1967: How Does A Little Bug Survive In The Automotive Jungle?

A big reason for Volkswagen's American sales success of the 1950s and 1960s with the Type 1 Beetle was the work done by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency. The homely-but-reliable little Beetle, despite its 1930s technology, worse-than-the-Corvair handling, and troublesome Nazi Party ancestry, sold like crazy during this period, and clever magazine ads like this 1967 one helped make it happen.

The late 1960s were the heyday of fierce-animal car names, and plenty of nothing-like-the-Beetle competitors get called out here. The Sunbeam Tiger, Plymouth Barracuda, Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, Ford Falcon, Buick Wildcat, Mercury Cougar, Chevrolet Impala, and Rambler Marlin are easily identified, though we're not so sure what the bird at the upper right-hand corner is supposed to be. Two years later, the $1,686 Toyota Corolla appeared in the United States, to do battle with the $1,639 Beetle, hastening the decline of air-cooled Volkswagen sales in the United States.