Certainly Pontiac’s F-body was one of the highlights of the decade, but take a look at their TV commercials and you’ll see the marketing department at Firebird were 100% on-point with their grasp of then-current trends.
We’ll start this out with the 1980 Firebird, touting “The world’s only turbocharged V8 available in a production car.” Certainly Bandit would approve.
The 1981 Firebird was pushed with a lot less excess, and the style of the commercial shows less 70s-hangover than the year before. A much more sedate looking car is featured, but, hey, thunder and lightning! This lower-key variant is no turbo-V8, but a more sophisticated “computer-assisted V6 engine.” Hm. Turn up that smoke machine!
1982 and we are full-boogie 1980s style for the all-new F-‘Bird. Guy in a lab coat looking techie? Check. Outline and grid style computer graphics? Check. Futuristic sounding electronic music? Of course! We’ve got puffy pleather on the driving-gloved model booking it across a digital city and it’s no wonder they claim the car conquers the world!
Mysteriously, searching for 1983 yielded no results. So, this slideshow of the 1983 brochure set to Knight Rider’s theme song will have to do (you know you’ll watch it):
For 1984, there’s a culmination-of-80s-cool guy running to his car which he thoughtlessly left parked in the middle of the hilly forest road. He’d been driving there at night, perhaps, and needed a rest, given the awkwardly inserted nighttime clips. He apparently walked some distance away from it. Dude could have been selling shampoo or sunglasses for all we know. If you can explain the logic of this ad, please do. Definitely 80s.
Preppy-yuppie guy asks, “Want to see something really exciting?” The commercial answers on our behalf in the affirmative, and shows the car being driven through an incoming tide on the beach. But, only after being blasted through a wall. Naturally. Super-deep-voice announcer guy (if you lived through the 80s, you will recognize this guy, guaranteed) tells us how awesome the car is over semi-aggressive techno-electronic sounds. The 1980s: You got it, Pontiac!
What Pontiac got for 1986 was sexy! Night time, wet city streets, electronic drum kit, super cool guy, rad babe, envious old dude wishing he were super cool guy to get rad babe, and wrapping it up with neon. They’re letting you know there is NO cooler ride than a Firebird.
The heat is on for 1987: plucky yuppies versus jerk-faced thugs! Absolutely nothing about the car, but very era-correct music video stylings. It’s okay to antagonize the guys who are definitely going to give you a beat down if they catch you, so long as you keep running towards your Firebird.
Hard rockin’ montage! Ride, Pontiac, Ride! ALL the Pontiacs! 1988! Yeah!
Sadly, no results for 1989. Plenty for the Bonneville, Grand Prix, and even Sunbird. Perhaps the lack of material shows them leaning in a different direction for the brand in general?
Having seen far too many car spots of the 80s in recent years, Pontiac certainly wasn’t afraid to follow what was cool and try to sell their vehicles with it.
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