There’s something about the staging of brochure photos in the early 1970s that always feels somehow off. I think it’s the result of two powerful yet conflicting urges: first and foremost, it’s to get the car shown prominently in the composition, clearly the focus. Then, there’s the impulse to have striking, even majestic scenery in the picture, an environment that imparts that powerful, numinous feeling that is crucial to making people want to buy, say, a Mercury or Plymouth or whatever. The combination of these two powerful urges, though, often ends up just, you know, weird.
This 1972 Mercury brochure is a great example of this. Look at that top image, for example. What the hell is going on there? Why are those women sitting on wrought-iron lawn furniture in what seems to be a volcanic plain or maybe a dry lake bed? They’re parked right there, next to the table and chairs, but that environment looks like there’s nothing else around for possibly miles. They just drove out to a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere to have a sit and chat? Maybe.
I guess those could be paving stones on a large patio type of thing. But it all looks rougher, more geological. Are they having brunch?
The car out all alone in some rough natural environment thing comes up a lot. Like our fisherman here, driving his Mercury Monterey Custom Hardtop out onto that rocky shore. I can’t think of a worse car to drive in that terrain, really. These RWD Mercurys would spin their tires on a parking lot that someone had dropped a banana on a month ago. Traction wasn’t their strong suit. Maybe the rocks give more grip? Even so, nobody was doing this in a Mercury coupé.
Then there’s the photos where I just don’t get the logistics of everything. You have a lovely yellow Marquis Hardtop out there on the beach, no trailer or anything, and the lone person in the image – presumably the driver – is there with a horse. How’d the horse get there? Was it sitting in the passenger seat, looking for horse news on the radio?
Did she just find the horse there? Did the horse drive and find her? None of this makes any sense.
Similar to the horse situation is this glider one. So, the red Montego GT, what, was chasing the glider as it came in for a landing, followed it onto the field and … now what? That’s a glider, it’s not taking off again without a tow plane. The Montego has no trailer or anything, and I doubt they’re strapping that thing to the roof. So what’s the plan here? Are they just leaving the glider? This all makes me uneasy.
And this one of the painter with her Monterey: I get that there’s plein air painting, where you go out into the world to paint what you see right there, in natural light. But what has she painted there? It looks like some manner of abstract expressionism. That she could have done in a studio. Maybe they’re abstracted versions of those rolling hills of brown grasses? Again, I have questions.
Then there’s this family cookout. In a big, empty field. As usual, they parked their lovely yellow Montego nice and close to the action, and they have a smoking grill of what I hope is some manner of ethical meat, but no furniture.
And then there’s the one kid by the trunk of the car, as far away from the rest of the family as possible, holding what looks like a handkerchief up to his nose. Is he bleeding? Did someone deck this kid and banish him behind the car? And now they’re all just sitting there smiling as their burgers burn into cinders? The hell is going on here?
Honestly, this one with the cougar on the cougar flanked by the cougar is the only picture that makes any sense. Just a woman taking her big cat out for a day at the beach. This at least I can understand.
Top graphic image: Ford
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