VIDEO: The Magnificent 5 from Wide-Trac Country
It's been a while since I threw an old TV spot up for your enjoyment (though Dan has done a fine job serving up tasty nostalgia nuggets of late), and John's post on Winding Road's pie-in-the-sky Firebird Trans-Am future-fantasymobile had me flipping through my YouTube faves for something related to our fine flaming-feathered friend from Pontiac.
While that hypothetical TA clearly looks to the 70s for inspiration, I'm going back to the previous decade for today's bit of retro-marketing fun. It's got everything you'd expect: great old cars, entertaining period voice-over work, clever needling of the competition from Mercury, Ford, and Plymouth, plus a soundtrack that somehow lends the whole affair a sense of urgency. In fact, after viewing this I felt a strong desire to fly home in a magnificent new Pontiac Firebird...tonight.
Enjoy! The video's after the jump.
[Source: YouTube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Anton Lang 6:44PM (2/24/2007)
I almost get it.
Cat's are pretty. eg. Jaguars
Horse's are not. eg. Mustang
Fish are fine. eg. Trout, Carp, Flathead, ummm!!
Pontiac Firbird. eg. A Flaming Chicken.
Help me. (After all, I am Australian)
Now what animal would a Monaro be?
Tony
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Alex Nunez 6:50PM (2/24/2007)
Tony,
The fish represents the Plymouth Barracuda.
-Alex
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Anton Lang 7:15PM (2/24/2007)
Hey thanks.
Of course.
We didn't get them here in Australia, other than the very rare converted import.
Chrysler did come here with that 'truly lovely??' Chrysler Royal, and then in the mid sixties, Chrysler set up here with the Valiant, and we got a smaller version of your Challenger, and called it the Valiant Charger, albeit completely reengineered.
All those muscle cars we only admired from afar, other than the imports, Mustang the most prevalent.
Tony.
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BOB 7:48PM (2/24/2007)
________the CAT -- of course, not a Jaguar, but a Mercury Coougar. Good job of putting down the competition, in a day when Pontiac was TOP DOG.
--Even with the somewhat feminine first gen Firebird. No screaming chicken yet: that was later.
Monaro? We got it here with a Pontiac grille -- sorry, but it looked more like a toaster or a mixer to us, so B L A H in styling to our eyes. OK, maybe an opossum, if you must have an animal comparison.
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Anton Lang 7:58PM (2/24/2007)
Bob.
Thanks again.
We didn't get the Cougar either.
Monaro. eg Possum. Gotta love that. Yuk yuk yuk.
Dame Edna would be so proud.
Tony.
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Stéphane Dumas 8:10PM (2/24/2007)
speaking of Monaro, here some ads about the old Monaro and the recent model http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip76XVGhsk0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoeP0T1oxss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww5gKcfHz9w
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naugahyde 12:41AM (2/25/2007)
They should have included a shrimp (anyone? anyone?)
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BOB 4:16AM (2/25/2007)
#4--Nice sixties ads -- so subtle! Reminds me of Brut commercials.
I hear that a lot of them would get stolen at the time ---
You, know, "HERE, TODAY: GONE, MONARO!"
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Daniel Dacey 5:27AM (2/25/2007)
Hey naugahyde,
You know as an Aussie I have cooked my fair number of bbq meals and been to a few as well and in all that time I have never cooked or seen cooked a shrimp. I think that is for the foreign tourists just like Foster beer, which we don't drink either. ;)
Now the ad was nice, even if I didn't get the fish reference either. :)
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naugahyde 10:53PM (2/25/2007)
No D.D., that was not an Aussie allusion, I mentioned a shrimp because that's what Camaro means in Spanish!
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Anton Lang 1:38AM (2/26/2007)
All this shows me one important thing that I'm happy to say that I'm still learning, and that's the differences between two English speaking countries.
Shrimp to Camaro. Very clever.
We say Boot, you guys say Trunk
We say Bonnet. You say Hood.
We say Ute. You say Pickup.
And on it goes.
Each time I read something, I learn something new, like the Mercury Cougar and Plymouth Barracuda of that original ad, which now makes it a very clever ad altogether.
I just loved that 1968 Monaro ad, prices starting from $2575.
Tony.
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chad 9:24AM (2/26/2007)
I hate a 1968 Firebird 400. The other car guys always called it a Fire Chicken. blah.
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chad 9:25AM (2/26/2007)
I HAD no hate the Firebird 400.
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