Ads from the Past: Snowbound Volkswagen

In an era when only Saab sold front-wheel drive cars in North America and only Jeep sold all-wheel drive, Volkswagen marketed rear-engine traction to skiers and other snow-belt drivers. This ad ran nationally around 1960, and there were dozens more. Canadian publications got a photo of a Beetle rolling up a snowy road with skis and a toboggan on the roof rack. New Yorkers, meanwhile, saw a Beetle with skis on the back and Vermont plates, motoring up the FDR drive in a blizzard with no other traffic on the road. A beloved television spot asked, “Did you ever wonder how the snowplow driver gets to the snowplow?” Another print ad didn’t even show a car, just a set of tire tracks disappearing around an uphill bend on a snow-packed mountain road—with the advice that “A Volkswagen looks best when everything else looks bad.” Similar campaigns ran in Europe. And, yes, I learned to drive in a ’62 Bug. It towed my sailboat and got me to the lifts in lake-effect blizzards east of Lake Erie. —Seth Masia

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