Hitting the Gym Won't Restore Your Masculinity, but Buying a Six-cylinder Ford Will

It’s hot, it’s the middle of summer, and the beach beckons from afar. But if stripping down around a bunch of muscle-bound surfer hunks causes bouts of anxiety and insecurity, fear not. Ford Motor Company has a solution.

The great thing about 1960s car commercials is the complete disregard for political correctness and subtlety when it comes to stroking a driver’s ego. It’s hard to imagine a world where manufacturers so nakedly sold a lifestyle by pumping out vast quantities of innuendo in a bid to lure buyers into dealerships. Trigger warning!

Hocking a menacing GTO or Charger is easy, but what if you had to sell a low-priced base model in the ’60s? Easy. Stick with the plan.

To get up-and-coming Boomers (who just landed their first real job) to buy 1965 Mustang convertibles, Ford riffed on the old Charles Atlas body-building ads. The result? This commercial, in which young Albert’s teenage girlfriend laments, “Every time I went to the beach with Albert, some big muscle guy was always kicking sand in his face. It made me so mad. He tried all the exercises, went through the diets… I wonder what ever happened to him.”

Cue the sultry “Mrs. Robinson” voice. That pale, wimpy guy you knew from the beach still has the body of a budding accountant, but his new Ford just delivered a heaping dose of confidence.

“Albert’s a Mustanger now,” says the voice-over, as if speaking naughtily to a friend. “Nothing soft about this car, except the all-vinyl interior and the carpeting.”

Wait – what, huh? A nation of male television viewers slowly rouses themselves from their slumber.

“With a big, 200 cubic-inch strong-arm six, he’s got a tough, new kind of action.”

A nation’s drinks collectively spill on the sofa. Yes, that’s the Ford Falcon’s base engine, many think. But now it sounds sexy and compelling and I’d step over my neighbour’s body for one taste of –

“Put a few kicks in your life – take a new Mustang out for a little road work,” says the velvet-voiced lady, as Albert suggestively works the shift lever in his new ‘stang, kicking sand into the face of a surfer with his rear wheels.

You can just imagine Albert’s thoughts: The punk probably works in a burger stand – he’ll never know the thrill of Mustang life. Thank you, capitalism. Just try getting one of these babies in Russia. I dare you.

Just to make sure the audience — now sitting rigidly upright while pondering their life’s many mistakes — gets the message, the breathy voice-over repeats the words “Mustang…Mustang….. Mustang,” for their benefit.

It’s seductive, exploitative, and very lucrative. Ford sold 559,500 Mustangs in 1965, and made its entry-level 120 hp straight-six seem like the heart of an untamed, primal warrior. For just $2,614, a glamorous — and quite sexy — middle-class lifestyle awaits, or so the ad would have your believe.

These days, all we’re allowed to do is refine our or slyly cheat our insurers (thanks to automatic braking). The ’60s, for better or for worse, are truly over.