I am a bit of a Francophile, I must admit. Voltaire’s Candide is my favorite book; I love listening to Francoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc, and Yves Montand; I dig Truffaut and Godard; and I even enjoy French cars. Therefore, when my wife bought me a bunch of Buick and Pontiac advertisements in French, I enjoyed the best of both worlds. This ad for the brand new ’65 Wildcat roughly translates (according to Google) to “under its seductive appearance, the boldest Buick hides the vivacity of a feline,” or something like that. Wouldn’t you really rather have a French Buick?
Related reading:
Ca Chat Pour Moi. J’aime beaucoup le soixante cinque.
“Ca Chat Pour Moi.”
Try to Google translate that back into English for fun. I’m sure it will make even less sense than it does in French.
FYI, ‘chat’ is French for cat.
And, as one of my high school English teachers once over-generalized: In German, you capitalize almost everything, in French almost nothing, and in English, somewhere in between.
Regardless, I do appreciate anyone who makes a good attempt to write some French. French can be devilishly complicated to master.
Plastic Bertrand. Play on song title. Car is a Wildcat. N’est pas?
OK, got it. Should be:
Ce chat pour moi. = This cat for me.
or:
Ce chat est pour moi. = This cat is for me.
or:
Ce chat est à moi. = This cat is mine.
Damn masculine felines
Hey, English and French capitalization rules are more or less the same! Sentence commencement with capitals, and all proper nouns and titles begin with titles, no?
Not quite the same. For example, in your first sentence, “English and French” would not be capitalized after translation. In French, there seems to be a rule and/or an exception for everything…
Vraiment ! J’oublie les langues d’anglais et de française. Merci bien !
In French, Wildcat translates as “chat sauvage” and the first thing that comes to my mind when someone says “chat sauvage” is a Raccoon! Not a feline!
And in French, “chat” is masculine, (Le chat) and “chatte” is feminine “La chatte”.
“Chat sauvage” is also masculine (and I never heard the term “chatte sauvage”, at least not while speaking about a racoon! Labatt has a cheap brand of beer that’s called “Wildcat” in Canada and it shows some kind of a linx or I don’t know what but that’s not what we have in mind when we say “chat sauvage”!
https://www.google.com/search?q=labbatt+wildcat&num=100&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=oMUPVMSjJ8mkyAS62IDQDg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg&biw=1280&bih=856
Capitalization sometimes differs in French. As an example, the names of months, unless they are at the beginning of a sentence, begin with a lower case letter. “The shortest month is February” would translate as “Le mois le plus court est février”
As for the reason why “la wildcat” doesn’t show upper case letters in this ad is probably the same as why “UNE VALEUR GENERAL MOTORS” is all in upper case letters: Style…
Probably for the same reason, on many “FRIGIDAIRE” appliances of the 1960s, “product of general motors” was spelled in all lower case letters…
http://youtu.be/Kpe_KHDEfgw?t=28s
Big, ostentatious, powerful – the quintessential American car of the mid sixties. Why drive a huge, 4,500 pound, 340 HP 2 door hartop? Because we can! Everything GM made in 1965 looked great and sold like hotcakes. This year just may have been GM at its pinnacle. The slide seemd to begin a year or two later, slowly at first, then a death spiral in the ’80’s and ’90’s.
I assume this ad was for the French Canadian market. I really can’t see may Parisians cross shopping this with Citroens and Simcas.
Perhaps not for Paris, it was more for the French Riviera along Nice and Monaco.
Edit: I spotted some screenshots on IMCDB of American cars in “Le gendarme of St-Tropez”. http://www.imcdb.org/movie_58135-Le-gendarme-de-Saint-Tropez.html
It seems like there are quite a few American cars in old French movies, so they must have sold some over there, but my gut feeling was that these ads were for the French-Canadian market.
“A General Motors Value” (Une Valeur General Motors) as seen under the photo was the tagline in Canadian ads during this period.
There was a 1965 Wildcat Convertible featured in this French movie.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_213772-Buick-Wildcat-1965.html
There was even a French movie named “L’homme à la Buick” featuring a 1967 SportWagon equipped with disc brakes. Disc brakes seemed to be a more popular option in Europe than it was here as I have seen many cars sold there that had specific disc-brake wheels like this SportWagon. My 1967 Riviera GS that was originally sold in Trois-Rivières Québec has disc brakes but just 6% of all Rivieras made that year had them, it was just about as rare on other models.
Here’s the SportWagon that was driven by Fernandel in the movie.
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_75826-Buick-Sportwagon-1967.html
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1904332032/tt0060515?ref_=tt_pv_md_1
Or Parisienne, rather than Parisian, as per GM’s top of the line Pontiac in Canada.
