Miss Emily Takes Issue
…with reasons given for ‘why don’t more women blog’. As usual, she refutes things/sexist stereotypes beautifully, as does the fellow she links to. The comments section (with Sheila, Lisa, et al, weighing in) is lively and entertaining. Again, as one would expect from women bloggers of their calibre.
But the “put another log on the fire” tone reminded me of one of my favorite VW print ads of all time…and how things change. Or don’t. I give you Readers’ Digest, September 1964…
Sooner or later, your wife will drive home one of the best reasons for owning a Volkswagon
Women are soft and gentle, but they hit things.
If your wife hits something in a Volkswagon, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt you very much.
VW parts are easy to replace. And cheap. A fender comes off without dismantling half the car. A new one goes on with just 10 bolts. For $24.95 plus labor.
And a VW dealer always has the kind of fender you need. Because that’s the one kind he has.
Most other VW parts are interchangeable, too. Inside and out. Which means your wife isn’t limited to fender smashing.
She can jab the hood. Graze the door. Or bump off the bumper.
It may make you furious, but it won’t make you poor.
So when your wife goes window shopping in a Volkswagon, relax.
You can conveniently replace anything she uses to stop the car.
Even the brakes.
Fun | tree hugging sister | 
June 30, 2006 1:16 pm
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If this was true, why was my insurance premium higher than my sister’s? I want a refund. With interest.
There used to be a sign — well, actually an almost-billboard — outside a gas station in my hometown that had a picture of a woman standing outside her car while a man with a bowtie pumps her gas. The caption read, “We treat her with care!!”
Even as a child, I remember thinking, “Well, big deal. Do you treat guys like shit?”
I love this line: “If your wife hits something in a Volkswagon, don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt you very much.”
That’s a marvelous marketing tool. “When your wife runs you over, you won’t get hurt so bad.”
Yeah, but if Bing is right, this one kid of fits you, doesn’t it THS?
John, you be amazed at home many tons of body putty an AMC Javelin could drive around with.
There could be a loose association there, John, but only just. I wasn’t anyone’s wife and most of the body putty was acquired in deliberate, random and often spectacular acts of vehicular lunacy as opposed to bumps and grinds in the A&P parking lot.
My Javelin caught air on a regular basis.
Well, if they wanted you to keep the car on the road, they shouldn’t have named it after a throwing implement.
What leaps out at ME in this ad are the choppy, three-word sentences. Such as this. And this. Starting with conjunctions. ‘Cause that’s good writing. Even for ads.
It’s like being pelted with gnats. GAAAAH.
Nightfly,
I bleieve the writing style you describe was referred to as “bright, snappy copy”.
Or something like that.
Having grown up driving VW’s, from the blue family ’69 Bus we drove across Europe, to Mom’s little red Bug, to my brother’s cream-colored ’64 that he ran into a telep[hone pole at Frenchman’s Tower off Page-Mill and nearly put me through the windshield, to my own “Egg” – an Earl Scheib powder-blue bondo-bandit ’60 Karmann Ghia….it’s the g*d#mn freakin’ LABOR that costs! Parts is cheap, and they’re CRAP! Engineered to do “just enough” and not more.
After three blown motors, dropped valves and four blown oil-seals I lost track. One motor I rebuilt from the cases-up by myself. I am a terrible boss and paid myself poorly, I’d never work for me again.
I like my Ford F-150, thank God in Heaven…
Hm. The only time my father got hurt in a car accident (in my lifetime) was when he was in a VW Bug — that he was driving. Another time, he was driving himself and my mother home from a night on the town and wrecked our Oldsmobile — the only car we ever owned with working a/c. Nobody got hurt that time, probably because they were inside a real car this time.