A Look at question of the Week: What Car Advertising Claim Have You Foolishly Tried to Verify?—WINNER’S UPDATE
WINNER’S ANNOUNCEMENT:
We’re back to announce the winner for our Question of the Week, where our victor will accept a $25 credit for a hat or T-shirt from the BaT Gear Store and the acclaim of their peers.
Our question was: What car advertising claim have you foolishly tried to verify?
Thanks to everyone who participated. You dropped your best tales of automotive consumer verification this week, and today we’re exercising our Editorial Privilege by choosing the comment that stood out to us the most! The prize goes to BaT member @kens, who widened the scope with a quote from a 1980s Ferrari advertising campaign (who knew Ferrari did ad campaigns?):
Look on the bright side—it may not be a Ferrari or a Fortune 500 company, but you’ve ended up with a Busso-swapped mid-engined Lancia! Congratulations, kens! Be sure to check your email to claim your prize.
Now, let’s take a look at some other popular nominations from this week’s discussion thread:
“Definitely tried to emulate the ‘Fly GTI’ Ad used by VW.
There’s a street in Cardiff, Ca that is called Birmingham Dr. & as you drive away from the coastline you encounter 5 or 6 tabletop portions as you ascend the street towards I-5.
With my MK1 GTI I wait for other motorists to leave enough room to challenge myself & the Rabbit to launch & land while chirping the tires on the 2nd & 3rd plateaus, while giggling like the schoolboy I was in 1984 & attempting the same…”
Maneuvers were attempted.
“Porsche: There is no Substitute.
I’ve foolishly tried to drive every other car in existence to verify this claim.”
The origin story behind that famous slogan stemmed from a road test surrounding a trio of 911s in a January 1975 issue of Road & Track, wherein the automotive journalist touched on the seemingly endless options list: “They’ve got you over a barrel: a Porsche is like no other car, and if you want one there’s no substitute.”
“Toyota had an ad saying “Toyota Land Cruiser gets you there… gets you back”
I’ve tried testing that many, many times in all kinds of different conditions and can confirm, it will get you back in anything as long as there is a gas station along the way.”
“The Jaguar Tune Up – the add showed an xke screaming down the road at full throttle suggesting that the best way to get this finniky triple carbureted mechanical ignition cat to purr was to put your foot in it and hang on. I have had the great privledge to test this principle out on many occasions in many xke’s, from the rusted smoking beaters of my youth to the overpriced show queens of matuity. I do believe it actually works.https://ebay.us/m/aWOH2L“
@Fleche_dOr writes:
Well, the statute of limitations has surely run by now.
Ad claim:
Me, in my 1988 928 S4, northbound Interstate 5 just north of Kettleman City in the late 2000s, after the freeway had been freshly resurfaced. I saw about 162 before a car going 70 mph (the speed limit) pulled out in front of me. That let me test the brakes. They were good. Very, very good.
No “creative camerawork and a vaguely-worded disclaimer” required. The 928 proved to be the real deal. It was hands-free stable at 160 and it felt as if it had a little more to go had it not been for an old Toyota pickup truck with gardeners tools in the bed. He was blithely trundling along at 70 when he pulled out to pass a couple of 18-wheelers, totally oblivious to my frantically flashing headlights as I approached at more than twice his speed. I was bummed I didn’t get to fully explore the 928’s speed, but fortunately, the car slowed arrow-straight without any drama.
As to “Foolishly Tried to Verify”, surely a risk to my driving privilege, and maybe for a day, my freedom, so in that sense “foolish”, but not at all dangerous. My sense was that the car could do this all day, every day, so there was no sense of danger whatsoever. Unless you drive exceedingly fast, you will never feel the quality built into premium German cars. I think we can thank the still somewhat unrestricted autobahn for that.
And we’ll wrap up this week’s discussion with a comment from @angushopper:
“Any of you, uh, “older” people remember the series of idiotic Ford TV ads where the Granada was confused with a Mercedes S-Class?
Whether it was at the country club, a wedding or even on the German Autobahn, according to Ford it was easy for anyone to confuse these two cars.
Yeah, well, I’m here to tell you that after driving my grandmother’s on more than a few occasions that never happened, not even once.
That’s it for this week’s Question of the Week! Thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations once again to our winner, kens. We’ll be back with a new question soon.
ORIGINAL POST:
Welcome to the BaT Question of the Week! For those unfamiliar, here are the rules: we ask an automotive-themed question, and the author of our favorite answer from the comments is awarded a $25 credit to the BaT Gear Store.
This week, we drew inspiration from BaT member @Dbalfisto, who told us about trying to float his father’s Beetle like in the commercial above.
“My Dad had a ‘61 in this color and with roof rack. VW advertised they would float. I was 15 and a friend and I tried to drive it in a local reservoir that was just being impounded. It did float but wouldn’t steer and bogged down due to back pressure. Crawled out window and pushed it back to shore. Cranked it watching pea shooters squirt water. It cranked up. We drove it until the floorboards were dry. Did not tell Dad until 10 years later. He couldn’t kill me then, I had kids of my own”
Our question is:
What car advertising claim have you foolishly tried to verify?
Advertisers love to demonstrate their cars in the most outlandish manner possible. There are rules about what sorts of things can be said or shown, but with some creative camerawork and a vaguely-worded disclaimer, a lot of wiggle room can be created. That leaves it up to us, the car-buying public, to probe the veracity of the automakers’ claims.
In Volkswagen’s case, they made a joke of their disclaimer: The VW will definitely float, but it will not float indefinitely.
A truly diabolical demonstration was used to sell the ’72 Mercury Monterey; the cruiser was loaded with an explosive bottle of nitro carbol and remotely tested out on the roads of Fort Stockton. And it survived—at least long enough to be photographed…
You get the point. So now we’ll pass it off to you!
What car advertising claim have you foolishly tried to verify?
Tell us all about it in the comments, and give a thumbs-up to any nominations that grab your attention. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.
“When Ferrari introduced the 308 GTS, their advertisement read; “What Can Be Conceived Can Be Created”. Well, that opened the door to a fifteen year engine swap project. I introduced an Alfa Romeo V6 3.0 24V into a mid-engine Lancia. I am rather certain that for the same amount of time and effort, I could have created a Fortune 500 company.”
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