And here in Australia too. Along with the Laurentian.Both had Chevrolet engines and Powerglides.Not sure if the rest of the chassis was Chevrolet or Pontiac.
There were a few, although the engine capacity alone made them strictly for high rollers, to say nothing of the cost of fuel.
Interestingly, going back to the ’30s, bigger, big-engined American cars actually tended to do somewhat better in France and some other European markets — although they couldn’t be said to sell well in any absolute sense — than ones that by American standards were considered smaller and cheaper. The reason was that when you added import duties and taxes, the smaller car was already too expensive for most people and the folks who could afford that much were prepared to pay for the full American experience.
Not usually a full size fan but I like this a lot,even more than the 4 door hardtop version with tattoo style pinstriping I saw in Manchester a few years ago on my way to a Nightwish concert.
If the ad turns out to be for the French market, I think it would be interesting if anyone from France could tell us if they have ever seen of these around and how they are/were seen by the people.
Did you find that on Flickr?! I have the same ad that I scanned years ago! The two door 1965 Wildcats that were made in Canada had standard bucket seats, consoles and tachmeters as well as standard Custom all vinyl interior trim.
Nope, I scanned the one my wife got me…
I have the exact same here:
I have no idea where it came from, could have been from the French-Canadian version of the Reader’s Digest…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50488533@N00/2674295769/in/pool-1612012@N25
My dad’s car, the car I used while learning to drive, and the car I spent many Saturday nights in the back seat of at a drive-in movie.
My mom demanded bucket seats and two doors. My dad just wanted a big-ass car. The Wildcat fit the bill.
Complete envy.
I also have this one:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50488533@N00/2675115354/in/pool-1612012@N25
There is also this one about the 1966 Riviera in French
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50488533@N00/2674295935/in/pool-1612012@N25/
And this one that I think is very interesting about the 1966 Wildcat, see the differences between both ads in this link!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/50488533@N00/2674296175/in/pool-1612012@N25/
Phil, I basically have the same collection you do. Pretty cool. I also have some ’50s Buick ads in French which are equally interesting.
I don’t think I have any French-language ads from the 1950s.
The 4 door 1964-66 Wildcats that were made in Canada were also different from the US models. Some hardtops like my1965 had the same all-vinyl interior as the US-built Wildcat Custom model cloth/vinyl interior with trim from the Electra 225 and Electra 225 Custom was also available (and that was standard in the 4 door post model).
BTW, I do have a French-language owner’s manual for both my 1965 Buick Wildcat and my 1967 Buick Riviera but neither were made for the Canadian market. In fact, they were printed by “General Motors Suisse” (Switzerland) for use in Europe. These manuals do display the odometers in KM/h and omit the information about the cruise control option. I think it was still not available or approved in Europe.
I also have these ads from Japan!
The other one.
So wrong for the Japanese market at the time. But, a few made it into the hands of buyers. Proof of the force of GM in ’65.
Mostly for the Yakusa-these sort of cars have dodgy associations there.
It is interesting that the lady in the ad has her umbrella up so it must be raining but the windows on the car are down. Hope it had vinyl seats!
It certainly had!
All vinyl seats were standard (and the only choice available) for Wildcat coupes in Canada!
Speaking of Francoise Hardy & vintage cars:
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/31/24/8c/31248c03758efee9ccaf5208e345dfd1.jpg
It the risk of having that damn puppet song stuck in my head for the rest of the day, I’ll see your Francoise Hardy and raise you a France Gall…..
I see your France Gall & I’ll trump you w/Francoise in an Eagle Weslake
A non-Google attempt at translation:
I like the way the famous tag line has been rendered, a little more philosophically, in French. I think it translates more like ‘How could one not prefer Buick?’, or more loosely ‘How could you not rather have a Buick?’ .
Magnifique!
Merci beaucoup!
The most popular GM product in Quebec in those days was probably La Biscayne.
Good one!
I will offer up the somewhat heretical opinion that this pictured ’65 Wildcat was (and still is) more attractive than the same year Chevy Impala; even though both share the same basic body shell.
Wasn’t this this the second year for the 3 speed turbohydramatic automatic transmission in the Buick? And Chevy still had their ancient 2 speed “slip ‘n slide” Powerglide??
I’m with you on that. I don’t think the full-size Chev looked ‘complete’ until the 67. The Pontiac, Buick and Caddy from 65 were the pick of the GM bunch stylistically (still a lot of choice there). I wish they made a wagon from the B or C Buick in 65.
Yes, ’67, particularly in Caprice form. Make mine Marina Blue with a black top.
