There’s a lot of recurring conceits in car brochures, but one of the most popular has to be the act of driving off the road onto some picturesque plot of land, ideally a grassy field, laying down a blanket, and sitting around and eating some food, ideally brought in wicker baskets or similarly quaint vessels. You know, a picnic.
These brochure picnics usually happen uncomfortably close to the parked car, at least based on the standards of non-car-brochure life. In brochures, though, you want to park right in the middle of whatever lovely area you found, nature be damned. The other key thing about these car brochure picnics is that, generally, everyone should look pretty thrilled to be there.
That’s where this 1973 Vauxhall brochure takes a different approach: I’ve never seen such a sullen and miserable looking group of people at a picnic. I mean, look at this:
Sure, we can only see two faces here, the little girl and whom I presume to be the mom, but holy shit do they look pissed. Is this the aftermath of a fight? Little girl looks like she’s still steaming, and mom looks like she’s questioning every decision she’s ever made. The body language of the other two hardly seems elated, either. You can almost feel the oppressive silence and leaden glowering looks. I’m glad I’m not there.
Compare that to almost any other car brochure picnic:
Citroëns, Fiats, Fords, photographs and illustrations, all of these at least show picnics happening with some degree of engagement, even joy! I mean, it’s a freaking picnic! You’ve willingly chosen to drive out somewhere and eat on a blanket by the car; you don’t do that unless you’re pretty damn sure you’re going to enjoy it!
There’s other grim-looking people in this brochure, too. Check out this dude:
I like that Vauxhall wagon, though – the fastback design, that somewhat AMC Pacer-like rear quarter window, the bold yellow – the car is plenty cool. What I don’t get is why the guy cramming it full of ornate, overdone furniture looks like he’s just been dumped and told to take his shit and leave:
Is that a leather suit, by the way? Is that part of why he got dumped?
Okay, one last thing about these Vauxhaulls that makes no sense to me: the naming convention.
So, the various models are named for their engine sizes, which come in several sizes: 1256cc/62.5 bhp, 1759cc/90 bhp, 2279cc/122hp, and finally the six-banger 3.3-liter one making a respectable 140 bhp. Here’s what I don’t get: the various models using these engines were named the 1256, 1800, 2300, and 3300. Why didn’t the 1256 get rounded up like all the others? Shouldn’t that have been the 1300?
Was this some way to make the entry-level people just feel bad? Like, if you don’t spend the money, you don’t get your name-number rounded up? Or do they assume that such frugal people don’t go in for such fripperies as rounding numbers? It’s not like 1256 is such a catchy name? Is it?
Maybe that’s what the picnic family was arguing about? That’d make sense.
If you’d like to see a “family picnic” that’s just plain weird, take a look at the Subaru 360 dealer promo video. Weird picnic at 6:15
https://youtu.be/qzvmPpXTAqM?si=ryi5YWUJzNYCksse
i wonder if the 1256 was named that because there was a Dacia 1300 already at that time. I think in Britain it was sold as a Dacia Denem, or Renault 12
I don’t think that made a big difference, as hundreds of cars were called 1300s, and the car was typically called the Viva 1300.
https://www.vauxhallviva.com/?page_id=57
Maybe 1300 felt like to much rounding upwards? Sunbeam did have a 1250 at the same time, so that number was sort of taken. I haven’t seen this referred to as a 1256 anywhere else aside from spec tables, but this was a venerable engine – much like Ford’s 1172 – so maybe the punters could be expected to feel warm and happy (unlike those picnickers) when they saw that number?
You and I have a very different definition of “ornate, overdone furniture.” Frankly, reupholster it in deep red or black velvet and it would fit right in at my house. Granted, I also own a church pew and an egg chair…
You don’t even have to fart in church to sit in your own pew.
I’m pretty sure the sour faces is because that 1970 Pouilly Fuissé is corked, which explains why the picnic is over and the bottle has only been tested. Can’t blame the Vauxhall for that.
I used to enjoy a good jello picnic. They started off so tasty, with a veritable smorgasbord of flavors! But over time, they got kinda salty, and then just bland. Finally, some dipshit threw a bunch of Herbs and and just spoiled the whole damn thing! Fucking Herbs!
Thank goodness the jello picnic is now free of that particular herb, though nowadays it seems to be just moping along like another kind of herb enthusiast.
