Mercury Wagon - Men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men...

Nineteen sixty-six - a time when you could use the word "men" in an ad, and use it as something other than a perjorative. Mercury was "the Man's Car", or so they wanted you to believe. They wanted very hard for you to believe that.

Station wagons were made to be useful, and they were. But, their stigma of squareness led to their demise. It seems now their niche in the market has been filled by the much less sensible and much more infantile SUV, with all the bigness of a wagon, rarely with even half of the functionality. Few SUVs can even fit a sheet of 4x8 plywood in the back, but there must be some.

I think a Suburban can still haul plywood. My dad always insisted on owning a Suburban, which was basically a station wagon scaled vertically 140%. In Photoshop, use CTRL+T on a station wagon and just pull the top center control point updwards.

SUBURBANNED!

Anyway, this Mercury ad is so weiner-centric, you go through Extra Puberty just by reading it. "A man shouldn't have to treat people like baggage." "A man needs man-sized room". "Other man-pampering features..." Wait, what? I don't recall a need for "pampering" being very manly in any decade. Here's a manly sentence for you: A man shouldn't want to be pampered. Pamering is the kryptonite of toughness, in case you didn't know. This ad reads like someone trying very hard to talk like a guy, who has no real idea how to do it.

This wagon is what we call "a boat", and the copy is not ashamed to admit it. Observe:

Nice try, marketing. That's some heavy spin on the simple reality that there's a huge wood sticker on the side of your car that will dry out, crack, and peel in a couple of years. A man shouldn't have rust bubbles under his pretend wood. Hey-oh!

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