RE: Ford in 1991: PH Ad Break

[Wills2]

s m said:

GravelMachineGun said:

Do you think in 10-15 years time we'll all be posting Audi adverts on here?

Nah, it's not really my style, know what I mean............


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJa3d17Ktko

The best car advert ever, sheer genius.

[666 SVT]

soad said:

LaurasOtherHalf said:

anyone remember the follow up starring colin & jimmy mcrea for the focus era cars?

This? Ford Focus advert Mcrae

That McRae ad is a real tear jerker now !

[TonyHetherington]

Ok, think of some other famous car adverts?

Got to be this one up there (squeaky VW / earring)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja_6POpnPk8

[anonymous-user]

Twincam16 said:

Munter said:

Twincam16 said:

Thing is, you could still make this advert today (the cars going at high speed were all on rally stages so there wouldn't be any 'encouraging reckless driving' aspects). It's better than any car advert on telly I care to think of. So why doesn't anyone do anything like that any more.

Y'know, an advert that might actually make you feel good about buying a car.

Sorry but you'd fall foul of rule 20.3 here: http://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/~/media/Fi...

20.3 Motoring advertisements must not demonstrate power, acceleration or handling
characteristics except in a clear context of safety. Reference to those characteristics must
not suggest excitement, aggression or competitiveness.

Plenty of demonstrating power and handling there.

God that's depressing.

Who decided on all this? Really? Which Orwellian tosspot decided that we'd better not see a fast car going quickly otherwise we'll all go out and crash. It must be the only policy I can think of that's based on a total lack of evidence, otherwise there would be huge motorway pileups every time the BTCC was on telly.

And yet strangely, immediately after the advert break, you can watch innocent human beings getting sawn in two by machine gun fire, or dying horribly after multiple stab wounds in the film you were watching without hardly any limitation whatsoever...........

[Twincam16]

Max_Torque said:

Twincam16 said:

Munter said:

Twincam16 said:

Thing is, you could still make this advert today (the cars going at high speed were all on rally stages so there wouldn't be any 'encouraging reckless driving' aspects). It's better than any car advert on telly I care to think of. So why doesn't anyone do anything like that any more.

Y'know, an advert that might actually make you feel good about buying a car.

Sorry but you'd fall foul of rule 20.3 here: http://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/~/media/Fi...

20.3 Motoring advertisements must not demonstrate power, acceleration or handling
characteristics except in a clear context of safety. Reference to those characteristics must
not suggest excitement, aggression or competitiveness.

Plenty of demonstrating power and handling there.

God that's depressing.

Who decided on all this? Really? Which Orwellian tosspot decided that we'd better not see a fast car going quickly otherwise we'll all go out and crash. It must be the only policy I can think of that's based on a total lack of evidence, otherwise there would be huge motorway pileups every time the BTCC was on telly.

And yet strangely, immediately after the advert break, you can watch innocent human beings getting sawn in two by machine gun fire, or dying horribly after multiple stab wounds in the film you were watching without hardly any limitation whatsoever...........

- also, nearly every car manufacturer worth its salt with a performance car in the range will do anything it can to get their car on Top Gear, where it will be ragged round a track sideways until smoke pours from its wheelarches and Clarkson/Hammond/May will go on about how incredibly fast it is.

It is the most profitable, most-watched programme on the BBC. Worldwide.

Whoever's the head of Thought Police at the ASA must suffer spasms of shock whenever it's on.

[excel monkey]

TonyHetherington said:

Ok, think of some other famous car adverts?

Got to be this one up there (squeaky VW / earring)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja_6POpnPk8

If we're talking VW adverts, surely the one where the Passat drops through the floor is the best!

Peugeot 405 "Take My Breath Away" advert.
Montego advert with two wheeled driving from Russ Swift.
Renault "Nicole/Papa" adverts for the Clio - average car but massive sales in the UK, the adverts must have helped.
Honda Accord "Cog" advert.

[TonyHetherington]

For some reason I don't remember the 405 one, but the others- good shouts

[Frimley111R]

Twincam16 said:

Baryonyx said:

The Cosworth content, man. Best cars ever made! Legendary stuff from Ford. Great advert too. They don't make them like this anymore. Later on the 90's, car adverts became artistic wk-wagons, nowhere near as good as this sort of thing.

Thing is, you could still make this advert today (the cars going at high speed were all on rally stages so there wouldn't be any 'encouraging reckless driving' aspects). It's better than any car advert on telly I care to think of. So why doesn't anyone do anything like that any more.

Y'know, an advert that might actually make you feel good about buying a car.

Agree! That advert does more from brand building in the Uk than anything else they've ever done.

[DiscoColin]

Someone really should take the board of Ford, lock them up in a room and make them watch all of these ads. Then show them how they advertise today. Ask them if they have yet worked out why so few people would (given the chance) choose them over the German offerings...

Once upon a time, most of the country would rather have had an Escort Cosworth than an M3. Those days are now long gone...

[Dr Interceptor]

God that old Ford advert is fantastic - reminds me of my youth, when we had a string of Sierra XR4x4s, hatches, estates - then somehow we 'upgraded' to a 2.0 LX Spec Mondeo

I still like Fords though, and run a Fiesta Diesel as a daily hack.