I haven’t had so much as a jello picnic snack in over a year, so I wouldn’t know. Although from what I’ve read on this site, I’m satisfied to stick with my current Autopian diet.
COTD
They’re hostages, and Stockholm Syndrome hasn’t taken effect yet. “Dad” has a pistol in his right hand.
Why is there a seam in the middle of his back? Maybe the “Dad” is something wearing a human suit.
Maybe I’m wrong, but that seam doesn’t even appear to be centered…it’s off the right a couple of inches.
“Hour four. The photoshoot continues. We’re still ‘waiting for the light’ according to the damnable photographer. How long do I have sit in these weeds? I used to model clothes for Harrods.”
Exactly this. Sorry, you missed all 3 hours of summer this year.
Damn, I bet the even the “chocolate” desserts mom was handing out were made of carob.
Maybe everyone’s in a mood because they watched the latest Vauxhall advert on TV? https://www.theautopian.com/you-need-to-watch-this-charming-yet-terrifying-vauxhall-ad-from-1973/
Looks like they had Werner Herzog in charge of this ad.
If not Klaus Kinski.
They guy in the sharkskin suit loading up the car is sullen because he’s just come from the reading of his granny’s will and this is the stuff he got.
yup. absolutely sharkskin. and my first reaction was the wife just 86’d him, but then i saw the family bible and figured it was a post funeral scavenge (beating his sibs to that amazing chair & mirror, but clearly feeling guilty about it).
I would assume they didn’t round up to avoid unlucky 13
That was my thought as well.
This is gold, Jason… GOLD!
What is that patch of yellow next to mom’s elbow? Has she set the picnic basket on fire in an attempt to burn down the Vauxhall?
Is that a dog? Is that why the family is pissed? Did the dog just fart on the jello-mold?
A little backstory to clear this up. The young Jim Henson family is traveling through Europe trying to drum up support for their fledgling company. Jim in maniacal pursuit of perfection has insisted that his wife bonds with the Big Bird costume, and to keep it by her side at all times, hence her expression. The kids both want to play Oscar.
Are you sure they don’t just have RBM (Resting British Face)?
Not to pick nits, but wouldn’t it be RBF? I think RBM is a different thing.
you are correct and I don’t know why I typed that lol
I’m afraid to google RBM at work…
I think Leather Suit Guy is a wetworker IRL but found out he somehow didn’t make the cut to be in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Maybe they thought there would be some confusion with the earlier VW 1300.
That’s not Mom. That’s the eldest daughter. Mom just died and Dad took her and the twins out for a picnic to try to cheer everyone up a bit. Merely being in a Vauxhall of that era soured their moods further. But upon opening the basket the depression really set in when they realized that all they had to eat was British food.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-TALK.
I take it your career writing for the greeting card company was short-lived.
I write obituaries now.
I’m glad you found your calling!
Well, yeah, it’s Thatcher-Era Great Britain. You’d be sullen too if you were there.
Reminds me of Scarfolk.
For more information please reread.
Whatever you do, don’t.
Did you get your delivery of sausage orphans?
Yep! They came with some complimentary English Wine (it’s electrified!)
Heath not Thatcher. And that’s not an improvement.
Vauxhall’s slogan was “Once driven, forever smitten” and I’d say these folks look like they’ve been smited. (Smote?). I prefer to think they’re all upset because Dad got the dates for the Isle of Wight festival wrong.
Oh man that 2-door wagon one…bites lip.
Picnics kind of suck.
Right! wind, bugs, neurotic parents freaking out that everything is not perfect.
I hate sitting on the ground.
Hate.
It.
Even the car looks cross. And cross-eyed. Mom is annoyed because Dad forgot the corkscrew.
The Citroën family is happiest because they brought a little table, unlike those Vauxhall people at their low-effort picnic with plates teetering atop the giant wrinkles in the blanket.
Ford Dad is acquiring a giant, permanent grass stain on the left knee of his white pants. A bold choice in picnic attire.
Fun fact, the front and rear seats of the early 2CV were removable for this very purpose. That’s what they’re sitting on.
I guess it’s advertising that the base model has a much bigger engine than the earlier models, which had to make do with a puny 1159cc mill.
I was a little child about that age, in the early 1970s that is just how it felt back then. The 70s were horrid.
