52 auto italia
Spider 1750 Veloce was: “Campari, Ascari, Nuvolari,
Guidotti, Fangio. We’ve kept a lot of fast men happy”.
Tough new ‘don’t promote speed’ guidelines started
to come in as time progressed. For instance, UK
guidelines now say, “Speed or acceleration claims must
not be the main selling message of an advertisement”.
Fiat cleverly got round this when advertising its new
Fiat Coupe 20V Turbo – the personification of speed at
launch. This has to be one of the all-time great ad lines:
“In Italy, no one grows up wanting to be a train driver”.
Succinct, cool, smart.
In the 1980s, the Alfa Spider was, “The last of the
red hot sports cars” but ad agencies soon that
morphed into more politically correct but rather duller
tags such as “Cuore Sportivo” and “The legendary
marque of high performance”.
Ferrari has rarely found the need to advertise, since
its products largely sell themselves. But in the early
days, there were some lovely ads celebrating Ferrari’s
success in motorsport, and some classically
understated ads humbly announcing “the new Ferrari” in
the 1960s. Coachbuilders like Pininfarina would
sometimes place ads in the Italian press, too. But after
the 1960s, it was really only local Ferrari dealers who
advertised, not the factory, and there were some very
good examples, particularly in the USA (we love “The
Possible Dream” and “No Theme Park Ever Had a Dream
Like This” for the Ferrari 355). III