The best (and worst) British car adverts of the 90s
Vic and Bob, Dennis Hopper, Brian May form an unlikely cast of characters - plus why all 90s car adverts looked like sitcoms.
It’s week five of the AdTurds newsletter, where I demolish bad adverts and share a few that I admire. I hit 150 subscribers a few days ago and while the landmark is meaningless in and of itself it was astonishingly validating in a way that few professional engagements are. Thanks to you all!
Something different today because, well why not? Don’t forget to send this to literally everyone you’ve ever met, including all the other newsletters you subscribe to and can barely keep pace with.
I used to be a motoring journalist in another life. It left me with an appreciation for the fine balance between ride comfort and handling, the ability to translate torque from newton metres to pound-feet in my head and the inviolable importance of cup-holders. It also inspired what some might call an unhealthy interest in car adverts.
Not just any old car adverts, mind, because there’s a load of old rubbish out there. No, just the funny ones, the ones that seemed to say something about the human condition and – yes – the odd really shit one too. It is what I’m known for after all.
As a time capsule of British society at the time it’s fascinating. The 90s were perhaps the first decade where I was especially aware of what life was actually like in Britain: music, comedy, politics, society, ladies’ bras…. As a result it’s sort of fossilised in my head as what life is supposed to be like; the template. In a way you never expect things to deviate from that template. But how they do. Looking back at these adverts now it feels like a faintly comical vision of a world that never actually existed. How could it? It looks absolutely bloody ridiculous.
I present what will probably be a trip down memory lane for some readers, or a bewildering, disturbing and scarcely believable view of what the world looked like just 30 years ago – through the prism of car adverts anyway.
What follows are the best 90’s car adverts to give a flavour of the decade: the rise of adverts focusing on the environment, female customers (often at the expense of men who are portrayed variously as gullible, boring, sleazy and downright idiotic) and developing technologies are rife. And the music… good God the music. If sounds could look like denim trousers and a suit jacket, this is it.
It was a brave new world – for a while.
Renault Clio Advert X Vic and Bob Advert
I love Vic and Bob, obviously, but even I’m struggling to see the relation between Renault’s perennial supermini and the lovable North-Eastern comedians. Here the Papa and Nicole series comes to a climax, with Bob appearing at a wedding where it appears Vic Reeves and Nicole are to be married. Playing the Dustin Hoffman role is Bob, who whisks Nicole away in his trusty Clio. Why? I don’t know. But hopefully Uncle Peter was in the boot.
Ad fact 1: only five words were ever uttered in this series of 90’s ads – the aforementioned ‘Papa’ and ‘Nicole’, ‘Maman’ ‘Yes!’ and ‘Bob’.
Ad fact 2: Nicole was played by Estelle Skornik, who would’ve been an internet search engine sensation if the web had been a thing in 1998.
Ford Cougar X Dennis Hopper Advert
Dennis Hopper races a 60s Easy Rider version of himself in a Ford Cougar – a car bedecked in Ford’s late-90s New Edge design, and stubbornly eschewing the idea that all things 90s are cool again. The subtext practically screams at you. Over-the-hill? Struggling to maintain a erection? Can’t afford a Porsche? Buy a Ford Cougar.
This being the world of Dennis Hopper and meeting a fictional version of yourself being very David Lynch, it all has the potential to get very weird, very quickly. Cut to Dennis, some time later, inhaling amyl nitrate and crying ‘baby wants to fuck’.
Now that would have been a bold move, Ford. It might have sold more Cougars, anyway.
Ford X Brian May Advert
Incredibly a massive 90s seconds long, this early 90s effort for Ford is like a Conservative Party broadcast if its leader were a Ford Sierra. With a soundtrack featuring Brian May’s worst excesses – so much so you might as well have stuck a curly mullet on it – it’s a minute and a half of the most overblown television since Avengers Age Of Ultron. Just look, if you dare, at lyrics so ridiculous Jedward would refuse to sing them, and try not to weep.
We build for the country’s needs
Wheels turn, power at your feet
High speed, but you know you’re in safe hands
Oh, in the dark we make a brighter light
And one spark to the horizon wide
You’ll trust and together we’ll tame the land
Oh, you’ll be forgiven if you think you’re dreaming
But we’re working night and day to make a dream come true
Yeah, everything we do is driven by you
Everything we do
Everything we do
Everything we do
Everything we do
Everything we do
Is driven by
Driven by
Driven by you
Yeah!
Dunlop Advert - Tested For The Unexpected
This is the stuff. An advert – that looks like nothing less than a mescaline-induced flashback directed by Peter Greenaway. In fact it’s directed by bona fide advertising genius Tony Kaye, who clearly enjoyed the buckets of money (I won’t guess at what other bucketsfull he was enjoying at the time) from Dunlop in trying to communicate the message that their tyres are quite good. Did it sell any? Don’t know; don’t care.
Venus In Furs is perfect. The visuals are beautiful. The concept inspired. It’s funny, it’s horrifying and there’s a gimp suit. If you want unexpected, you got it, baby. Possibly the greatest advert there will ever be.
90s Vauxhall Advert
Evoking British sitcoms seemed to be de rigeur in the 90s, so here we have Nigel Hawthorne (riding high on this back of his impeccable Sir Humphrey) and Tom Conti playing a manager and minion continually at loggerheads over Vauxhall strategy. Penelope Keith pops up here just to hammer it home – it’s only a surprise Felicity Kendall’s bottom didn’t make an appearance.
