Today, Volvo is a brand that stakes its reputation mainly on safety. Sure, there are several other things to like about the Swedish automaker but safety is perhaps the key feature that most people associate with it. Half a century ago though, Volvo was making its name in America with a very different message.
During my time researching this piece on a wicked cool Volvo Amazon rat rod that happens to really be a Tesla Model S underneath, I found a classic commercial from 1962 featuring the Amazon. While the short film doesn’t include the estate version of the Amazon, dubbed the P220, which was inspired by American station wagons, it’s still outstanding.
In under a minute, Volvo hits on all of the Amazon’s best features and does a bunch of stuff no automaker seems willing to do in an ad today, and then hits us with two killer slogans. Let’s break this ad down and then talk a bit about what makes it so good.
“Volvo gets over 25 miles on a gallon of gas,” the ad begins. That might not sound all that snazzy or appealing but consider this; according to the Energy Information Administration, the average fuel economy for a car at the time was just 12.4 mpg. Kicking things off with a fact like that might be akin to an EV automaker saying “We offer 800 miles of range on a single charge.”
Then, Volvo goes all in on performance saying that this car “runs away from other popular priced compacts in every speed range.” So in less than 14 seconds, we learn that we can have our cake and eat it too, essentially. Keep in mind that we’re talking about a car that made, at best, 90 horsepower. It wasn’t until 1967 that the Amazon made over 100 ponies.
Nevertheless, this is where the ad gets really good in my opinion. The driver of the car is absolutely thrashing it across a dusty landscape. Then, we get a single uncut shot of the car braking hard before it comes to a stop and the driver immediately chucks it into reverse with what feels like exactly zero mechanical sympathy. He then mashes the go pedal again and flings the tail out down a dirt hill.
If you thought the mayhem might be over after that bit of drama you’d be incorrect as the next shot is the Amazon jumping over a dirt hill at speed. It’s not a huge jump so don’t expect any Evel Knievel antics but the car lands hard and keeps on going.
The whole glorious thing ends with a couple of simple but punchy phrases. “You can drive a Volvo like you hate it… Cheaper than psychiatry.” Those phrases are daring, a bit brash, and almost certain to stick in a person’s mind.
Notably, it’s important to point out that Volvo doesn’t have any official records for this ad that we could reference. For all I know, the Amazon in the film broke several times and was put back together just enough for these stunts. The suspension could be upgraded to handle all of this stuff or the engine could be more powerful.
None of that really matters though because the point is that more ads today would do well to just show a real car doing what it can really do when pushed close to its limits. Cars today are generally so much better than people give them credit for.
Around a year ago Toyota filmed a stunt with a GR Corolla where it jumped a building. The automaker scrubbed the internet of the actual video showing what happened to the car upon landing but having seen it before that, I can confirm, it wasn’t pretty. Maybe that ad would’ve done even better had the GR Corolla simply done some extreme things that it can actually do without ending up with a salvage title.
Some companies do this already with trucks and SUVs. They’ll show the truck or SUV towing or off-roading or overlanding. It’s part of what has made such vehicles so popular. Now, if brands really want to make smaller cars, sports cars, sedans, and the like more appealing, it’s time to take a lesson from Volvo. Show us that we can drive something like we hate it.
I drive my cars like I hate them. Then they break to confirm the sentiment.
Excellent commercial – it started out looking like the opening for a Swedish-based Dukes-of-Hazzard. Pretty sure Björn and Leif Djoos were delivering a trunk full of home-brewed akvavit in exchange for some Toblerone they’ll be using as payment for Uncle Sven’s farm-mortgage that month.
Seems they took “drive it like you hate it” to another level in the 80’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPp5mhl3C2c
90hp was not all that bad. I had a 244 that came in around 90hp. It never felt too slow. It was a surprisingly good highway cruiser and tough as nails, until the day of the incident…
…Road hazard on the freeway broke the oil pan and released the contents. Engine seized as I was pulling over and shattered a rod just to add to the joy. The whole thing sounded like a fully loaded metal toolbox rolling down the stairs.
I sold it to a mechanic who found a donor motor and put Humpty back together again. Sometime later I was walking into work and I noticed it parked in the apartment lot across the street. I kept an eye on it for a few weeks until I noticed the new owner with it. I went to talk to her. I asked her if she bought it from the shade tree mechanic I sold it to. She said yes, it was her brother. She mentioned how happy she was with the car. That made me feel a lot better about the whole incident.
I prefer to drive my cars as if they hate me and are trying to kill me, but mostly that’s because I’m convinced they hate me and are trying to kill me.
Mike, we’ve talked about this. You need an old priest and young priest if you’re gonna insist on buying all your cars from that dealership they built on that burial ground!
Volvo Amazon “Drive it like a rental”
Drive it like you hate it? That’s good advice. If you drive your vehicle in such a way that somebody else will like it when they buy it from you!
“For all I know, the Amazon in the film broke several times and was put back together just enough for these stunts.”
Its a tough as nails Volvo, not the replace-after-every-stunt General Lee.
Love everything about this
Nice cow
Excellent reaction shot.
Necessary disclaimer: “No barnyard animals were harmed in the making of this commercial”
Madison Avenue sure had a thing for deadpan car ad voiceovers.
https://youtu.be/BEkkvbO9pQg?feature=shared
Well, it makes me want a 122, so I guess it did its job.
It IS a great ad, and it’s also true that those old Volvos were -very- hard to kill. In high school in the 70’s a friend had an old PV44 Volvo (the one looks like a 1940 Ford sedan or something) and he DID hate it because it was both weird AND embarrassing, so he DID drive it like he hated it in a futile attempt to kill the damn thing. He failed, but not for lack of trying. It taught him about the virtues of hard work though as he was forced to take a job at McDonalds so he could replace it with a rusty Mustang. Didn’t help with the girls much but at least he didn’t have to park half a mile away from parties anymore.
Anyway – the reason that Volvo didn’t win any awards for this ad is that VW was on a serious advertising roll in the early 60’s – including the famous
Lemon
However my all time favorite VW Beetle ad (part of the same series) was from 1965:
“They said it couldn’t be done. It couldn’t.“
“You can sleep an enormous infant behind the back seat” – now *that* is some ad copy you won’t find nowadays… 🙂
Actually remember these commercials.
And these were built every bit as tough and strong as the average Ford or GM brand truck back then.
Our next door neighbors, (filthy immigrants from Norway /s) had one of these. It was bullet proof, and laughed at the Minnesota winters.
The cheaper than psychiatry quip was a tongue in cheek reference to the Swedes centuries long basically stoic mindset.
“We can handle shit by ourselves, no shrinks need apply.”
Nissan Altima owners have perfected driving like you hate your car.
Haha, truth, but the Altimas don’t hold up to it nearly as well.
Drive it like you know you are hated.
Up there with I Hate Steven Singer
on the other corner of 8th and Walnut