auto italia 51with lines such as “Life doesn’t come with directions”
and “Straight lines are for squares”.
So much for the current Fiat 500. There’s a whole
universe of superb old Italian car ads to remember.
Small Fiats have always been well promoted, usually
with clever ads. Take the American Fiat 600D ad
that asked, “Did Leonardo da Vinci design the first
Fiat?” – all part of a campaign called, “Always Have
At Least One Fiat”. Meanwhile there was something
almost existential about one Fiat X1/9 ad, which
curiously declaimed: “Our mid-engine performer
outperforms itself”.
Lancia ads always had a touch of class about them –
like their owners, some might say. One US Gamma
Coupe advert suggested, “Some Cars Are Better Born
Than Others” (no quibbles there), while the Lancia Delta
was sold with the proposal: “Even if you don’t drive one
of our cars, you probably drive one of our ideas”,
referring to Lancia’s many industry firsts.
When going down memory lane, they say that the
past is a different country. That’s may be true, but
viewing some of the ads from the 1970s and 1980s
today, the past feels like a completely different planet.
For instance, could you now possibly get away with “Try
justifying this to the wife” (Fiat 128 3P)? Or “Get away
from it all with the second best shape in Italy” (cue
swimsuit-clad model standing next to a Fiat Spider). Or
- and this is a notorious one, this – “If it were a lady, it
would get its bottom pinched” (for the Fiat 127 Sport),
under which some graffiti was famously scrawled, “If
this woman was a car she would run you down!”.
In those headstrong days when cigarette companies
were allowed to say that smoking was good for you,
car companies often promoted cars on how fast they
went. Speed is a forbidden area for car ads these days,
but back in ‘of yore-land’ it was to be loudly trumpeted.
Your new Alfa Romeo, for instance, was described as
being so fast that it “leaves Saabs, Audis and BMW 3
Series scrambling in the dust”. That was according to
billboards in the USA advertising the Alfa 75 (badged
‘Milano’ Stateside). Meanwhile, Alfa’s range of models in
the 1970s was said to “make you feel good fast”.
Some speed-idealising promotions were quite clever.
Alfa said of its 2600 range in the 1960s: “If this isn’t
fast enough, take a jet!”, while Alfa’s line for the 1969
GREAT ITALIAN CAR ADS