I usually try to do Cold Starts the night before, so they’re fresh and piping hot and ready to go by 8 am, eager to slake the useless-car-stuff thirst of your eyes and brains. But some nights I’m just too damn beat to do it, and so I end up scrambling to get something out that morning. Today my kid’s bus was late and I had to take him to school, but I did make up a car name that sounds good on the drive: a 1953 Championhorse LaserCrab, so there’s that. Morning-written Cold Starts can be more unhinged or even a little bitchier, the latter of which I think will be how today goes, since this 1968 Chevy II brochure is seeming kind of insipid to me.
It’s not a particularly wild or interesting brochure, there’s just some choices in here I can’t really abide. Or maybe I do like them? I’m just not sure yet. One thing I do know is that the Chevy II was always kind of a boring car, but that was very deliberate. Chevy wanted to make something simple and cheap and basic, and I respect that, but I feel like they kind of went overboard. Like any attempt at innovation or novelty was discouraged. Chevy general manager Ed Cole described the car as “maximum functionalism with thrift,” and dear lord can you imagine a more boring and pragmatic way to describe a car? That makes it sound about as exciting as long-term records storage, but without the glitz.
Plus, the name: that’s the best they could come up with? Chevy II? Was there really a Chevy I? And is the car is the Chevrolet Chevy II or just the Chevrolet II? By 1969 the name Nova took over, which is better, even if it is the name of an explosion. Chevy was using the Nova name, somewhat confusingly, alongside Chevy II as it was. Anyway, let’s look at some things on this page here:
Specifically, I want to call out the painful stretching that the copywriters were doing to find interesting things to talk about and new features on the ’68:
Okay, so let’s see what qualifies as “stimulating excitement” to the Chevy II copywriters. A “recessed headlight compartment,” which is one of the weirdest ways to talk about a basic chrome bezel that I’ve ever heard. I have no idea what the hell they mean by “profiled” side windows, but I do love the extremely weird word choice of referring to the taillights – which they note are “highly visible,” which, sure, is a good thing – as a “team,” composed of backup light and taillight.
A team? I think I kind of like that, in a strange way. Your hard-working taillight team, hanging off the back of your car, desperately signaling your braking and intent to turn or reverse to everyone around you! Go team taillight!
Also, are those wheel covers really “jaunty?” Jaunty is a pretty loaded word, and if you’re deciding to use it, there damn well better be some jaunt evident, and I’m not sure I see it.
A lot of odd choices here for such a basic (if kind of handsome) car. I appreciate the copywriter’s struggle, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give them shit over a half century from when these words were written. Because I’m a jerk, and Cold Starts wait for nobody.
Like many cars of that time, if you optioned them right, they could be interesting… such as the Nova SS 350
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova#/media/File:Chevrolet_Nova_SS_350.jpg
So, if you are going to have a creepy father-daughter moment, you should buy an Imperial. If you want a wholesome mother-daughter moment, just get a Chevy. The agencies were really struggling with the breakdown of the nuclear family back then.
1968 was a turbulent time, counter culture, hippies, people “doing their own thing”. Chevy wanted buyers to know that they had stifled these proclivities. Through engineering; electrical, mechanical and social, you could be assured these tail lights were a team, that was yours to command. For all you know those socialist pinko European car’s tail light might just go on strike, or decide to splinter. You might want to indicate a right turn and find one is on strike and the other flashing left when you put on the brakes. oh no, not at chevy, not in the USA
but…but…jaunty new wheel cover design!
am getting strong Repo Man closing scene vibes from the image of the yellow car
it glows
I always thought you were on team taillight Torch
I guess a Chevrolet Chevy II is kind of like a Mazda Mazdaspeed3.
I’m not sure if this is merely a coincidence or part of some larger cosmic whosits, but yesterday I watched an episode of Adam-12 where our titular heroes were chasing a kidnapper driving a ‘yellow 1968 Chevy Nova’ similar to the one at the top of the article.
Groovy!
Art director: The pictures go like this, and there is a block of text here.
Assistant AD: what’s the text going to say?
Art director: Not my problem. Do you want to have lunch at that bar downstairs? It has race cars upside-down on the ceiling l!
Note: Now the bar downstairs with cars on the walls is the flagship Apple Store.
A kid I had been good friends with from early elementary school ended up getting a Nova from this generation as a hand-me-down and it served a major role in me not really being friends with him anymore. We had been kind of growing apart as those sorts of friendships tend to do as you grow up, but it was when I started riding with him to school in this car that I realized just how different we had become. He drove this thing like an absolute maniac, speeding excessively, weaving in and out of traffic with the music cranked to 11 at all times. I knew I had to get away from him before he killed me in that thing and I’m not sure I have ever fully been comfortable as a passenger with anyone else driving since. Somewhat miraculously he never had a serious accident and I am still not sure how that was possible.
This is a perfect example of a background car. It’s just kind of there in the background, not really calling attention to itself, taking up space. I imagine a tv show needing to fill up space in the background so you notice the hero car, so a bunch of these would do the trick.
Fun fact: The word “jaunty” was just about to disappear from the lexicon when Chevrolet revived it for this brochure.