I think the ’65 Impala looks great (except for the too small 14″ wheels that most cars had in 1965). And with the right options, it could have been made much more interesting than any LeSabre. The 1965 LeSabre did have standard 15″ wheels unlike most other GM “B” bodies from that year but it was limited to one engine, the small 300 CI V8 with a two or four barrel carb. Transmissions were either the rare manual 3 speed column shift, two speed Super Turbine 300 or the Super Turbine 400 with the “LeSabre 400” package.
All Buick automatic transmissions had the variable pitch feature that year (in 1964, the newly introduced ST-400 didn’t have the variable pitch stator)
The Wildcat, while sharing it’s “B” body with the LeSabre, had the longer 126″ wheelbase and a boxed frame from the Electra 225 as well as the 401 or 425 engines. In Canada, it also had a standard “Super Turbine 400″ 3 speed automatic transmission while in the States, it could have been ordered with the 3 on tree or a HD version of the Borg Warner T-10 4 speeds with a floor shifter (but most got the optional ST 400 automatic). The Wildcat also had as standard equipment a stronger 9 3/8” rear axle and aluminum brake drums at the front. It was also available with the chrome plated wheels, 2×4 barrel carbs and aluminum valve covers, a console, tach and with fancier interior trim than the LeSabre.
The hardtop coupe and convertible had standard Custom bucket seats, console shifter and a tach in Canada that year. The 4 door models had standard Custom trim and front and rear armrests. The standard equipment in Canada also included power steering and brakes, a clock and courtesy/map lights instead of just a dome lamp. If any 1965 Wildcat was ordered with power windows in Canada, that also included power vents (the power vents were rarely ordered as a separate option on US-built models).
Usually, Canadian models have less standard features than their US counterparts but Buick LeSabre, Invicta and Wildcat models from the early and mid 1960s had more features and nicer interior trim.
My 4 door hardtop will turn 50 in just a few months and it still runs great. I wish I had a two door hardtop like in the ad but I got this one for free 10 years ago!
Simply awesome. Love four door hdtps. We need details on this car!
Details?!
Here it is viewed from the top!
Inside
It lacks air conditioning and tinted windows but it has many other options, including the electronic cruise control, 6 way power seat, vacuum power trunk release, tilt steering wheel, AM-FM radio, power antenna, a rear defroster, power windows/vents and a remote-controlled mirror.
Another view
AM-FM radio
The cruise control still works, and so does the clock!
My neighbor’s cat jumped on the hood of my Wildcat when I arrived home!
Here I stopped to take a picture of the dashboard of another 4 door hardtop, a ’65 Pontiac Parisienne.
What I like so much about hardtops!
On a 5 hour trip to Saguenay.
Simply beautiful car, Phil. Thanks for the pictures.
Thanks for sharing these photos. This is why I love the Wildcat, a good number of them were very well optioned. Very interesting in your earlier comment that they decided to make the power vents a standard part of the power window package, considering how rare power vents tended to be in the US on any car. Some executive made a decision, I like his thinking!
You have the exact interior / exterior color scheme that I had on my ’65 Riviera – my favorite for the year. I thought my Riviera was well equipped with AC, tilt, power windows, seat, vacuum trunk release, deluxe interior and wire wheel covers, but your car is quite amazing with its equipment. That AM/FM may be the rarest feature.
It seems AC was very rare on Canadian cars through at least the 1960’s. You need it where I live with hot & humid summers, but adding an under dash unit would give it a nice period detail. I grew up with under dash air in a ’68 Impala.
I also wish my Wildcat had air conditioning! I collect old GM Frigidaire window air conditioners (as well as all kinds of GM Frigidaire appliances) so I’d really like if the Wildcat could have the factory-installed Frigidaire air conditioner too!
https://www.flickr.com/groups/1704348@N21/pool/33723086@N02/
I attached a picture of my 1966 GM Frigidaire Prestige window air conditioner. The fanciest model available that year and one of the most silent air conditioners ever made.
I’m going to assume that the ad pic is dark metallic blue, same as the ’65 Riviera I once had. I would so love to have this car.
I think it would be pretty likely this brochure most likely came from GM Canada. GM was the “go to” brand in Canada in this era and especially in French Canada, where GM cars were very popular. Growing up in Quebec, I saw both English and French advertising in the era, by the French bylines seems much more sexy. The photos were the same but the French copy often meant something totally different and often terms that were hard to translate, making it more exclusive to its target market. GM was smart enough to do this during this era but the government of Canada was not.
I’ve always been a fan of the early to mid ’60s Buick Wildcat. The family of a girl I grew up with had a new Wildcat every other year starting in ’63. I ended up with the promotional models her dad got from the dealer since my friend had no interest in cars.
I will admit that the French ad is a bit lost on me since my experience in high school French 1 in 9th grade resulted in my passing with a C- on the promise that I would not take French 2. That promise was easily kept.