(originally published 9 Feb 2017)
While there’s plenty of room at the rarefied ultraluxury/hypercar top for a practically infinite number of brands, the mass-market motor trade is considerably more cutthroat. And in the mid-late 1970s, Japanese automakers didn’t hesitate to spike the ball when they could, even if it involved some ballistic barrelfishing. What’s the worst letter grade, the one below “D”? Promptly after their release, the aptly-designated “F”-body Dodge Asspain and Plymouth Volawfúl revealed themselves as such. Those cars began falling apart and rusting before they reached the end of the assembly line; they quickly became infamous for pathetic quality and unreliability, and fast became the most-recalled car in the history of the US auto market up to that time.
So today’s feature is a quartet of ads all extolling the high quality of a Toyota by dint of comparison to the Volaré. Unfair? Rude? No, I think not. Opportunistic, really; they were just speaking the truth. (Not many years later, Lee Iacocca shamelessly copycatted the slogan you can hear at about 0:10 in all four films)
I don’t get the first two….Were people really cross shopping Volare/Aspen and the Celica?
I almost understand the Corolla one, But a IMHO, Corona would seem to be the conquest model for disgruntled “F” owners. The other models had other craptastic competition to poke fun at.
That one perplexes me too. In all 4 ads the “owners” are moving “up” from 4 door, bench seat, mid-sized torqueflite equipped sedans to 2 door, 4 cylinder manual-shifted econocars. There’s nothing essentially wrong with this, as in the late ’70’s that was a VERY common chain of events for many new car buyers, but in the advertising it seems a bit odd by today’s standards.
I do love that in every one of these there’s a shot of the happy new owner gleefully shifting gears and actually DRIVING their new cars, rather than today’s car ads where the “features” that are highlighted in most of the ads are infotainment systems or doodads that have little if anything to do with actually piloting the machine. (Actually, I see more ads nowadays highlighting features and options like lane departure warnings, rear view cameras, auto-park or auto-braking features etc. It’s almost as if the industry is throwing up their hands and saying “We know nobody is really inspired to want to drive any more, and we understand that frankly nobody even bothers to focus on trying to do it safely or effiiciently, so here’s some crap to do it for you, since you’ve either forgotten how or never learned to begin with.”
Is that what that thing between the front seats that the driver keeps moving is?
I think that must be some sort of primitive iDrive controller. Can’t figure out where they put the screen, though. 😉
It really was not uncommon during that time. I personally went from a 77 Monte Carlo to a 1981 Escort (stripper one at that) and could not have been more happy at the time. Gas went to over $1 a gallon, which is comical today, but was not fun at the time. Remember, gas pumps were mechanical then, and they were set to only go up to 99.9 cents per gallon, so they had to change the flow to 1/2 and then you doubled the price at the pump until they replaced them. We look back fondly at the barges we drove, but back then, one could not be more hip and stylish than someone behind the wheel of one of these imports or import fighters. Add to that the quality issues surrounding the US makes, the Japanese should have owned the market even more than they did. Only the fact that most of middle America refused to own a foreign car did they not corner the market and kill off the big 3. It took the big 3 realizing how much they stood to lose without improviing to move the needle back, and even now Americans tend to prefer foreign over domestic makes.
The local Shell stations dealt with the 99 cent limitation on their old mechanical pumps by switching from gallons to liters, since that typically brought the price to less than 30 cents/l. Metric measurements were even less widely used then than they are now, and it proved unpopular. When new pumps were fitted they went back to gallons. They may have retrofitted some old pumps too, don’t remember.
The second one makes the most sense, he’s the right age for a newly-empty nest and the change from the dull beige dog-dish-hubcapped Dadmobile to the red sports coupe.
“I almost understand the Corolla one, But a IMHO, Corona would seem to be the conquest model for disgruntled “F” owners.”
I think there are two factors that likely made Toyota think the Corolla might be a better enticement for F-body buyers. First, in terms of price, the Corolla was probably closer to the F-bodies. Second, while a Corolla was obviously much smaller than a F-body any way you look at it, it wouldn’t surprise me if the difference in terms of interior room wasn’t as great as you might think when comparing exterior dimensions, as Japanese cars from this era were typically far more space-efficient than most American cars. So for probably the same ballpark in terms of money, you get a car that’s much better built, much more fuel-efficient, and (while smaller) much more space-efficient.
