Recap
In our previous posts concerning automobile advertising, grouped by decade, trends were apparent that often featured speedsters and connected them to The Good Life as it was then known.
Claude C. Hopkins, the father of scientific advertising, had his own epiphany while attempting to get his 1899 steam car to carry him to town without requiring an overnight visit to the manufacturer for repairs. A keen observer of trends, Hopkins recognized that “troubles were common. The average buyer thought more of good engineering that of any other factor.” From this Hopkins pioneered fact-based testimonial ads with the car owner, the engineer, heck – even the manufacturer – touting the features of said car.
1911 Moon Raceabout ad courtesy Horseless Carriage Foundation Library
Later in the 19-oughts decade, some brief facts or just a catchy hook, coupled with a suggestive image, would find its way into a car ad.
1908 Packard Model 30 Runabout ad image courtesy AACA Library
Speedsters were just then starting to emerge as buyers spent less time fixing their cars and more time adventuring with them!
The teen years in America saw better roads being built, technology making cars easier to start and keep running, and more power. Track and road racing, as well as hillclimbs and desert endurance racing, all were becoming big draws for a population increasingly swooning under the enchantment of the motorcar.
Speedsters were in the middle of all of this. You wanted power? Well, then, get yourself a Mercer Raceabout!
1911 Mercer Raceabout image courtesy AACA Library
And, if that didn’t quite suit your family, why not try a Mercer Runabout or Touring? Power and racing brought onlookers into the showrooms, but mostly the sedans and phaetons were the cars that sold.
Evocative imagery started to inform ads of this era. Images inspire, and automotive ads of the teens had suggestive in spades. Once again speedsters stepped up to the task. A sunny day, a jaunt in a Stutz with a picnic basket in the jump seat… I mean, what’s not to like?
1917 Stutz Bearcat image courtesy HCFI
The 1920s
Recovering from the Great War was not as hard a task for the United States as it was for Europe, which had been mined, trenched, and bombed for five long years. However, the U.S. was involved with global trade as well as developing and growing its economy and infrastructures, so it had fits and starts that dominated most of the 1920s.
In the midst of all of this, cars were being made, advertised, and sold. And the ads themselves had followed the trends into suggestive, whimsical imagery.
1920 Haynes ad image courtesy Indiana State Historical Society
Peering at this ad in a Saturday Evening Post or Harper’s Bazaar would lead one to ask: “What is this genteel, modestly stylish woman studying with such interest while standing by somber candlelight in her Victorian parlor?”
1921 Haynes catalog personal collection
Why Harold, this is the 1920s! She’s looking at a Haynes Special Speedster in that pamphlet! Get with it, man!
1921 Haynes Special Speedster personal collection
Beginning in the late teens years, and carrying on into the 1920s, whimsy sold well to the thoroughly modern Millies who wanted their men to buy a speedster and go have some fun. With them!
1917 Silver-Knight Speedster. This would serve as a prototype for other speedsters that Conover Silver would produce, including an Apperson and a Kissel. photo courtesy Haynes Museum
The 1920s saw the flowering of the lifestyle ad that had begun in the late teen years:
• few words, if any, accompanied most ad copy
• images used backdropped romantic locales – the country club, the yacht club, the beach, a rugged mountain pass…
• stylish people sported in trendy clothing
• bright colors, smiling faces were all the rage
And the ads almost always included a speedster or a racy roadster. In the middle of it all.
1920 Stutz ad. See the Bearcats prowling the grounds! ad courtesy HCFI
1923 Stutz Bearcat ad. Note the impact of action figures and color. ad courtesy AACA Library
1926 Franklin Sport Runabout. This boattail was created by Frank DeCausse. catalog image courtesy the Franklin Automobile Club
Written Copy Still King
However evocative the illustrations could be, the ad writers and data dogs brought up on Hopkinsian principles of testing and measuring knew that words formed the hook that drew in the client. And in the 1920s, no one wrote better copy than Ned Jordan.
