The Greatest- and Sexiest- Car Ad of All Time: 1980 Black Gold Datsun 280ZX!

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

The latest crop of Super Bowl car ads boasted some high-production-value salaciousness, but no car advertisement will ever come close to the perfection of the Quaaludes-and-disco Black Gold Man and Black Gold Woman and their gorgeous 10th Anniversary Edition 280ZX. Yes, many of you have seen this ad before, but I will not rest until all have experienced Black Gold (plus I’ve included a few Bonus Sexy Malaise Era car ads after the jump).


The only 10th Anniversary Edition Black Gold 280ZX I’ve ever seen in person was about to get crushed, and I was still in junior high when this car was new, but I still crave a car so lavishly appointed that there are virtually no options. Driven to the ultimate!

A few years before there was Black Gold, there was a very slinky Farrah Fawcett and her pet cougar taking her ’75 Cougar XR-7 to the beach. Glove-soft vinyl on deeply padded bucket seats! Poised opera window!

For ’78, the Cougar had Cheryl Tiegs in her padded-tire-deck-equipped XR-7… and an appropriately disco soundtrack.

The competition sort of gave up, once Black Gold Man and Black Gold Woman roared into a Martian sunset in their 280ZX; here’s the ’81 Mustang and its white-powder-fueled 90-pound driver heading to the disco.

Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • MaintenanceCosts Poorly packaged, oddly proportioned small CUV with an unrefined hybrid powertrain and a luxury-market price? Who wouldn't want it?
  • MaintenanceCosts Who knows whether it rides or handles acceptably or whether it chews up a set of tires in 5000 miles, but we definitely know it has a "mature stance."Sounds like JUST the kind of previous owner you'd want…
  • 28-Cars-Later Nissan will be very fortunate to not be in the Japanese equivalent of Chapter 11 reorganization over the next 36 months, "getting rolling" is a luxury (also, I see what you did there).
  • MaintenanceCosts RAM! RAM! RAM! ...... the child in the crosswalk that you can't see over the hood of this factory-lifted beast.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Yes all the Older Land Cruiser’s and samurai’s have gone up here as well. I’ve taken both vehicle ps on some pretty rough roads exploring old mine shafts etc. I bought mine right before I deployed back in 08 and got it for $4000 and also bought another that is non running for parts, got a complete engine, drive train. The mice love it unfortunately.
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