The weirdest thing about this, is a ’68 Chevy II/Nova was a completely redesigned car from a ’67 model. It looked wildly different, but they still felt the need to be this boring about it in their own literature.
Stir the vanilla pudding.
“Go team taillight!”
Which team would that be, this one
https://thefilmediary.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/screenshot-1617.png?w=948&h=712
Or this one
https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/bQCZWAzH1AaAdkLptWjQ9YZ8btI=/1000×750/filters:no_upscale()/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/20120201110126Horsefeathers_thumb.jpg
Going with the latter one especially since they won the game with the aid of a horse-drawn garbage can:
http://pre-code.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Horse-Feathers-20.png
Moe was hydrogen peroxide?
In good old Cheap Chevy fashion, the copywriters here were making a lot of hay from “new features” that were, in fact, newly mandated features, like the side-marker lights and shoulder belts. Even the reverse lights, I think; as recently as 1965 (maybe even later) they had been optional on many lower-end cars.
As far as the naming…through the ’50s, you have to remember, most American marques were essentially single-line automakers. Chevrolet sold trucks and Corvettes, but generally speaking, a “Chevrolet” was a boxy sedan or wagon or convertible, all built on one basic platform, with minor trim and engine variations and a few different names slapped on them. This created some confusion when, at the dawn of the ’60s, they started expanding their lineups into different size categories, using multiple platforms. So you ended up with a confusing decade or so where you had a “Corvair by Chevrolet,” a “Chevelle by Chevrolet,” or a “Chevy II by Chevrolet,” but a “Chevrolet” was still just a full-size Biscayne, Bel Air, Impala, Caprice, Brookwood, Kingswood, etc.
Years ago, when I worked at an automotive museum, I royally pissed off all of the old-dude docents by taking down a poster that was, for many, a highlight of their tours, which purported to list 2,300 distinct US automakers since 1886 or whatever. The problem was, when I looked more closely at this poster, which was published by Automobile Quarterly in, I think, 1971 (well, that’s a problem, too, since history didn’t stop in 1971)—the poster had dozens of entries listing cars we would now consider models, not marques. Comet, Cougar, Colt, Corvair, Chevy II, Chevelle, whatever—all listed separately. A totally different way of thinking about it, and I understand why that didn’t feel invalid in 1971, but from our current perspective it only reflected marketing, not the companies that actually designed/manufactured/sold the cars. I painstakingly researched and redid the list, bringing it up to date and ending up with around 1,900 marques, and nobody ever forgave me.
Colt wasn’t even a product of a “US automaker” but a badge-engineered captive import and Mitsubishi itself was already using the Colt name in other markets.
The Colt name was used on a Japanese car pre-dated Mitsubishi motors.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/mitsubishis-colt-most-versatile-automotive-nameplate-in-history/
In brochures Ford was referring to its full-sized cars this way through 1974 and Chevy did through 1980, after which they just used the model names in the same way they did for other models in the marque.
The base models were Chevy II, when you went up models you got into the Nova. Then there is the one that goes around the No Va, meaning doesn’t go in Spanish.
My neighbor has a ’71 Nova, with the license plate “NO GO 71”
Hey now, Chevy IIs are perfectly capable of navigating roads around Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax. You can even drive around Annandale without any problems.
Truth. I’ve driven all kinds of cars here on the mean streets of McLean.
There are arguments that the automotive bad years started before the 1970s
First choice for Chevy II brochure title: Suck It Nader!
Top image- we should all take a moment to appreciate the driver’s spectacular and period-correct mustache. It’s not easy to see but I have enough of an outline to fill in the gaps. That ‘stache would have garnered a respectful nod from Burt Reynolds himself.
If Plymouth had released a captive import Mitsubishi as the LaserCrab Championhorse edition, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. I mean they had a freakin Shelby Dodge Omni for crying out loud.
My father’s made up auto name was “Pissaire Brougham DeLuxe”. Pronounced Bro-Ham, of course.
My made up car was the “Arch Aurora”
And this was the car that Chevy selected to replace the Corvair? Tragic.
Not really. They made them at the same time.
Still disappointed that they missed the opportunity to call the Nova SS the Super Nova
A champagne supernova…
The C-pillar area is definitely the best thing here, but it’s a low bar. The overall design is like they looked at a Duster and said, “Nah, too exciting, dial it back.” It’s always nice to see one around, especially unmolested, as a time-traveling messenger from the landscape of my youth. But that’s about it.
And as a marketing writer, I feel the pain of those copywriters in my bones.
Unless GM had that time travel machine it would have been hard for them to copy the Duster. As usual it was Mopar that was recycling 2 year old GM styling cues.
I thought that might be the case, but I was too lazy to look it up and took a little artistic license. So, Mopar actually improved on it!
I wouldn’t call that jaunty at all, really looks more jaundice in my eyes.
They could have called it the “Chevy Also,” I guess.
That’s cruel. And accurate.
Another missed opportunity for GM. They could have beaten Ferrari to the punch by decades if they had called it the Chevy La Chevy.
Ferrari’s development code for the LaFerrari was F150. They obviously couldn’t use it as a marketing name, it was the height of Clarkson-May-Hammond Top Gear and they’d probably race it and a Ford F150 around their track with a fridge in the back.