German car commercial, The worst.

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay, the 1960’s VW Bug commercials may have been edgy and innovative. Still, they were promoting a cute car that was basically a POS. At least it was durable. Then VW went to the Dasher, the Sirocco and the Rabbit. They were neither cute nor durable.

Then Audi came in. They sold rust buckets that had inherent design problems.

BMW had a reputation of quality and that was all BS. See what the cost was for a simple service call.

Mercedes built a reputation of quality and exclusivity. Bad joke. They are on the level of a mid-level Japanese or Korean cars.

Today’s commercials for this junk are nothing other than insulting. The Mercedes AMG commercial where some despicable asshole is smugly at a stoplight against a top fuel dragster, etc. He has 6000 hp and 5 turbocharges. BFD. Is your identity based on being an asshole doing an illegal drag race against imaginary challengers? Notice they didn’t have a Tesla on the line that would wax them on a bad day with a bad driver.

Then Audi shows a commercial of some criminal asshole that won’t go into the witness protection program because he loves his POS Audi. Visually, they take a shot at Lexus. Well hello, Audi is a very pedestrian looking vehicle and the Lexus is very edgy.

VW is a company that should be shut down for their criminal activity. Porsche is Volkswagen.
I don’t hate Germans. I’m mostly German. But to hell with their car companies and their advertising agencies. I’m not going to buy their overpriced junk that will break you if you want to get them serviced. I don’t want to be seen as an asshole that is nothing more than a wannabe swayed by their obnoxious advertising. I’d rather drive a Chevy than be seen in their shit.

2

It’s almost as if they think there are a lot of people who want their car to be like some kind of status symbol or high performance machine instead of just a car and are using advertising to try to convince them that their car is the one they want.

Yeah, give me a reality-based Camaro commercial any time.

3

Yep. The wurst.

4

I’ve driven German cars and American and both ends of the financial scale and the German cars have been much nicer. Germans are not known for their tolerance of shoddy engineering.

So there’s that anecdote.

Plus in terms of adverts in general, I saw this at the cinema when it first came out and it remains the best car advert I’ve ever seen.

5

A speculative German proposed advert for Volvo last year was quite amusing,
The ABC of Death

Lilting 1940s type song in a Charles Addams’ manner.

6

The VW bug was the perfect car for poorer working class people. It was dirt cheap; it was durable and very easy to fix; and it got great gas mileage. An old boo and I drove my ancient 1968 VW Bug from LA to Puerto Vallarta and back in 2 weeks with only a couple of oil leeks in damage. Wouldn’t do that today but it was a perfect teenage first car.

7

I think I’ve been re-programmed if the first thing I think of when seeing the thread title is that deep, mega-effects “Das auto” voice.

Or kinda dorky.

The only Merc owner (with an S Class W221) I knew had to constantly bring it in for repairs, for exorbitant service fees. Funnily enough he replaced it with a current Volkswagen bug that’s been doing him fine the past couple of years.

8

I don’t know about that. My dad bought a diesel Rabbit brand new in '79; eight years later it had over 750,000 miles on the odometer. That little car likely could have gone for a million if he hadn’t tried fixing a dead idiot light by rewiring the circuit board.

9

Everybody’s got an opinion about cars, often including mind reading of the reasons other people have different opinions about cars. :slight_smile:

I loved my '67 and '73 (convertible, the latter) Bugs. Owned them in late '70’s-early 80’s and mid-late 80’s respectively. By the end of that period they were woefully obsolete sure, but OTOH a car I could understand every piece of, never have since. And back in the '70’s there were some very shitty US cars. I recall my dad’s ‘Mustang’, the car Ford sold under that name at the time, not the original or the current one, 1974 model, worst car I’ve ever known.

Now my car is a 2015 BMW 328i. I don’t see quality as the central identity of that brand, it’s performance. But the car has had no significant problem, and per Consumer Reports tables that year 3 series has a well above avg reliability record. I love it, albeit more so because of after-market that boosts the HP significantly (I guess I could carp ‘why doesn’t come that way?’). Other similar cars by both German and in some cases US makes are not far behind, and some BMW lovers don’t like this generation of the 3, F30. But comparable Lexus IS, sorry inferior car in what counts most in that segment. Reliable very likely, I loved our Lexus GX SUV for its reliability but that’s not everything. Comparable small Caddy isn’t much if at all behind on performance but the reliability, after decades of ‘Detroit is catching up’, is still crap. Otherwise I’d consider Caddy.

As to cost of ownership, of the BMW, it’s quite high once you’re off warranty if you still go to the dealer. But not as much if you find a good independent mechanic, less so still to the extent you can DIY basic stuff. Anyway if you’re counting pennies it’s not the right car in the first place.

My experience with Mercedes (2000 E) was not so good. The car wasn’t very fun, and it had a lot of minor glitches (also in line with the CR charts, believe them in general is the lesson I’ve learned).

