Last post was ads from R&T’s August issue. Staying in 1987, this is a little jump in the calendar.
Starting off with a hair-shampoo ad:
Here’s a manufacturer I thought was gone from the US by 1987.
A two-part ad. Turn the page and see this:
Another two part ad. I have to say those seats look really comfy.
I think the car on the left is a “modified” Golf. I mean, look: It’s just a Golf with rectangular headlights. Do you think Hyundai were trying to hint something?
Mercedes-Benz are tapping into their past to promote their present.
Ford going for the quality card in this ad.
This ad makes good use of what we know now as Eighties’ colors.
Well, at least you can’t see its overhangs from this view.
Ford went for quality in the ad above. GM go for safety in theirs.
Anyone ever went for a drive on these “Mazda roads”?
SAAB stretching their wings.
As per usual, we have a different 505 ad on every issue.
Remember how Chrysler used to “hide” the fact they sold Mitsubishi cars under their name, in late-Seventies’ issues? Well, now they flaunt with this ad that has “Japan” written all over it.
Again we have competing ads from the Big Two: Ac-Delco above, Motorcraft below.
This will surely stop any thief from stealing your car. Surely…
Well, this beats all other ads.
Now for classifieds:
So contrary to the Supra above, this corolla does nothing for me at all.
More will follow throughout the week, as usual.
Also, I’ve updated last week’s post Long-Term Affordable Classics with an article from this November issue.
You were close on the Brand-X-ified car in the Hyundai ads. It’s a MkI Jetta with the inboard headlights airbrushed out.
I miss Joe Isuzu.
+1
Nice! Never knew there were advertisements for the Thunderbird Sport. The one in the ad looks just like the one I had.
Love looking at the old classifieds in these, I scroll right to them first in these articles just like I did back in the day reading actual magazines on the shelf. I remember before 911s hit the stratosphere it terms of collector value seeing a lot of modified ones like that slopenose conversion 1970. Now a days that very car has probably been restored back to bone stock and has merely become fodder for a bunch of rich guys at auctions. But looking at it in context of the era that was ridiculously unique combo, a narrowbody slopenose, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before, and probably never will again. Sad really.
The W123 AMG is pretty cool too, I don’t know what it is about those 80s AMGs but for whatever reason the flashy wildness of them just seems so much cooler on the old squarish bodies than the now subtle AMG badge applied to more swoopy Mercs today.
$3K for the Riviera… I’m looking at one for sale here in Austria (http://automobile-riekmann.at/verkauf/buick_riviera_1963_beige.htm) and I was thinking to myself, hmmm, โฌ18.5K ($24K) ain’t bad… I may be tempted to drive up to his place, it’s only 70 miles away etc. etc. (financially it does not make prudent sense this year, not at all, but). Inflation adjusted, it would have been $6,256.58 today. Heh.
I’ll buy a first-gen Riv all day long at that price (even inflation adjusted) today if it’s a good car. The beige, however, would probably be a deal breaker in this case.
Yes, the color really does not do any justice to those lines – they are either metallic or black cars to me. That’s why it is slightly lower priced than what would be the norm for Rivieras in the EU. So you are looking at a color change some time in the future and (to me) another gearbox (I like to do the shifting and the Twin Turbine is really NOT a good feature of this car, particularly if you live in Europe), as well as disk brake conversion, by which time even if you did the work yourself it all adds up.
$6,256.58 is a different ball game…
The AWD Topaz is a pretty rare car… I can’t believe that they actually advertised it.
And that handbrake lock.. interesting.
No wonder Rover/Sterling emphasized safety in that ad……kinda hard to get in an accident with the kids in tow in a car that was perpetually parked behind the dealership waiting for parts from the UK!
Was the AWD Topaz put above the 4wd Trooper on purpose?
And the 3 series BMW and VW Fox? The Fox looks like a very cut-rate attempt to mimic the styling of the “real” German car.
Oh, come on, Chevy wasn’t THAT bad in ’87.
Who said it was?
“Hereโs a manufacturer I thought was gone from the US by 1987.”
oh wait…
Yep, it was the Alfa.
๐
That Delco battery ad gave me a chuckle.
I actually remember when $5 was a big deal..
Thanks for posting these scans. I love this series – very enjoyable.
Me too. For whatever reason they don’t seem to generate many comments, but they are still some of my favorite posts.
I always look at the “ads” posts. More, please.
The T-Bird Sport with the reflection of a traffic light on its windshield is hilarious! I spent my formative years driving an ’87 T-Bird 5.0, and it was NOT a stoplight terror. Zero to 60 times were in the 10 second bracket, which was Lumina Euro 3.1 (remember those?) territory in high school.
It was fast enough for a kid my age though. ๐ And it looked good. I’ll also take the GTA and the Shelby Z if we’re daydreaming.
Berettas were pretty cool when they came out, but I think that luster faded quickly.
It is a pretty goofy ad. That said, FWIW, the Sport was probably a smidge faster than your LX 5.0. The Sport (and Cougar XR-7) both used the 8.8 inch rear with 3.08 gears, which gave it a bit of added scoot off the line. When new they should have been able to get to 60 in a bit over 9 seconds. Hardly fast, but not particularly slow for the times.
Being a very young adult at the time, I managed to wreck the differential in mine, so I replaced it with a 7.5 from a V6 (which had 3.27 gears). It was like adding 25 horsepower! Unfortunately, I had to swap to a speedometer gear with two or three more teeth because the speedometer was wildly fast afterward.
Still, like you said, a car with just OK acceleration is a strange one to be advertising in a street race setting. ๐
That must have made for a fun experience Aaron. I had contemplated replacing my diff with a 3.55, but I didn’t want to treat rear tires like oil changes!
Love the Conquest/Starion. A rather underrated car, and one that it’s quite rare to see anymore.
What’s with that ad featuring 0-50 times instead of 0-60 though? I’ve noticed that in a few others recently posted also. Since the national speed limit was 55, was 0-50 the convention of the times? Granted, it’s no more arbitrary than 60, but at least 0-60 is very close to 0-100 km/h.
Some very cleaver headlines here, especially in the import car ads. I think it was a better age for advertising in many ways.