While the Corona was still smaller the F-bodies, its price was probably more in American mid-size territory. Over time, the Corona had moved into a place where its size/price relationship just did not compute for most Americans, and in the late ’70s/early ’80s it was not a strong seller here. In 1978, Toyota sold 212K Corollas in the U.S. versus just 34K Coronas. Most American carbuyers, even those who were open to buying a foreign car, would not have seen the Corona as a viable substitute for an F-body.
In the first two, it looks like those owners were dealing with the failure of their ill-sorted Chrysler products again, and they had had it. That’s how they found themselves in Toyotas.
I went from a 1970 Torino (not an especially unreliable car) to a 1977 Honda Civic, from V8 to 4, from automatic to 5-speed stick shift. Lots of us did that sort of thing back then because by the standards of the time gas prices had gone up a LOT. I nearly doubled my fuel mileage by going with the Honda. Not just that, those Celicas and Coronas and Corollas, not to mention the products from Nissan (Datsun) and Honda, were just plain a LOT more fun to drive than Detroit’s boats.
The fly in the ointment was the cost of replacement parts.$80.00 for a fuel pump vs $15 for a 318 V8. It seemed their parts at the time were 3 to 5 times more than for American cars. I had 4 imports and then went back to American cars for the last 35 years.
You probably only bought used cars, or kept new cars an exceptionally long time. A typical new car buyer at the time traded every four years or so. Parts like fuel pumps are for the second or third owner to worry about. Oil filters and batteries were identical for a Ford or Toyota, when not purchased at the $tealer.
Yep.never bought a new car in my 66 years on earth and my newest was 9 years old. Mostly have run cars that are 15-25 years old, as of now my oldest is 27 and my newest is 20 a little over my average. I have more important things to spend my money on than cars. My house is paid for, I have no debt and money in the bank all done on never making more than $25,000 a year and a lot of times less than that. I have also been married to same woman for 35 years, raised two children now in their 30’s and have two wonderful grandchildren. Their is more to life than bragging about cars.
“Their (sic) is more to life than bragging about cars.”
Good for you, but what are you doing here? That’s not a slam, but I’m curious. I have bought new cars, but I am also your age, no debt, same wife for 40 years, etc., etc, also about to retire.
I like cars.
Ok, curiosity got the better of me, so I searched for it… Sure enough, old Lido totally aped that line at the 10 second mark in all of these Toyota commercials…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6nmCFTmPnE
…right at the 40 second mark of his LeBaron Commercial.
I had forgotten these. And there were certainly a lot of disgruntled Mopar customers in the 70s, especially those looking for a good inexpensive car like the Valiant and Dart had been.
They also ran a ad comparing a Maverick to the Aspen in 77. Since it was a Ford ad, guess which was the better beater deal.
Hilarious how in the second ad, the actor with the hat is dressed to resemble the official pitchman for the Dodge Aspen, actor Rex Harrison. 🙂
No question, these are aggressive ads. Toyota was hungry for a significant chunk of the F-bodies great initial sales numbers. Chrysler probably deserved these attack ads for unleashing the Volare/Aspen prematurely, with so many unresolved issues. And a long list of recalls. The antithesis of Toyota.
Interesting how none of the ads target the Aspen/Volare wagons, which were the F body sales leaders.
David in Tucson hit the mark. I don’t think the idea behind these ads was to claim that Toyota offered cars in a similar class as the Aspen/Volare (the word, “class”, not referring to quality in any way), but that Toyota guessed that many people were ready to downsize for efficiency. I know, because I was one of them.
The common shot of people shifting into third gear resonated with the fuel mileage thing too. I custom ordered a Pontiac Phoenix in late 1979, one model year after this, and waited 6 months to get a stick (a wasted 6 months, as it turned out).
The car I replaced was a 1976 Aspen, also custom ordered (with my Dad), and also long in the waiting because of our choice of a stick shift. It was an absolute dog. What did those starved Slant Sixes make, something like 80 hp? Dad traded it on a LeBaron with a 318.
And when introduced, the Aspen/Volare was already too big. I was waiting for a smaller Valiant, and what I got was a bigger one. They seemed fat. Downsizing was on. The Rex Harrison commercial didn’t resonate with me.
