A corner of memories inside our museum, virtually a drive throughout time!

How cars would be sold.

Have you ever imagined what the advertising start-up for supporting car sales in the country may have been like?

First of all, I want to clarify that I feel a tremendous respect for advertising. In fact, I assume it is nearly a science.

And it is only within just a few people's reach. Highly talented people, indeed, because -not in this case- many of these individuals, occasionally and because of their strong talents for persuasion, have been (are and will be) able to sell even the non-saleable.


Automóvil y Sports with the full-page FIAT ad. February 1912.


Caras y Caretas. Sep. 8, 1900 issue. The "Locomobile" ad.

Automóvil y Sports (1913). The Overland's complete file and its profile, below.

And what happened before? How would they manage at the beginning of a new century? How would those cars be sold, if besides being brand-new they came to people's imagination practically as an unknown artefact, in black and white, at most?

There follows a story with a charm of its own. (I should also advertise my matter, shouldn't I?)

For showing you that I'm not untruthful, I'll provide some examples of those ads. And a number of reflections. You'll see how, eventually, you agree with me to state that, in the first years of the century, advertising was very strong even with its moving ingenuousness.

And they you will notice that advertising, in the past and nowadays, was an exceptional ally to cars, even in those times when cars were practically considered an "infernal machine..."

AS A REVIEW

This is not an exhaustive or thorough review. I gathered some elements to get an idea of the matter. I don't think it's the ad I see in CARAS Y CARETAS magazine Sep. 8, 1900 issue, i.e. the first published ad showing a car. But it should have been something like that (as kids say.)

"Locomobile- The most popular car in Buenos Aires and other capital cities," the non-evasive advertising dares proclaim. And, it adds, "The Locomobile Stanley is the most practical, quickest, simplest, lightest and cheapest." All that? Was that true? There are no records, but...

In the no-longer published AUTOMÓVIL Y SPORTS magazine -a national journalism's feat that dealt in "all sports illustration"- appears "Fiat everywhere." And there you see -even- the national president himself  getting into an impressive Fiat car, on a picture taken from behind half a grenadier (presidential guard member) and at the Pink (Government's) House itself!

And what about the 1913 Overland? A wide literature is attached to the description of the 69=T model, a "separately modelled" 4-cylinder car with Bosh allumage (ignition) and, among other luxurious traits, "drive: three-stroke and counter-drive (rear drive) selection type... completed (finished) with all bright nickel-plated parts... crystal wind-shield (windscreen)...," of five-passenger capacity.


Automóvil y Sports (July 1913). The "racing" Peugeot...

Plus Ultra (1917). Dodge ad. To look at for a long while

Automóvil y Sports (1915). The Buick, gaudily denominated the "criollo horse."

Extremely elegant was the ad published in another jewel of the national graphic journalism, i.e. the PLUS ULTRA magazine, which in 1917 presented the "Dodge Brothers" cars (as you may notice, the use of Shakespeare's mother tongue in our country dates back from the past.) An old Argentinean struggler -Julio Fèvre, Jr.- represented that trademark. The ad at issue explains that the price for "the voiturette or for the full double phaeton is of $ national currency 3,200 (on Buenos Aires wagon)." (It would come from overseas.) You, in love with cars -even if shown in ads- don't know what is more marvellous, i.e. the quasi-perfect draft, made by an illustrator like those who enlightened our (fortunately) TV-less childhood; the contour -rather than the environment, as currently told, that surrounds the car (the silhouette of the boy and his friend, a dog); or the image that seems to have got away, if paid appropriate attention to- from the European countryside, revealed by the type of construction of a sort of yarn that may be seen above the folded "hood" of the impressive (and cheap) car...

AND RACING CARS
Do you ask whether there existed any racing car at that time? Of course there was! And a Peugeot! The winner of the Automobile Club de France's Grand Prix -"the most important race in the year"- driven by Boillot in 7h53m56s., surpassing by 2m4s his mate Goux, which showed "the extraordinary regularity of Peugeot" that, "instead of resting in their laurels of last year, offered their world competitors the occasion of a noisy return, but with this new victory, even fuller than their previous triumph." And there appears the device imported by Recht & Lehmann, with number 1 painted on its sides, its wedged access cover (with its handle hanging below the imposing radiator), its wheels in the air and with two crew-members looking at their sides. We may say, assessing their advantage with regard to their competitors...

THE FORTUNE OF MEMORY
I get back a little further to tell you that also in the 1914 Tour de France appears the Buick, qualified (would they have learned that in America?) as the "criollo horse of cars." The Buick was 3,500 pesos "national currency" worth, with an appealing additional offer (do you see that in those times ads were so
"captivating" as today?), since "the Buick dealers challenge (for) 100,000 pesos -then a house was 2,600 2600 pesos worth...- that double-priced or more expensive car that may defeat the Buick's Buenos Aires-Valparaíso record" (Let's, for the time being, forget this "record." Later on, I promise, we'll remember it.)
Other times. Other cars. The same attractive ads, now renewed with colours that go beyond plain black and white.
With a flair of charming and peaceful melancholy.
I know. Upon reading these lines, if you are a grown-up reader, you may wish to make a review of those days, with sighs and memories.
You may consider yourself fortunate to have such personal feelings in your memory. You are fortunate. Believe me. Sincerely, the writer...