next time.......