1975 Oldsmobile: Favorite Car Ads

It wasn’t just Oldsmobile. American carmakers struggled to appear sensitive to the needs to consumers, and then—as now—one big issue for shoppers was the price of fuel. Today gas costs are being pinched by the Iran Conflict, in 1975 it was inflation and the actions of OPEC (the Arab-led Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.)

1975 Oldsmobile: Favorite Car Ads

Gas Prices

Shoppers today looking to spend less on gasoline have options: hybrids, plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, and even downsizing.

The Seventies

In 1975, saving gas might have meant opting for a smaller engine, or purchasing an “economy car,” or “import,” the latter option, though sound from a economic standpoint, carried with it a certain stigma which would be difficult to explain today. By the mid Seventies, most American consumers were still pushing back against the small vehicles being retailed here by the likes of Honda and Toyota.

Oldsmobile

The ad seen here takes something of an odd tack in attempting to make vehicles from the Oldsmobile seem both modern and efficient: too much information.

While advertisers clearly believed that new-car shoppers were willing to do a lot of reading—this ad is text dense—they also seemed to believe that new-car shoppers were willing to do a lot of learning. Assuming that was true, consumers have gotten lazier in the past half century.

Technology

Among the mechanical and technological elements covered in the extensive text found in this single-page ad are:

Catalytic converters (and elements thereof, specifically platinum and palladium)
High-energy ignition
Carburetors
Fuel “modulation” (I don’t know what that means)
Spark timing
Temperature compensation (Again, not sure what this means)
Gearing and shift points
“Economy” axles
Radial tires

One assumes the ad’s writers understood what period consumers wanted to know about—but it is tough to imagine a contemporary audience filtering through all this copy, AND making sense of it all.

Oldsmobile Lineup

It’s interesting to note that, despite the popularity of the Cutlass, Delta 88, and 98, the car featured in the ad is the famously underwhelming Starfire. And while the Starfire likely returned the best fuel economy of all Oldsmobile models, it’s presence front-and-center in this ad speaks volumes about the economic turmoil American consumers were facing in 1975.