My Favorite Ride: Magazine ads that sold today's classic cars

I have a solid collection of automobile magazine ads from the 1950s and '60s, back when advertising was art and people like Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman created dramatic car illustrations.

One of my favorites they made shows a 1960 Pontiac Bonneville from the back as a man and woman drive away into the night past a lake reflecting the moon. The team's realistic illustrations anchored 285 Pontiac magazine ads.

Recently, Carol Sulanke stepped me into the world of car ads from the 1980s and '90s. I've spent a few hours reviewing several hundred ads she sent, all precisely torn from magazines, carefully stacked and then mailed after I said, "Of course I want them" when she inquired.

Carol: Thank you so much. And I owe you $9.80 for the postage.

Two feature Ricardo Montalban promoting the 1983 Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country convertible. He's wearing a black tuxedo and the car has wood paneling. Those images took me back.

A double-page centerfold spread displays a sky-blue 1978 Thunderbird Diamond Jubilee Edition. What a car, and there's no way they could fit it on one page and do the Ford justice.

I once owned an earlier version of the LTD, a 1970 I think, white, with concealed headlights and fancy aqua cloth interior. My dad took it as a trade-in when he worked at Jerry Alderman Ford, which meant I bought it for maybe $200.

Carol sent an email in May with the subject line: Vintage car ads? She got my attention especially when I read that "My Favorite Ride" is her favorite thing in the newspaper. She figures that, over more than two decades, she's seen most of my more than 1,000 car columns.

Last week's My Favorite Ride: A 1955 VW Beetle with no rust? This Bloomington man has one

"I have been reading and enjoying it for many years. One of the columns from a few years back mentioned vintage car ads," she wrote.

"I have been saving car ads from a variety of 1970s and 1980s magazines – from 'grocery store' magazines (mostly family-type cars) to Gourmet Magazine (mostly luxury and sports cars, although one ad shows a Range Rover dripping mud)."

She described colorful full-page ads, and some that were multi-page spreads. Glossy-print and expensive, car ads filled magazines as manufacturers' vied for customers.

My favorites come from "Gourmet"; they feature Jaguars and BMWs that on the the the other side show the latest style of high-end TAG Heuer watches or maybe a cruise ship.

She'd been going through "stacks and stacks" of old, unread magazines, "reading the articles that interest me and then recycling them."

What she called "very cool car ads" distracted her from her reading. "Remember suave Ricardo Montalban in Chrysler ads?"

Of course, and I can hear the man, who died in 2009, speaking.

She started tearing pages from the magazines with me and this car column in mind. Her recycling project took a year. "I just finished the last magazine yesterday, which means it’s time to email Laura today."

Enjoy these vintage ads; some date back half a century.

Carol said what many readers tell me: she's not really a "car person." It's the people behind the cars, the stories they tell, that keep her reading.

"They’re human interest pieces," she declared.

That they are.

Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Revisiting magazine ads for Chrysler, Thunderbird, BMW