I’m a little younger, but I’m of the age where I just don’t understand the mass glorification of the 80s. Sure, it was awesome for the really wealthy, but everyone I knew in the middle class was just eking by in mediocrity on the back end of years of bloated mortgage payments, the era of both parents having to work (wage stagnation), latchkey kids, awful cars, and orange carpet in every room for some reason.
As far as this picture, I would say this would be Denmark, “the happiest country in the world, but you wouldn’t know it by the people’s faces or the sheer volume of death metal coming from there.”
I lived through the 1980s (11-21 years old, the formative years) I hated nearly all of it. I was a poor unathletic nerd in a very very wealthy school district. I hated the pop music, clothes, purity culture, cigarette smoke everywhere, STD panic, politics, etc. The poverty and neglect did make us tough.
Preach. I started high school in 1980, and graduated college in 1988. Very formative years. I agree with your ass assessment of the 80s.
I’m of a similar age, and what always gets me is the contemporary pop culture depictions of the era. The general color scheme was not Miami Vice pastel or dayglo neon, it was mostly…brown. A lot of brown. And the cars generally promised more than they delivered. I remember being awed by the LCD digital clock in a friend’s parents’ car.
Wall to wall wood paneling.
oh dear god, the grief i got for wearing a “salmon” t-shirt to track practice when everything else was dirty…
Yeah, the brown everything fashion started in the 70s with the “earth tones” fashion, and it didn’t let up and continued into the early 80s, and still hung on with a dying grasp into the mid-80s. What replaced it was lots of flowery wallpaper, brass, ferns, and overstuffed furniture covered in floral and chic abstract prints and weaves. And still plenty of fake wood paneling.
Cars were still stuck in the midst of Malaise, US automakers were just serving it up in downsized versions (although they were catching on to better packaging, so useful interior room was often as good as it was in the 70s. Although truly cavernous station wagons and trunks large enough to haul bodies weren’t rolling off assembly lines anymore — but they were still on the road in droves, increasingly as hand-me-downs belonging to college and high-school drivers. The imports were proving that compact, lower-horsepower cars could be thrifty but still fun. And they often had better electrical/electronic systems. There was light on the horizon both for drivers and for leading the way such that Detroit was starting to take notice.
The electronics promised more than they delivered too! Thanks to my experiences in the late ’80s (and even into the ’90s), I’m amazed anytime a new electronic gadget works as advertised right out of the box.
They’re just off by a decade. Kids born in the early 80’s think they are 80’s kids but they aren’t. They’re 90’s kids. That’s when the black and white checkers and neon splotches were everywhere. I still love that shit. The dirty tube socks, shaggy haircuts and aviator glasses of the 70’s lasted well into the 80’s along with all the browns and oranges in your house. Barf.
Yeah, right? Most people’s living rooms didn’t look like the Huxtable’s- they looked like the Conner’s.
I was born in ’73, so I was 7-17 through the 80’s and remember most everything pretty well.
I was one of those latchkey kids, one of the first generation to have a lot of divorce and single parents and all that. Honestly, I don’t look back on it as being bad and I do understand the nostalgia.
Sure, you can say that it was only good for the wealthy. That wasn’t really true as there were plenty of areas where middle class growth was in the professional sectors of the economy. Not so much for manufacturing and other blue-collar working sectors. A lot of people had a lot more job mobility than compared to the 70’s. And maybe that’s the real reason people have a lot of nostalgia; it was just better than the malaise of the 70’s.
I do think there was a lot more optimism and also novelty of the era that we hadn’t experienced before: Computers were actually becoming a thing, used across a variety of media and professional advancement via the tech sector started in the 70’s but really took off through the 80’s.
People may not be a fan of the synth music and Euro-pop that defined the age, but it was truly a new sound and people like new things. Sure, the 70’s gave us the first synthesizer for that electronic sound but it was really taken to new levels in the 80’s. Then MTV and music videos came along. To a young teenager that I was that was truly huge.
Movies and TV came with a whole new world of special effects and if you were into Sci-Fi it was a new world where it wasn’t just a low-budget joke of a thing.
I think novelty just becomes its own thing through the lens of nostalgia. Whatever you’re into when you’re coming of age you will look back on with some varying level of wistfulness, maybe a touch of regret and of course that bottled-up and narcotic-level of nostalgia. It’s a hell of a drug.