On TV commercials, I know everyone says they aren’t influenced by them, but I really don’t think I am. Influenced by the internet equivalent of slick brochures about the details of the car? Probably. Influenced by attending the BMW driving school? Definitely. That is an absolute blast, excellent marketing tool that’s the opposite of annoying. :slight_smile:

10

Best commercial ever. :slight_smile:

OP, you sound a bit green with envy. If I could afford to buy a Porsche, I certainly would. My first car was a 1967 vw bug. I literally drove it to death. The odometer broke at about 300,000 miles and I had it another six years. It was well used when I bought it in 1978.

11

All cars are the same anyway: Small black sedan, rounded but not too round, utterly impossible to pick out of a crowded parking lot. Buicks look like Kias, unless you’re the kind of person who mentally catalogs tiny differences in tail light arrangement or body stampings.

And I bet there’s still a price difference. Unbelievable.

12

Some people enjoy performance cars and some people enjoy hating the advertising for performance cars so much they will never drive them. To each their own. I’ll ponder this mystery on the way to the beach in my BMW this week. Across mountain roads. Twisty, wild, fun, mountain roads.

13

I hope you’re not saying that a Testa would wax a top fuel car? Because that’s crazy talk.

14

It might… for the first 25 feet :slight_smile:

15

People still buy cars without Japanese engineering?

Well, I guess Italian cars, if you’re into that kind of thing. But other than that, really?

16

Fuck, yeah! This morning my '93 Roadmonster wouldn’t start. Dave, my mechanic, came over with a BF jumper, got it started, and I drove to his boss’s place to complain about Interstate battery he installed last year. Never mind; it was under warranty.

Dave described the fate of my LTD race car (he shouldn’t have entrusted it to a moron who killed it a couple laps after TWO YEARS of dirt, following several wins, including dirt AND figure 8; it had no brakes but a race car doesn’t need 'em), but it died in battle and was wafted to Valhalla. Daughter’s Saturn also died for the cause (ladies, have you ever met an unbearably hot ginger? That’s Dave. A crush on him was natural. And based on recent hires, either the owner or his wife has a type: tall, lanky, bearded, and handsome.) Anyway, the Saturn lasted three minutes on the track until it was hit and the body exploded. Meh. It was an unitentinonal total-loss oil system and was doomed to die in seconds.

17

FTR, I have my eye on a couple slightly-later SDVs. Looking for the LT1 in a land barge that will make my life complete. The guys on Car Talk talked that Cadillac should market them by leaving them on the street, with the instruction: “Drive it for 30 days. After that start paying us.”

18

I liked this post, a little. But really, I don’t enjoy hating the advertising for performance cars, I just don’t trust the motives of people who like performance cars. I can see the fun and challenge of closed track, parking lot racing, but on public roads “drivers’ cars” just seem like falling for a prepackaged, profit-motivated, mythos. Like extreme audio fandom or extreme wine fandom.

Is the point to accelerate up that hill, without a hint of engine lag? That seems a damn silly thing to care about.

Is the point to drive a little faster than you feel comfortable driving, and being forced to pay close attention. I really wish you wouldn’t when my children might be sharing the road with you.

Is the point to perfectly track that curve? I have troubled believing someone could really care about that without reading dozens of magazines devoted to selling you on the idea that it’s a thing to be relentlessly pursued.

I’m not heavily emotionally invested in my opinion, and there’s a lot I don’t know. Especially about cars. Enjoy your trip. :slight_smile:

19

I love driving. I am a careful driver. I do not drive like I’m on the racetrack when I am in the neighborhood with your kids. I have kids too. For years and years, I had a multi-hour commute, and at least half of it was mountain roads in a rural setting. Deer were a bigger problem than pedestrians. Horses every once and a while. A car that could handle twisty mountain roads like that, plus a several thousand foot altitude change, on a daily basis, was important to me. If that same car could transition to freeway and city driving, and be safe, that was also good. Fun to drive on top of all of that = bonus.

Yes, I like German performance car and twisty roads. Yes, I have fun tracking the curve. IMO, and I bet you agree with me, a car with enough engine to handle the hill is always more enjoyable to drive than one that you have to nurse up the slope like it’s a moving truck you rented in college, praying you’ll make it to the top, and dropping mph with every hundred yards.

No, the point is not to push my car and the road on a road I don’t know, in bad weather, heavy traffic and so on. Find a track if you want to push it. Don’t be an asshole and get yourself or others hurt or killed. I drive with the flow of traffic, in my freaking lane (because cutting the corners is cheating and dangerous), and I have fun. A car that’s been built for curves, hills, and acceleration really is more fun to drive and you don’t have to be a jerk doing it.

20

That first Scirocco, in 1974, was a Giugiaro design. Many car people admire it, and Giorgetto Giugiaro was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. Hate all you want, but you’re in the minority.

German engineering (cars and motorcycles) is precise, exact, provide good occupant protection, and innovative.

The Porsche 959 of 1986 … (Wikipedia)

The BMW small sedans (3 series) are generally regarded as among the best ever, consistently, over the past 40 years.

I drive a Jeep, but I do have an early 1960s Porsche 356. It is a reliable, well engineered car. I could drive it to NYC, 3,000 miles away, tonight if I needed to.