Atkinson & Williams Ford Ad – Feb. 24, 1958

I couldn’t resist posting this ad for Lorain’s Atkinson & Williams Ford dealership, which was located on Kansas Avenue.

The whimsical ad, which ran in the Lorain Journal on February 24, 1958 shows how much automobile advertising has changed in the last sixty years.

Courtesy auction.howardlowery.com

The ad stars a cute, kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing Scottish bear. (I did a post last month about the ubiquitous Scottish thrift theme that seemed to dominate 1950s advertising.)

In this ad, each piped toot of his instrument represents another feature of the Ford Custom 300 Tudor, such as whitewall tires, two-tone paint, gold anodized side molding, turn indicators, gunsight fender ornaments, special chrome headlight trim, deluxe interior and Magic Aire heater.

The bear kind of reminds me of the little-known Disney character Bongo (at right).

Anyway, perhaps some marketing executive at Ford realized that they needed a more sophisticated advertising approach than bagpipe-playing bears. The very next year, the Peanuts characters made their TV debut in a commercial for Ford and its “Economy Twins” – the Falcon and the Fairlane 500.

I like the cute, natural voices of Linus and Lucy in this early TV appearance.