A master of poetic understatement in his ads, Jordan put together a car company that was built on hopes, hype, and great ad copy. Thus was born the Jordan Playboy.
1920 Jordan Playboy ad courtesy AACA Library
Even though they were made of outsourced parts and equipage, Jordans were decent cars, mostly, and Ned Jordan’s Playboy runabout roadsters shared billing with the Tomboy, the Blueboy, and the Speedway Ace, all catchy-named siblings.
Jordan’s most famous ad script was in his evocative “Somewhere West of Laramie,” a timeless posting that made unique use of negative space to augment the image of a girl in a Jordan racing a man on a horse.
1923 Jordan Playboy. Negative space opens up the ad and allows the reader’s imagination to wonder a bit. Great ad! courtesy AACA library
It was ironically written while Jordan was on a train out west, thinking of his daughter riding a horse at their estate. Woebegone copywriters wept over the script’s elegance. Competing automakers gnashed their teeth in dismay. Female readers of Jordan’s ad wanted to have his baby.
Resurging Themes
However, good copy alone would not keep a loyal client base, and many a decent car company would founder by the roiling economy of the 1920s. The independent auto manufacturers that did survive by virtue of competitive products and healthy national distribution networks returned to the tried-and-true to burnish their reputations and cement their heritage. Racing results and speedsters proved to be just the ticket.
The mid-twenties saw speedway racing peak as major entertainment. The big names, such as Auburn, Marmon, Stutz, and Hudson, were largely relegated to hillclimbs, county fair dustups, or sanctioned endurance racing on tracks such as Sheepshead Bay. And, of course, street speedsters were directly linked to these track siblings as loss leaders to bring the folks into the showroom.
Stutz was touting a “safety” theme of rugged dependability during this time, and its use of the Speedster name was largely to evoke wealth and class.
1928 Stutz BB two-passenger Speedster with rumbleseat. catalog image courtesy IN State Hist Society
However, the Black Hawk Speedster, a racier boattail sibling, was promoted as a sportier speedster linked to the bad-boy Stutz racers tearing up their tires on nearby speedways in challenge races.
1928 Stutz Black Hawk Speedsters. Classy, yet still fast! catalog image courtesy IN State Hist Society
And a Stutz team of Black Hawks would compete against the Bentley Boys at LeMans in 1928 and 1929! More of this will be covered in the next post on the 1930s.
Auburn entered into the fray with a series of high-speed endurance runs using their 1928 Auburn Series 8 Speedsters.
1928 Auburn Speedster ad courtesy AACA Library
Records were set by various Auburn speedsters that would continue on into the 1930s while the company flourished, peaked, and then foundered.
Other independent manufacturers made use of speedster mojo but chose not to engage in the extremely expensive motorsport game. Kissel was one such company, unique in that it offered a speedster model for eighteen manufacturing years. Despite being a quality car, its lack of racing participation, or its dealer network, or just the fickle economic winds of the 1920s – Kissel languished when it should have soared. Its product was that good!
1928 Kissel White Eagle Speedster. image courtesy Wisconsin Automotive Museum
Another would-be success that sat out on racing after initial forays in the 19-teens was Franklin. Unique in that it stuck to its air-cooled engines and Scientific Lightweight philosophy, Franklin nevertheless used endorsements from famous aviators and also offered artistic lifestyle ads that spoke of the good times to be had while around a Franklin.
1929 Franklin Sport Runabout. This car was part of the Airman series, ushered in by the exploits of Charles Lindbergh, with Franklin also using Amelia Earhart and Captain Frank Hawks in Airman ads. More on that in the next episode! ad image courtesy Franklin Automobile Club
However, sales were king, and Franklin too suffered from lack of sales, despite its focus on the stylish sportiness of speedsters.
Such were the times – and then, the Roaring Twenties gave way to the Threadbare Thirties…
Next post marks our first-year anniversary of writing about speedsters! Join us as we wrap up this section on speedster ads by looking at the 1930s, a period that many consider the Golden Age of the automobile.