(first posted 9/13/2016) The deliberately anonymous car – a tool for the non-aligned industrial supplier to circumvent an implied preference (or as we will see in a few weeks, liability) in their publicity materials. The artist here did a good job; the car seems both familiar and attractive which is not an easy task when you have to make something up, but to be honest it’s earning most of its goodwill from Pontiac.
I also see a Galaxie rear. You see any thing else?
A single driver side mirror. That’s got to represent a base-model Plymouth.
Most cars back then only had a single outside mirror, even luxury cars. My 71 Mark III only has single drivers side mirror (although a passenger mirror was a rare option)
That is very true during the 1970s and 1980s.
Texas allowed either hearing aids or two external mirrors for the deaf drivers. Many chose the latter and fitted the aftermarket mirrors on the right side of their vehichles. Come to the deaf community centres back then, you would have no doubt seen lot of mismatched mirrors on their vehicles.
Today, almost every vehicle sold has mirrors on both sides.
Thaler,
Actually, the ’69 Mk III had a right side mirror as an option. When the interior was redesigned for ’70, they lost the spot on the right door for the remote control, so they discontinued it, there was no actual right hand mirror option for the ’70-’71 Mk III. An awful oversight given the huge C pillar blind spot!
Side mirrors were optional on base Chryslers too.
Until the mid 70s single driver side mirrors were probably more common than dual. I went on a hunt for dual factory mirrors for my friend’s 69 Cougar Restomod and I may as well been searching for the ark of the covenant to find a car with a pair.
I looked into this for my 69 XR7, but came to conclusion (I may be wrong tho) that a RH mirror didn’t exist.
For 70 such a mirror existed but the mounting point was completely different from 69.
In 69 the mirror mounted on the flat top edge of the door adjacent to the glass. If you had the stainless trim cap on this surface it was shortened by the length of the chrome mounting base of the mirror assy. On the passenger side this strip went to the front edge of the door.
In 70 the mirror mounts, for both sides, were narrow, long, and curved to fit the narrow contour in the gully between the flat next to the glass and the vertical section of the door skin going all the way down.
To have matching 70 mirrors on a 69 would mean having a LH trim strip from a 70 and trying to match the 70 mounting hardware in the gully.
Given my concern for creating rust in that location and not having MY correct mirrors (the 69 XR7 racing mirror has a chrome base while the 70/ are painted body color), I never made the change.
A driver’s side mirror was not standard equipment on many basic American cars until 1965, when it was required. My Dad bought a new ’61 Pontiac Catalina…then went back to the dealer to have a driver’s side mirror installed. Very very few American cars had dual outside mirrors until 1970. The ’70’s is when dual mirrors started becoming popular, 1st on luxury cars and a few sporty cars, then on the full size and mid-size cars, and still were optional on the low price cars. My new ’84 VW Rabbit L (built in US) did not have a right side mirror.
I installed a factory RH mirror on my sisters 1980 Fiesta. You couldn’t order it with the car but the factory kit as available for a fair price. Took a template to locate the spots to drill two holes in the door skin and with the interior trim off involved adding a backing plate and then nuts on two threaded studs from the mirror. Looked great. And as Fiesta mirrors were big gave great field of view coverage.
My first car with a right hand mirror was my ’78 Scirocco. I bought it used, so I don’t know if it was added by previous owner or came with the car. It wasn’t remote, unlike the driver’s door, but otherwise seemed to match the style of the left hand mirror. I’ve had right hand mirrors since (at some point they seem to have become standard?)
I was glad to have it…though I was used to subcompact cars, the Scirocco was pretty low compared to my previous car (also a subcompact but a regular sedan) and I wanted to make sure I could see without looking over my shoulder…despite the pretty good greenhouse on the that car.
Nowdays, for some reason passing on the right seems endemic in the city where I live, so I’m doubly glad to have it…I’ve become a bit of a pokey driver and most people seem to be in much more of a hurry to get somewhere…pretty much keep to the right lane, but it seems on merges onto the highway, people are already at or above the speed limit just getting on, never mind “blending” with those already in the right hand lane, or allowing someone into the exit lane (which doubles as entrance ramp on highways where I live, if not interstates). Think I would have been clipped multiple times (even when I’m not exiting, aggressive drivers don’t seem think I’m driving fast enough even when in the rightmost lane, I’m just in their way).
