1960 Plymouth Fury - A non-Neon.

The Automobiles and Convenyances editor dropped this on my desk this morning. It's an ad for a 1960 Plymouth Fury. I'd heard of them, but I hadn't seen one. I immediately shouted down to the workers on the floor to go buy us some presses and then stop them, because this Fury is going in today's post!

Christine was a '58 Fury, but this '60 is close enough, and she can haunt my dreams any night she wants to. What a way to go.

There's some really good B.S. in this ad. The "Dura-Quiet" body construction was not, I assure you, a collaboration between the brilliant engineering team of Mr. Dura and Mr. Quiet. This is when the product development team telephone the marketing department and tell them about the new thinking on body construction. "it should be a lot stronger and quieter than the old construction method, we think". Then, the clever people put their finger on their chin for almost an entire coffee break and come up with "Dura-Quiet", then go back to telling each other how clever they are for the rest of the year. Thanks guys. You're really earning your twelve grand a year, aren't you?

This supremely clever thread is still woven through the fabric of the automotive marketing industry. It's a rich tapestry of genius. You've seen the commercials for Auto Zone's house brand of car batteries, "Duralast"? Wow, guys. Really? "Duralast"? What are the names you turned down? "Last-O-Long", "Very-Last", "StrongZap", Last-O-Dur", "Dura-Dur", "Start-A-Much", "Nevr-Stop-Starting"? If the goal of the creative team is to think of names that your average mouth-breather would think up, why do we need to call you a creative team? I think I'm in the wrong business. This just in: average salary in the marketing industry is $63,000. I just coughed up seven product names that are just as retarded as "Duralast". I'd like my check sent to GO! Tower, #1, GO! Plaza, Chicago, Illinois, 60606060.

Jeez! Look at those ridiculous fins and headlight eyebrows! Look at the huge wraparound windows. This is a million years away from a Dodge Neon, the company's "low-price car" of forty years down the road. The Neon is famous in my mind for being the second most paint-falling-offest car ever made, after the 1992 Pontiac grand-Am. Progress. What a bummer.

Know what isn't a bummer? Free pictures of this car on a transparent background in two sizes. You know the drill. Big and small. Left and right. Click through the little ones here to get to the biggers. Get your rude fingers ready to right click them into your personal multicar pileup in three, two, one....

UPDATE: Looks like the slackers on the Photoshop and Blandishment squad were slacking off when they prepped these PNGs. I'll personally fix the missing windows in the left-facing versions and re-post tonight. Stay tuned.

UPDATE UPDATE: The windows have been fixed. Please grab the PNGs at will.