The Sunbird before its headlights went all semi-pop-up. The mighty third-generation Trans-Am, resplendent in black and gold. The flippin’ Fiero, Homes! If your mouth just watered involuntarily, you were likely well under the age of 16 in the mid-1980s. Revamping the performance-oriented image it had cultivated since the 1960s, Pontiac recast itself as the General’s Excitement Division for the Reagan era. After all, what thrills like a Parisienne?
Anybody who lived through the Excitement Era can’t shake the earworm of a creepily confident chorus belting out, “We build ex-cite-ment! Pon-ti-ac!” But there was more! What might have been lost to the mists of history has been saved by YouTube and some forward-thinking schnook’s VHS collection. As this 1984 video proves, the Pontiac jingle had other words! A whole verse, even! “We build excitement that you’ve got to try!/Pon-ti-ac!/Built with a feel for the road/Excitement to drive!/For feeling aliiiiiive!”
In retrospect, it’s pretty terrible, and we’re not entirely sure it should’ve been unearthed. But is this really any worse than the recent Toyota Corolla ad featuring millennial-cliché humans singing along with Lesley Gore? Admittedly, the Sunbird was significantly worse than the current Corolla—or any other automobile on sale today, for that matter. Perhaps it’s time to just go back and watch the Pontiac Stinger concept video again. At least that clip proffered a spot of beachy fun to a populace in the midst of winter’s grip. This one, in retrospect, merely reminds you just how strange and disturbing the 1980s actually were.
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