Vintage Ad: Win A Whole Family Of 1958 Fords!

WinAFamilyOfFords1958

It’s 1958. You’ve just gone to your local grocery store to buy some canned Dole pineapple chunks, because for whatever reason, fresh fruit just won’t do. You notice that Dole is running a jingle-writing contest, with 254 winners, and the grand prize is winning five cars: one from every Ford division! That would’ve been incentive enough for me to enter, even if I do happen to be allergic to pineapple.

As the contest rules stipulate, entrants must write a two-line jingle beginning with the words, “Dole Pineapple Chunks…”. The grand prize winner would win a family of new Fords, consisting of a Ford 500 hardtop convertible, Edsel Citation convertible, Mercury Colony Park station wagon, Lincoln Continental Mark III sedan, and a Thunderbird coupe. Or if five cars was a bit excessive for you, you could choose any two and get $7,500 in place of the other three. Or if you just wanted cash, you could get $15,000 and no cars. But hey, that’s no fun!

Now I’m sure for many of you, the Thunderbird will raise two glaring red flags. First, you may be thinking that there already is a Ford in the prize with the 500. While it’s true that the Thunderbird was technically a Ford, at this time it was considered its own up-market sub-brand as opposed to the “regular series” Fords. Second, you may notice that the pictured Thunderbird is a ’57 and not a ’58 like the rest of the cars. This is because production of the ’58 Thunderbird was delayed until December 20, 1957. Production of the ’57s was extended into the first three months of 1958, and this ad was published in February 1958.

Now I just need to get into my Don Draper mindset, and think up that Dole jingle…