Similarly, I’ve often been “overdriven” at an exit by someone who doesn’t wait till the dashed lane marker and drives over the solid line such that they don’t permit drivers in front of them to follow highway markers as to moving over into the exit lane…kind of a game of chicken, they count on the driver in front of them checking their right hand mirror to see that they won’t let you into the exit lane even though you try to pull in as soon as the first of the dashed (vs solid) lane markers appears. Hard to believe that they’re that much in a hurry that they’d risk an accident to get ahead of you, but think they judge you as a pokey driver and just want to get ahead of you any way they can even as you are both exiting at the same time, even if there are passing lanes on the frontage road that you’re exiting into. I usually put it down to drivers who think they’re driving in a simulation, not seeming to know or care what effect their aggressiveness has on others. If given the opportunity, pokey drivers like me will try to get over to let them pass as soon as reasonable, but even a few minutes in front of them seems to be too long for them…so much for “sharing” the road. The right hand mirror at least lets me avoid hitting them when they’re trying to occupy the same spot when exiting. Hate to say it, but such tactics seem almost routine where I live.
As far as anonymous car…that’s kind of what I aim for…don’t want to stand out in any way when I’m driving…I just don’t want to be invisible (though it often seems that way …maybe I should just buy a red car?)
This is almost entirely a ’61 Ford. Only the divided grille is Pontiacish.
In most years the advertisers could have saved on “talent” by simply photographing a Plodge or Meteor or Cheviac. Americans wouldn’t catch on.
It’s a ’61 Galaxie with a Pontiac-esque nose, to be sure. But the Pontiac part hits you in the face first…
I see the ’60 Edsel in that grille.
I agree. Maybe with the ’61 Galaxie rear they were thinking ’61 Edsel.
Agree. I saw Ford (or Edsel LoL) except for Pontiac (or Parisienne) grille.
Interesting topic. Architectural renderings are also a good place to find Deliberately Anonymous Cars — and that always surprised me since the people creating the sketches are obviously very talented, yet cars that surround the buildings are often mal-proportioned blobs.
This is one such example — it’s for a proposed Mercury dealership from 1965. Due to the lack of signage on the building, and the completely anonymous cars, I guess the drawing was for a generic Car Dealer boilerplate at the time. Still, it’s amusing to me, though.
Ah, the quintessential 60’s folded plane roof. Those are getting to be kind of an endangered species.
The car in front vaguely reminds me of a Fiat 1300…
I always enjoy spotting cars with a badge or two removed in TV shows, trying to be “any car” due to manufacturers not sponsoring a show. To me it was always as glaring as when the logos got put in your face like GMCs longtime sponsorship of the original CSI.
I remember the 2000-2007 Taurus being popular for being “any car.” Take the blue oval off the front and it became just an anonymous sedan.
Indeed, Herbie in The Love Bug had no VW badging at all, and was never referred to as a Volkswagen, instead being called “The little car,” etc. That all changed when Herbie Rode Again!
Although they tried to avoid Volkswagen logos (as Volkswagen didn’t sponsor the film), a VW logo can be briefly seen on the key as it’s removed from the ignition and on the brake pedal, as well as the Wolfsburg crest on the steering wheel. The car itself is sometimes referred to as a Bug, but never a Beetle, VW, or Volkswagen.
The Love Bug was the last live-action film that Walt Disney was involved in making.
there’s a recent ad for Sonic featuring an anonymous “part car part pickup”, a more elaborate disguise than shaving the badges in this case!
Is that a ’69-ish El Camino door under there?
I still think back to the old “Mission: Impossible” episodes when Checkers were used for “generic eastern European Communist Bloc” cars. You couldn’t get much more generic than that.
Yes, like this one. Note the lack of any badges. (From the amazing IMCDb.org.)
PS: Great idea for a story, Don.
Remember the Mediocrity Sedan? (A disguised 2001-2006 Kia Optima in a Subaru ad from a few years back.)
Yes and although I still have plenty of reservations about the cars themselves, there’s no denying that from a styling standpoint at least, Kia soon left Subaru in the dust during that period. Ironic. The latest Legacy resembles an older Hyundai Elantra in the front.
Dash mounted inside mirror-Chrysler
Or T Bird?
1960 Meteor side trim.
That windshield, cowl and flat deck behind the back seat has some 61 Thunderbird.
Good eye… I see the same.