The haughty, sales-obsessed Hawthorne as JD was always wrong and revelled in bullying his sidekick. While portraying your top brass as obnoxious, blundering arseheads may not look like an obvious move, former Ford of Europe bigwig Karl Ludvigsen reckons Vauxhall’s ads featuring the duo were responsible for the Griffin (that’s Vauxhall by the way, I’m trying to avoid repeating words) overtaking the Blue Oval (Ford) in UK sales around this time, so the gentle Sunday-night comedy of these ads was clearly doing something right.
Citroen ZX Advert
Several car manufacturers associated themselves with a recognisable celebrity in the 90s. Hugh Laurie, Nigel Hawthorne, Joan Collins, Michael Barrymore and Ruby Wax all lined up to sell cars. Citroen – a French manufacturer – went for Aussie Bryan Brown, the star of FX and FX2: The Deadly Art of Illusion.
This series also featured Brown alongside Man United goody two-shoes (he was then anyway) Ryan Giggs – together at last and advertising the new Citroen ZX. How Citroen didn’t go the whole hog and commission a sitcom featuring the two of them together is a mystery.
Peugeot 406 Advert
All middle-aged, middle-class white men dreamed of sleeping with Kim Basinger in the 90’s (those that weren’t dreaming of Nanette Newman anyway). It’s fair to say that few were dreaming of waking up to find a brand spanking new Peugeot 406 saloon sat outside their bedroom window, but kudos to Peugeot for trying.
This spot nicely subverts expectations – and with the big-name appearance of Basinger it’s a clever and well-shot little ad that could actually make you believe that the rubbish French saloon was worth buying.
Rover 400 Advert
The message in this expensive-looking Rover advert for the 400 saloon seems to be that it has a comfortable suspension. It’s rather odd, then, to discover that the Rover has chosen to communicate this message with a 50-second ad about a bomb-disposal expert scarred by his childhood memories of the blitz and driving to a freshly-discovered WWII shell in the North of England.
Is this a good advert, or a bad advert? I’m not sure – it’s just a weird advert, and looking at it you can’t really figure out what the ill-fated manufacturer was trying to say about its products.
Volvo Airbag Advert
Remember when airbags were the most astonishing thing ever? These days car-buyers expect at least 64 airbags as standard in new cars, with separate bags for feet, shoulders, elbows and ears. A mere 30 years ago they were the stuff of a madman’s dream, hence this Volvo ad explaining the concept in terms even Liz Truss could comprehend.
The visual spectacle of a car genuinely driving off the top of a building and landing on an airbag is undeniably impressive. ‘Volvo=safe’ is a time-honoured meme. Twas ever thus.
Volkswagen Polo Advert
An amusing Volkswagen ad from the 90s showing one of VW’s spokesmen (a character actor I can’t quite recognise doing what 85% of all men in comedy shows did at the time) driving the new Polo off a tower block. The Polo stops sort of the ground courtesy of ABS brakes, which here are specified as anti-grav as well as anti-lock.
This advert features yet another timid, possibly emasculated and non-threatening middle-aged man in a 90s car advert (they’re inevitably pathetic, stupid or cuckolded), all of which makes you wonder what exactly was going on in this apparent battle of the sexes in the 90s.
Fiat Uno Advert
Are you male, boring and English? Like cricket? Wife own a Fiat Uno? She’s having an affair you boring bastard! With a sophisticated Italian, Frenchman or Spaniard – probably with expensive shoes and hefty European penis! All while you’re dozing away in front of the test match, collecting stamps and listening to Elgar! French bread is a euphemism for adulterous sex! You poor, poor boring fool. And all because you let her buy that Fiat Uno.
Nissan Primera Advert
Two things are interesting here: the 1995 Nissan Primera was apparently possessed with a spirit that would drive your car around at night, wasting your petrol and wearing down your tyres.
The second point to make is that Nissan has obviously taken a leaf out of Ford’s book, portraying its customers as living exclusively in country mansions. Rock soundtrack – check. Dry ice at night – check. Kind to small animals – check. It might as well read the Daily Mail and play squash at weekends.
‘You can with a Nissan’ was the Japanese manufacturer’s slogan at this time, though it was never explained exactly what that entailed. Have a sentient car, perhaps.
Mazda Advert
The 90’s were amazing weren’t they? Airbags, widgets in beer tins and VCRs.
Someone at Mazda’s advertising agency obviously thought so, as this entire advert for the 323 is designed to be watched in slow-motion on your trusty videotape player in what was probably the only use for the VHS function, barring freeze-framing ladies’ breasts.
While such a concept may seem absurd these days there were a slew of adverts and programmes that would use this method of communicating bundles of information, apparently oblivious to the fact that most video players would render an image indecipherable when paused. This one is by HCL, who gained fame (or notoriety) for their series of Tango adverts in the 90s. It looks and sounds beautifully alien, futuristic, exotic.
Vauxhall Cavalier - Sledgehammer
An absolute barnstomer to finish with. It’s as if Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer could have been written for this advert, which shows a bunch of yellow-shod Cavaliers being spectacularly totalled at the local Euro NCAP testing facility.
Pity it ruins it with that awful Clapton riff that was Vauxhall’s corporate jingle for years. As good as Layla is, here the juxtaposition is like playing the One Show theme tune at the end of a Radiohead gig.
That’s it for this week. Next week it will be back to normal service. Or will it? We’ll see. Ether way: adverts! Writing about adverts! Other things than caught my attention!
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