In 1975, Ford tried to turn the page on the growing complaints of poor quality with a remarkable marketing campaign called “The Closer You Look.”
This 1975 commercial from the Ford Motor Company captures a critical moment in time for the Detroit automakers. At that moment, the Motor City was under attack on multiple fronts. American cars, the pundits were saying, were of indifferent design and sloppy build quality, and now German and Japanese manufacturers were winning U.S. car buyers and eating up Detroit’s market share. Meanwhile, safety advocates and environmental watchdogs were challenging the industry’s guiding principle: that only Detroit knew how to make automobiles and everyone else simply needed to butt out.
To counter the attacks, the Ford Motor Company enlisted its most trusted spokesman, newsman and broadcaster Hugh Downs, and launched a marketing theme with the top line, “The Closer You Look.” The campaign challenged American car buyers to inspect Ford cars closely for items like panel gaps and trim fits and make up their own minds about quality. Essentially, they were asking car buyers to ignore the growing consensus that American cars were inferior and decide for themselves. The perception of poor quality is a challenge that Detroit wrestles with to this day, but this is how Ford was dealing with it in 1975. Video below.
I owned a new 1975 Monarch and I must say it was one of the best vehicles I ever owned. The only complaint I ever had was one time driving at night in a rather severe snowstorm. The snow kept getting into the air intake icing up the carburetor and the engine would sputter and shut down. Let it sit for a few minutes and let the under hood engine warmth do it’s magic and it would start right up and drive until it happened again.
Actually the lowest point of quality in American cars was the mid fifty’s. With the eighty’s in some years being a close second. In the 50’s I worked in a new car get ready dept and can attest to many horror stories about the lack of quality in that era. As for the 80’s I was in sales and witnessed the same from a different viewpoint.
Ford needs to revisit this video and do some soul searching. The last 20 years or so, quality hasn’t always been Job 1 with them….
Pretty much, any Amurican car built in 75 was crap by todays standards. The Ford Elite they show was a humongous pig (there was about 3’ between the tip of the front bumper and the engine) that had crap mileage. The Elite, T-Bird, Cougar and several other models were the same car with minimal differences. But, don’t for a moment think that GM, Chrysler or AMC put out any cars that were significantly better. Each year, cars were re-styled. Not improved. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that significant improvements in American cars were seen.