Something slightly Mopar-ish about that windshield…
Certainly the dash mounted rear view mirror too.
Stainless steel exhaust on that ’61-ish Galaxiac?
If only! 😉
What you need is an AnyCar!
Good God what a mashup!
There was another AnyCar.
Eeek!! If the “Cat In the Hat” had a car…
Kaiser Aluminum used this artwork to advertise the possibilities of aluminum trim in the late ’50s.
On most of the HGTV shows I watch the producers go so far as to cover the exterior nameplates and the emblem on the steering wheel with tape to avoid giving free publicity to a non-sponsor. When they cover logos on shirts, or blur them out, it’s a little cheesy…why to I care if the guy is wearing Under Armor or Polo?!?
You don’t care, but the producer does . . . . . because the show isn’t being paid for those placements!
And with HD and large TV screens those logos show up a lot better than they used to.
So do surgery scars. Apparently there was a big panic amongst the daytime soap casts when HD was introduced.
The 1964-65 Chevelles were bland enough (especially in base trim) to airbrush into “anycars” in the print ads of the day.
The amazing ones were the photos of cars that looked almost like something you might find in a showroom. I remember in particular the rearview of a blue anonycar driving away in a snow scene. The photo covered two pages, a lot of real estate for a tire ad. B.F. Goodrich, perhaps?
Alexis Kow made some of the most iconic artwork for car-related ads and brochures from the ’20s to the late ’50s, especially for Panhard and Hotchkiss.
This beautiful A. Kow poster was for Marchal (headlamps & spark plugs), circa 1950. The car looks like a Hotchkiss sports coupe, but it’s dark enough to remain “anonymous”…
What about when the anonymous car is from a car ad?
Another Alexis Kow design — great Art Deco, but not exactly selling the product…
Ashley Havindon for Chrysler. Snap.
Ettore had had a long day and said he felt “pretty hoarse”…
K-pow!
Hehehehe.
If you had asked me what that car was, without providing the context that it was a generic car for an ad, I would have said it was a hitherto unknown sketch for a ’61 Edsel.
Most Toyota, Hyundai and KIA products until recently.
I remember as a kid in the late ’50’s-early ’60’s seeing cars in some insurance company ads in the Saturday Evening Post at my Grandma’s house. They were in black and white and they always airbrushed the pictures to disguise what they were. My brother and I always looked for these so we could figure out what kind of car they were.
It always used to irritate me on old TV shows when the cops were looking, for example, a “blue 1967 sedan”. My thoughts were, if you know what year it is, surely you can tell what make it is.
YES, that always bugged me as a kid, watching any show where they refused to name the car. It may have been done to avoid problems with advertisers or the producer, but it greatly reduced the authenticity of the dialog, especially between supposedly knowledgeable people.
One of the earlier original NCIS episodes featured a paint sample they identified as from a Ford Taurus. Later, they realized that the Mercury Sable is “the exact same car” according to Abby herself (don’t ask me to spell her last name from memory lol). Next scene, they are walking up to a Mercury Sable owned by their suspect.
Not just because of the cars involved, but I thought it was a clever way to use the cars as a plot point, and I’m sure I’d have thought so if it were a Camry and ES300 or whatever.
SO agree!
It made the police look stupid, if a ten year old kid (me) knew what the car was but they didn’t. Next to the colour and body style, the brand would be the main identifying feature. And how much easier the brand was to tell than the exact year, in most cases. I remember complaining loudly to my parents about this, and being told to shut up!
It’s like those scenes where someone walks into a bar and just asks for “a beer”. Like the drinker doesn’t care what he gets? And the bartender calmly hands over a glass of unspecified liquid which turns out to be just right.
Advertising, and the love of money, has a lot to answer for.
If this ad is circa 1961, the pronounced V of the front bumper is definitely ahead of its time.
Judging from that narrow track, it’s a Canadian Pontiac! :p
Unsurprisingly, it’s a fall 1961 ad, so—in its own way—right up to date. (Shows up in all kinds of places, including Scientific American and the Princeton Alumni Weekly—go figure.)
Some “61/62 Pontiac”, some “61/62 Ford”. The windshield, vent windows are rather “Chrysler like”.
Artist probably asked the boss what he wanted, and he said “mix all of the big 3, but don’t make it recognizable”. I think he did a good job. It’s familiar without being obviously one in particular.