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1955 Ad w/ Mocked CJ-5 From Prev Photo

• CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

A 1955 newspaper ad for jeep looks familiar to me. Noticing that the spare tire was mounted like that of a CJ-2, I realized that the CJ-5 portion of the photo had been illustrated and an extra tree added.

Here’s how the ad looks, edited and cropped, in 1955 (ad is on eBay):

1955-jeep-ad-cj5-sprayer

Here’s how the original 1945 press photo looked:

early-jeep-spraying-lores1

 

3 Comments on “1955 Ad w/ Mocked CJ-5 From Prev Photo

  1. Barry

    Dave – Do you know if Willys did its own marketing or used an outside firm? There are other ads from ’55 that show a CJ5 prototype. So why use a doctored 10 year old picture? Interesting find.

  2. Keith

    They used more than one outside agency.
    American Advertising was the main one, and contracted other outside firms, mainly in New York, Carl Byoir.

    Frank Canaday, Wards brother, was the Chairman of American Advertising. Before Ward Canaday took over Willys, He was the Chairman of American Advertising…

    Frank wanted to be a novelist, not a shadow puppet for Ward (in his own words)

  3. David Eilers Post author

    Barry: Keith knows more about this than I do.

    I don’t know why they’d use an old image like that, but I can only guess someone was in a hurry and had to work with what they had.

    There are other examples of modifying photos in Fred Coldwell’s Production Civilian Jeeps 1944-1945: Models CJ-1 & CJ-2. He shows actual photos vs. the modified ones used in marketing pieces.

    – Dave

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