Social pressure pushed down on kids from parents and authority figures tends to color a lot of their affinity or lack of it for the times. Most kids were expected to stay within the rails of the social category that schools and parents expected of them. For instance, the “dress code” you were stuck with was kind of dependent on that. Unless you had a job after school or on weekends that afforded you the opportunity to buy your own wardrobe… which you may or may not have had to keep out of your parents’ sight. — Something that latchkey kids had better opportunities for doing. I graduated in ’85; at least at my high school, fashions fell into general categories depending on what parents expected their kids to wear, what the school demanded, and what kids could get away with in or after school — Sears/JC Penney/Mongomery-Ward/K-Mart bland (and earth-toned for boys, floral and frilly for girls), more stylish-but traditional preppy, or trendy and pastel/neon with some trendy asymmetric cuts. Oh, and don’t forget surplus-store and thrift-store punk proto-grunge — Plenty of O.D. green and black.
Latchkey kids also tended to have better opportunities for breaking out of social boundaries and forming their own associations at jobs and after school.
Myself, I came from a private grade school for what they called “gifted and talented” kids that was all about critical thinking and high academic achievement, and then went into a parochial high school. So a preppy wardrobe was kind of the baseline for me, with assorted trendy and punkish things too, because classic rebellious 80s me socialized across the clique boundaries. I was that kind of kid in the 80s. Me and a number of classmates from my old school were all variations on the Ferris Bueller theme by the time we hit high school. Too clever and too headstrong to be easily reined-in. Had a ’77 T-Bird to drive, which wasn’t a fashionable car by then, but still sort of out-there for style with the basket-handle roof and some odd-angles-everywhere lines.
The 80s could be fun if you were able to break out of some very conformist pressures. There was a zeitgeist of protest against the cold war and right-wing Reagan-era politics, experimental and progressive trends in music and style, plus all the optimism that followed the growth of computers and technology. If you were deeply under the thumb of parents and school authority, you may have seen a lot of that as being out-of-reach, though. It was the age of being told that if you got in any kind of trouble or disagreements with authority, that your transgressions would go on your “permanent record” (whatever the hell that was) and you’d never be able to get a good job, go to college, etc. Parents still believed that and enforced the idea on their kids. The ones who took the “question everything” route tended to encounter a lot of resistance and friction, but in an increasingly chaotic world, it was a lot more interesting and a chunk of the sphere that generated a good bit of the nostalgia. What’s unfortunate is that not everybody got to participate in it thanks to pressures exerted by parents, schools and social expectations. Going off to college was quite liberating for a lot of 80’s kids, though.
Yeah, for sure.
I was a child of the 70’s and a teenager in the 80’s (turned 13 in ’80) and I remember being so dismissive of the older generation’s style in just about everything, and being obsessed with what was then brand-new and what lie ahead on the horizon.
At some point that turned around on me and I eventually became tired and jaded of the shiny of the new and longed for the comfort of the old, but it was already gone, with only memories left.
I suppose every generation goes through similar evolutions and has their own challenges and benefits that are unique to their time, but looking back is an exquisite exercise in both smiles and tears today.
Wistfulness? Absolutely. Many of the things that were enjoyable and familiar to me that I thought would last forever withered and died over time, some very suddenly.
Regret? So very much. Sure, there were hard times, there always are, but there was also love and fun along the way as well, (sometimes a lot). The rub is in not recognizing it enough at the time and taking too much for granted what was there and focusing too much on what wasn’t there. Thinking that someday there would be more, that it would all be better, that the “good times” were waiting right around the corner. Not realizing that those were the good times, not until much later, after they had passed.
Nostalgia? Man, for all the technological advances and conveniences that we enjoy today, I sorely miss the quaint and simpler world that I used to live in, and most of all, the people that I’ve lost along the way. What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back, understanding even a fraction of what I know now, that I didn’t then. I used to fantasize about that, thinking that if could go back in time, I would use my future wisdom to amass wealth and things, but that means nothing to me now. I would use every nanosecond of that time to be with the ones that I loved, the ones who loved ME, to soak it in and to make sure that they knew how much they meant to me and how much I would miss them when they were gone.
Hell of a drug indeed…
Yeah that was sort of my point that you made better than I: you can look at the past and find a lot to complain about or view through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. No matter when you live there are good, great and bad times.
I always dislike reading people’s posts generally that try to change perception of a given moment by talking only about what was bad for a portion of us. Nothing is all bad or good. It just is. And is usually what we make of it.
I couldn’t have said it better than you just did.