I don't think this advert was ever broadcast, just an internet viral - but I always found it funny! http://youtu.be/zGy0Yor-sz0

Plus the evil Ka adverts for the StreetKa when that came out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLIkjWFNAKI

[Baryonyx]

DiscoColin said:

Once upon a time, most of the country would rather have had an Escort Cosworth than an M3. Those days are now long gone...

Though that is more to blame with the common perception that bland German cars are better than anything else. And the fact that now, more people than ever just aren't arsed about driving anything good.

[OllieC]

Steamer said:

Itsallicanafford said:

...I remember this add well when it first came out, thought it was cool then...still cool now!

...was bettered only by the RS2000 'you will be great again' advert

Edited by Itsallicanafford on Friday 1st March 12:58

Both great adverts, again slight irony with the RS2000 advert..

"The people want you back"... yes please!! In original MK2 RWD form though!!

I remember my dad virtually frothing at the mouth when this ad came on, he hated mkv Escorts for some reason ! (big fan of the mk2 though, perhaps thats why)

I thought the ad, and the car was pretty good

the RS2000 was perhaps not great, but a LOT better than a standard mkv, I thought at the time they receive reasonable reviews etc ?

[Drive Blind]

said:

CVH-powered

I amazes me how Ford managed to sell so many vehicles with such a crap engine.

My Dad had 3 CVH engined Escorts and even as a youngster in the back I would be thinking why is the engine so noisy and course?

I remember my first journey in the back of a friends vauxhall and his dad wound the vauxhall lump round to about 5000rpm and I was shocked at the lack of assault on my ears. I didn't realise engines could be that smooth and quiet!

I'm guessing Ford didn't change it because folk kept blindly buying them?

[Baryonyx]

Munter said:

Sorry but you'd fall foul of rule 20.3 here: http://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/~/media/Fi...

20.3 Motoring advertisements must not demonstrate power, acceleration or handling
characteristics except in a clear context of safety. Reference to those characteristics must
not suggest excitement, aggression or competitiveness.

Plenty of demonstrating power and handling there.

The nanny state strikes again. You couldn't even use the song 'Driven By You' in a car advert these days, with lyrics like "high speed, but you know you're in safe hands". The goons would probably take offence at that, before suggesting that Brian May's racy, electric guitar would also encourage people to have fun in their cars, which is also a no-no.

[OllieC]

Drive Blind said:

said:

CVH-powered

I amazes me how Ford managed to sell so many vehicles with such a crap engine.

My Dad had 3 CVH engined Escorts and even as a youngster in the back I would be thinking why is the engine so noisy and course?

I remember my first journey in the back of a friends vauxhall and his dad wound the vauxhall lump round to about 5000rpm and I was shocked at the lack of assault on my ears. I didn't realise engines could be that smooth and quiet!

I'm guessing Ford didn't change it because folk kept blindly buying them?

I'm sure someone can tell us why, but I dont see how the CVH was an improvement over the crossflow !

[Drive Blind]

OllieC said:

the RS2000 was perhaps not great, but a LOT better than a standard mkv, I thought at the time they receive reasonable reviews etc ?

I think Autocar said just that. The RS2000 team should get an award for being able to create such a decent car considering what they started with!

[s m]

OllieC said:

the RS2000 was perhaps not great, but a LOT better than a standard mkv, I thought at the time they receive reasonable reviews etc ?

They did Ollie - some opinions change markedly as the years pass though....

[Twincam16]

excel monkey said:

TonyHetherington said:

Ok, think of some other famous car adverts?

Got to be this one up there (squeaky VW / earring)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja_6POpnPk8

If we're talking VW adverts, surely the one where the Passat drops through the floor is the best!

Peugeot 405 "Take My Breath Away" advert.
Montego advert with two wheeled driving from Russ Swift.
Renault "Nicole/Papa" adverts for the Clio - average car but massive sales in the UK, the adverts must have helped.
Honda Accord "Cog" advert.

For some reason, this one has always stuck in my mind, partly because my parents always drove Fiats when I was a kid, and my Dad very nearly bought a Tempra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2F6OEcWOps

I'd forgotten how good 'Only You' by Praise sounds as well.

[ArnageWRC]

Ah, when Ford had 2 global Motorsport programmes – powering the Benetton F1 team, and with the Ford Escort RS Cosworth.
Now, nothing – they should be in either F1, WRC, WEC.

[Twincam16]

s m said:

OllieC said:

the RS2000 was perhaps not great, but a LOT better than a standard mkv, I thought at the time they receive reasonable reviews etc ?

They did Ollie - some opinions change markedly as the years pass though....

There seem to be many cars that acquire a dreadful reputation in retrospect for no apparent reason at all.

I was on Trigger's Road Tests earlier, and read CAR's road test of the then-new Vauxhall Tigra. Other than being too heavy for its engine (the 1.4 - and they made the point that the 1.6 was fine), they couldn't really find fault with it.

Same goes for the Calibra. I remember when it came out everyone went ga-ga over it. It won armfuls of design awards, its looks were widely compared to the Aston Martin Virage, and I remember my mate's Dad, who worked at a Vauxhall dealership, picking us up from school in it one night - kids chased it down the road cooing over it. Bright red with caramel leather interior. We might as well have been in a Ferrari. Then Vauxhall won the British Touring Car Championship and the 2WD Astra GSis started giving 4WD opposition something to think about on the Network Q RAC Rally. Vauxhall were actually cool in the early '90s.

Nowadays everyone hates them and you can't give them away. It's sort-of unfair.