QOTD: What Is Your All-Time Favorite Automotive Commercial?

Like it or not, advertising is a legitimate art form, studied and dissected just like its sculpture and literature forebears. As the high holy day of the medium approaches this weekend, I thought it appropriate that we discuss some of history’s greatest automotive advertisements.

And don’t worry, we will have a roundup of The Big Game’s best car-specific spots coming soon.

Ideally, an advertisement should sell a car. That’s the point, right? But it seems the most memorable adverts do more than facilitate a transaction — they make a connection with viewers that lasts longer than the 30-second run time. The message stays with the potential buyer for years.

I’ve selected a few of my favorites, and my absolute favorite is at the bottom. But I’m sure you’ll tell me I’m wrong, so feel free to link to your faves.

2016 was a rough one for celebrities, it seems, but in January we didn’t realize just how bad it would get. We’d lost David Bowie, though, and that’s all it took to make this Audi commercial pull at the heartstrings.

1996 was a big year for me. It’s the year I graduated high school, but it’s also the year Nissan killed off the Z for a while. But when their creative team decided to make a memorable advertisement, nothing else on the showroom floor evoked excitement like the 300ZX. So they used a toy Z instead.

I’ll admit it — unlike just about everyone else in the world, I’m not a Star Wars fan. I might have watched one of the films when I was a kid, but the franchise didn’t impact me like most. It took until last summer to get me through all of the films (to that point) with my kids. But the excitement this kid must be feeling when he uses The Force to start a Volkswagen is palpable.