5 Car Commercials with Great Music: Rides and Rock

Tom Appel

4 years ago

Volkswagen GTI Ad, Car Commercials with Great Music — Volkswagen GTI Ad

I listened to a lot of music in high school, so it stands to reason that my earliest memories of driving are intertwined with recollections of the music I was listening to at the time. I wasn’t into the Rolling Stones yet, but I loved the Beatles, and spent plenty of time shoving Billy Joel, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Dire Straits cassettes into the Radio Shack head unit in my 1976 Pontiac Ventura.

And there’s money to be made on memories like this. Advertisers are good at locating the nostalgia receptors in our brains, and prying loose the positive associations we make with things like cars and music.

What I have gathered here are five of my favorite car commercials featuring great music well employed… the kind of ads that exactly play on memories like mine from high school. I still remember the first time I watched the Volkswagen GTI ad shown below. I would have sold several of my vital organs to for ten minutes of seat time in a GTI after seeing that ad. Fortunately for me, I couldn’t find a ready customer for my spleen.

Have a favorite car commercial? Tell us about it. The place to leave comments is down below.

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