Retro Ride: Advertising Art of the American Automobile

Rating:
Summary: What a Ride!
Review: "Retro Ride" by Tony Swan is a wonderful collection of our advertising history when it comes to cars. This is a must have for any classic automobile or advertising collector. I do neither... I simply enjoyed the ride through our past .

Rating:
Summary: Fluid drive art.
Review: For years car ads must have been the ultimate goal for any slick photorealist style artist though I bet there was actually only a small number who could achieve the high standards required by Detroit. The five hundred ad paintings in this book are the pick of the crop. They run from 1923 thru 1965, from the mid-sixties photos were the dominant graphic in car ads.

As these ads were doing their best to put a positive spin on owning a particular make, paintings were the ideal medium to create desire and so much easier to exaggerate reality. A whole society of wee folk was created to spend their lives zooming about town or country, permanently smiling and always waving to somebody along the highway. According to these paintings, most cars would easily accommodate four people in the front. The 1948 Hudson ad (page eighty-five) shows a wee person enjoying '...a heaping portion of roominess and comfort...' sitting on a back seat that looks like it could easily hold six. By the mid-sixties photography had replaced illustrations but the exaggeration continued, have a look at 'Boulevard Photographic' by Jim Williams, the story of Detroit's leading car photo studio.

I found it very interesting that these cars, very precisely painted, were usually placed in a setting that did not require the same amount of accuracy. The more popular makes were shown in everyday situations, pages ninety-four and ninety-five show three super street scenes with everybody looking at the latest model, naturally. Nearly all these ad paintings are anonymous but there are some by well-known artists, Austin Briggs painted the 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air and 1958 Chevrolet Impala, Stan Galli did the 1955 Bel Air and Bernie Fuchs the 1960 Cadillac Coupe De Ville. The ultimate in car art was the work of Art Fitzpatrick (car) and Van Kaufman (background) who created dozens of masterpieces for Pontiac in the fifties and sixties, the book has twenty-two of their ads. Have a look at their web site Fitz-art.

Though this is a lovely book of car ads, I was disappointed by the presentation. Collectors Press editorial style is to make each page of their books as busy as possible. All of the spreads in this one have colored backgrounds and (really annoying) many of the ads are angled and overlap each other, several of them are cropped badly too, so that some of the text is unreadable. It is as if the publishers didn't think the material was very interesting and the pages needed some strong graphic presentation to compensate. It does take the edge of a fine book in my view.

Rating:
Summary: Retro Ride to Disappointment
Review: I probably should have gauged the quality of this book when I opened it and the end piece showed an "English" Corvette Shark with the steering on the right. It isn't until you get to page 165 that you discover that the ad had been reversed.
In his introduction Mr. Swan mentions Ned Jordan and the 1923 "Somewhere West of Laramie" ad - he devotes three paragraphs to it in a three page introduction, but nowhere in the book are any Jordan ads.
Pages 4 & 5 are shaved so tightly that the print nearly falls off the page and a sub head for the TV show "Tales of Wells Fargo" is literally sliced in half. And on page 6, the ad for the Oldsmobile Rocket 88 is so tightly cropped that half the "O" in Oldsmobile is gone and "Hydra" (as in Hydra-matic) is missing the "Hy".
On page 17, the "Buick for Christmas" ad is shaved so tightly at the left and top that the first letters of the ad are barely on the page.Why this was done is a mystery since the ad floats in empty space all around it.
The book proper starts with 1923 and ends in 1965. There are lots of Lincoln ads of the early 1920s but not one Stark Davis ad. A pity since Davis did some of the most breathtaking Lincoln ads of that period. And a Coles Phillips' "Fadeaway" ad for Willys-Overland would have been nice in a collection that purports to be the "Advertising Art of the Automobile".
The absolutely worst example of editing appears on page 40 where the negative for the ad depicting the entire 10 model selection of the 1932 Chevrolets was reversed. It may provide some entertainment for those inclined, to peruse it with a mirror so they can read the copy.
Nash, with its "seats that convert into a bed" designed that started in the 1930s, appears only in two Rambler examples, one on page 155 and the other on page 160, near the end of the book. It is as though the senior Nash line never existed - very sad.
For those of us really interested in the printed art of automobile advertising, this is a must have book, for the sake of the ads themselves, no matter how presented. There is, alas, no index or table of contents for use of the researcher but the book is arranged chronologically, so even if you can't look up your favorite car by name, you can at least go to the year and see if it is there.
It is too bad really, the book could have been so much better. Maybe the second edition?

Rating:
Summary: Fast Ride Through a Long Century
Review: Previous reviews have addressed the attractions this lovely volume has for car lovers. However, I found it a marvelous mirror of American society through the first 2/3rds of the 20th century. Family values, exploration and the desire for the good life characterized pre-depression advertising. Luxury and escapism dominated pre-WW II graphics. Technology and patriotism surfaced during the war. Family themes and safety emerged during the birth of the baby boomers as full station wagons and back seats filled with kids were portrayed. Increasing disposable income in the 50's prompted a return to the freedom of the road, travel and a new emphasis on performance. By the early sixties, couples in romantic situations had replaced families as cars were portrayed as an accessory to a "sexy" lifestyle. The question that remained was whether advertisers established these trends or took their cues from the mood of the country.

Rating:
Summary: A Ride for your Eyes
Review: This is a great coffee table book. Packed with great images that is kind of nice to see compared to vans that now come standard with entertainment centers.

Retro Ride is a fun marketing review. I enjoyed how much some of the ads have not changed over the years. A lot of reference to "getting away" and having more space and later, more power.

I keep the book out for the enjoyment of my family and friends on a daily basis. I can recommend this book if you're looking for a frivolous ride through our early marketing years of the automobile.

Rating:
Summary: Reflects an undeniable nostalgia
Review: Through the reproduction of more than five hundred historical print advertisements in their original form and color, Retro Ride traces the evolution of the automobile and the developing sophistication of the marketing messages that helped to popularize the automobile and forever alter American popular culture. Over a spectrum of five decades ranging from the "Roaring Twenties through the Go-Go Sixties, Retro Ride showcases original print advertizing that provided the consumer public with information and myth with that shaped their perspectives, attitudes and relationships to the automobile. A unique contribution to American popular culture histories, Retro Ride reflects an undeniable nostalgia for those of us who can vividly remember when such cars and such ads offered up automotive visions of affordable paradise and personal fulfillment.