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Manufacturers! Embrace your past!

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Mathieu St-Pierre
That is if you've got one in the market where you're selling your product.

Lucky for us North Americans, we have great history where the automobile is concerned. Domestic brands can pull out names from their vast inventories of trademarked words from the past and instantly spark up nostalgia. It doesn't always work though. Consider Chrysler and the warm reception for the Charger/Challenger duo and the rather hell-frozen-over acceptance of the new Dart...

However, this is not the point of this blog. The inspiration for this blog strangely came from Toyota's commercial for its newest Corolla. In it, we see various generations of the Corolla mixed in with the music styles of the time.



The first three generations rock, if you will, but there's only a very brief spot on the mid-'90s Corolla. In fact, little is shown of the car between 1988 and 2013. This is a period that Toyota would probably prefer we all forget, but the point is that they're showing the Corolla's roots.

The same idea was used in the Civic Nation commercials from a number of years ago. Many of the modded Civics were plain nasty looking but again, the point was made. This car has history and as a possible owner, you will belong to this elite and cool group. We all want to belong.

There are numerous other examples: Volkswagen Beetles routinely make appearances in VW commercials. Perhaps my favourite is the Porsche Panamera spot where the show begins with chassis number 356/2-040, which is the oldest original condition Porsche in the world. I love it when a car manufacturer reminds us viewers/consumers that they've been around and have proven their worth through the years. Then, there are those that do not have this history and thus must make their own as they go along.



Hyundai and Kia (Suzuki's dead, but would have fit into this category) are some examples of carmakers that are building a memoir as they progress. With the help of cool and unusual cars such as the Veloster and Soul, they are ensuring that we will have something to remember them by and feel nostalgic about in 30 years.

I say embrace your past while you still can! As car buyers evolve and become less interested in the car and more in connectivity, the fact that the Ferrari F40 was the first production car to reach 200 mph will matter very little, or not at all.

Mathieu St-Pierre
Mathieu St-Pierre
Automotive expert
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