Derek is out and about bringing you content at Monterey Car Week, so I’ve volunteered for this installment of Car Connections. As this is my first time using the Random Word Generator, I’m quite curious what the three random words will be and how I can associate them with automobiles. Ready? The words are Length, Store, and Spokesperson. How would you associate these words with cars? Tell us in the Comments section below. In the meantime, look below how I associate these words with cars! (And be sure to click here for more Car Games!)
Note this Canadian Pontiac brochure with speedo in kilometers.
Length: Measurements. Metric. If you look at a classic Canadian-market vehicle, its speedometer will show miles per hour, but Canada moved into the metric world starting in September 1977, so any 1978 model-year vehicle would utilize a speedometer in kilometers (interestingly, most vintage Canadian brochures used Detroit stock photos with mph). This was part of a push initiated in 1970 to move the country into metrication, though today you’ll find remnants of the imperial system due to Canada’s ties to the United Kingdom.
Weseloh Chevrolet in Oceanside, California (Image courtesy of Oceanside Historical Society/Facebook)
Store: Dealership. Model-year introductions. I’m a bit too young to have experienced the excitement of having dealerships obscure their windows while preparing for the introduction of the new model year’s models, but I do remember the excitement of model-year updates starting to show their faces in magazines and television. I also relished the buff books when they had their October issues (which of course appeared in September) with all the new cars and the major and minor tweaks. Unfortunately, the model-year introduction is somewhat of a lost art these days.
Spokesperson: I don’t think I’ve seen “You Bet Your Life” hosted by Groucho Marx, but I reckon I wouldn’t have recognized him as he looked quite different from his vaudevillian and silver screen Marx Brothers days. Nonetheless, I know DeSoto was a sponsor. Does that make Groucho a spokesperson? Perhaps. Likewise, Dinah Shore sang a jingle for Chevrolet, but that’s also before my time. What is part of my time — and full of pop cultural kitsch — is Ricardo Montalban and his stint talking about Corinthian leather (a marketing term, if you didn’t know) available for the Chrysler Cordoba. I didn’t realize he was Mexican, as I thought he was Spanish, though his parents were Spanish immigrants.
Does today’s round of Car Connections make you want to add a foreign-market vehicle, a car built for the model year intro, or a Chrysler Cordoba? You can find any or all on ClassicCars.com.