Oof, all four videos lambaste the F body. That’s pretty harsh.
But true. Lol.
All this F-body bashing. It might have been junk in the US, but it was a veritable hot rod in Korean back in the day. I owned the Aspen in the background while stationed in Korea in 1987. It was brought to Korea when new by a Sergeant Major with authorization to ship a car. He had it two years, realized what a POS the car was and sold it rather than ship it back. I was the latest in a line of 1 year owners. Each owner knew they only had to make the car last a year, then we’d pass it on to the next guy. Not good for maintenance. If a plug went bad, it got replaced – but only that one plug. Yet even with a smog-choked 318, the Aspen could beat any Hyundai Pony, Pony2 or Saehan Maepsy at the stoplight Grand Prix the constituted most of Seoul traffic. The unusual style (for Korea) size and weight of the car seemed to cause most Korean cab drivers to keep just a bit of extra distance. This let the car could cut through the chaotic traffic much faster than you’d expect for such a clumsy car. Even though American cars were rare, by a happy coincidence the Army M880 series truck – which was also used by the Korean Army – all had 318s. Korean mechanics seemed to have no problem when the occasional part was needed. On my watch, I had to get a water pump put in. The roadside garage near where it broke down had no problem quickly finding a new pump despite my total lack of ability to communicate in Korean beyond simple non-mechanical phrases. I’m sure each of the 1 year owners had a similar story. Yet despite a procession of us beating the hell out of this poor Aspen, it still ran pretty darn good when I sold it to my replacement after the 1988 Olympics. Whatever the cars faults in the US market, it was reliable transportation down from the DMZ to Seoul whenever a group of us had a free weekend.
“You asked for it, you got it, Toyota!” Yes, I remember that jingle like it was yesterday. (This of course preceded the long-running “oh what a feeling!” tag line.
My parents had a 76 volare wagon which was a piece of junk, and after that only bought toyotas until my mom bought a Hyundai Sonata.
Okay, maybe I’m a child here but does it sound like farting followed by a very surprised look on the gentleman’s face?
I guess I hear what I want to hear.
Did anyone else notice the “if you can find a better built car than Toyota, buy it” line that would later be reused and subtlely modified by Iacocca in his famous tv commercial for the 1982 LeBaron?
Somebody or other might have, there at the end of the second paragraph of the post. 😉
Everyone who was alive in the 60s or 70s knew someone who owned and loved their Dart or Valiant. And then somehow it morphed into the Aspen/Volare, the deadliest of deadly sins.
Toyota (also Datsun and Honda) was just in the right place at the right time. People who just wanted reliable and dependable transportation were more than happy to give up their crummy F-bodies.
Absolutely. As second or third hand cars, they carried over into the 80s. My first car was a 73 Valiant, bought in 1986. I got two very good years out of it before it was rusted too badly to continue. My brother had a 74 Valiant around the same time. Darts and Valiants seemed to be owned by a lot of young guys in my neighborhood, perhaps on the recommendation of The “Lemon Aid” buying guide of the 1980s. The warm glow of nostalgia for the Dart/Valiant is pleasant, but my first new car, a 1990 Civic DX hatchback seemed light years ahead as a vehicle. No water leaks, no stalling on rainy days, solid build quality and handling.
As bad as those Chrysler F-cars were, GM managed to do much worse with the infamous X-cars for 1980. Today, I bet a lot of people remember the latter far more than than the former.
I went from VW (Rabbits) in the 70s to Toyotas today and am now absolutely delighted NOT to have to fret about unexpected repairs and breakdowns.
I don’t think Toyota expected most viewers to identify the specific car that was breaking down; they just wanted something that looked like a generic new car made by the competition, and a Volare. I actually think Toyota should have stressed reliability over cost savings, rather than the reverse as seen here. Automotive breakdowns aren’t bad merely because they cost you money; quite often it can cause major inconvenience if not outright danger.
That said, these ads remind me of that old “Cheers” episode where Sam Malone due to financial trouble has to sell his Corvette and buy a Plymouth Volare, and spends the rest of the show talking about how crappy and embarrassing it is. Note that this sketch would not have worked with a Valiant or a Corolla.
At least the these ads weren’t infested with “Oh What A Feeling’