See the state of the art in television advertising for the early ’50s in this 1950 Studebaker spot.

As much as anything, this 1950 Studebaker spot (from the Buster Keaton Show in Los Angeles, we gathered) demonstrates the extreme limitations of television as an advertising medium in those early days—especially for the automakers. Videotape and mobile equipment didn’t really exist yet, so the automobile had to be crammed,  somehow, onto the production stage of a local television studio. From there, the announcer had to do the best he could to describe all the wonderful things the car could do, because he had no way to show you. The only alternative to this cumbersome process was film production, an expensive and complicated enterprise in itself.

In this instance, they didn’t have room in the studio to show the viewers at home the entire car, apparently, only the front end, but we’d know that face anywhere. That’s the distinctive “bullet nose,” as it was known at the time, of the 1950-51 Studebaker. (See our feature on Studebaker designer Raymond Loewy here.) There were two model lines for ’50, the 113-in. wheelbase Champion and the bigger Commander, which rode on a 120-inch wheelbase (124 inches on the flagship Land Crusier). Both were powered by Studebaker’s venerable flathead sixes.

Noteworthy features included the company’s first automatic transmission, manufactured by Borg-Warner’s Detroit Gear division and introduced at mid-year as Automatic Drive. The option listed at $201, a considerable amount for a car that sold in the $1500-$2000 range. The South Bend, Indiana automaker was actually doing pretty well in this period. Thanks to the post-World War II seller’s market for new cars and a 14-month model year, Studebaker delivered more than 320,000 cars in ’50, its best sales year ever. We’re not sure how much this pioneer effort at television advertising helped, if at all. Video below.

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