Throwback Thursday: This 1973 AMC Jeep CJ-5 Dealer Commercial Harkens Back to Simpler Times
A lot has changed since this 1973 AMC Jeep CJ-5 dealer commercial was shot. Let’s look back at Jeep life circa 1973.
This 1973 AMC Jeep CJ-5 dealer commercial was shot nearly fifty years ago. The world has come a long way since that time. If you bought a CJ-5 back in 1973 you were interested in the off-road lifestyle. These were not cushy cruisers that could be mistaken for a luxury car. Even a base Wrangler today is a far more comfortable and well-equipped vehicle. But there is something to be said about the simpler life that Jeep drivers lived in 1973. When you watch this old commercial you see how different the Jeep is from modern versions. But you also see how different the world as a whole is now compared to back then. This commercial could never be shot today the way it is presented here. That is both refreshing and a shame.
This week’s “Throwback Thursday” is all about this 1973 AMC Jeep CJ-5 dealer commercial. Typically, we highlight specific vehicles in our throwback pieces and not a general era. But this commercial is just too good to ignore. This is not a typical 30-second tv spot. This is a commercial that AMC shot and sent to dealers so they could be informed about all the changes coming to the 1973 CJ-5 lineup. The video was posted about a dozen years ago on the This-Old-Jeep.com YouTube channel. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.
How Did We Survive?
Did you live through 1973? Congratulations! Based on what we see in this dealer commercial it makes us wonder how any of us made it. Forget air bags and antilock brakes. The 1973 CJ-5 did not even have a shoulder belt. In this ad you can see the driver and passenger getting jostled all over the place with their heads just missing whacking the roll bar. And for the Jeep models without the roll bar, if you roll over, you will be supporting the weight of the Jeep with your skull. On the plus side 1973 saw new electric powered windshield wipers and gauges that actually lit up at night! Talk about cutting edge.
No Lawyers
Were lawyers invented before 1973? It doesn’t seem like it based on this dealer commercial. First of all, there are none of the ‘professional driver on a closed course, do not attempt’ disclosures displayed anywhere. And at about the 35-second mark of the video a CJ-5 driver is driving down the interstate when he just decides to turn off the road and drive up an embankment. What? Give that a try today and see how many moving violations you are issued. Later in the video a no roll bar Jeep takes on a jump so violent that it knocks the hat off the passenger. These are the rebels that bought Jeeps back in the day.
The Year 2072
This dealer commercial is fifty years old now. And it looks hilarious to us. The lack of safety equipment and general features is borderline comical. To say nothing about how the CJ-5 is being driven. Will the 2022 model year Jeeps and associated ads look just as ridiculous in the year 2072? Are Jeep owners fifty years in the future going to be astonished to see that in 2022 we still had Jeeps powered by gasoline? Will it seem funny that a 2022 Jeep can’t drive itself? We don’t know, but fifty years is a long time so it is almost assured that even our most advanced 2022 Jeeps will look absurd in the year 2072.
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