Marketing the Monaro
Monaro is a wolf in wolf’s clothing,” reads the blurb in Holden’s Little Red Riding Hood-themed magazine advertisement (left) of early 1969. “But nothing a girl can’t handle. On an afternoon off, or a trip to grandma’s, Monaro is as easy to drive as it is to live with.”
Way-out advertising concept, huh? Yet this was the late sixties, an era of massive social change. A time when Holden and other car companies moved from conservative, often prim and proper theming to creative marketing messages re ecting the revolution underway across so many aspects of life. In that sense the ‘out there’ nature of the theming comes as no surprise. Especially as displaying a fast car with a female model has always been a simple formula to attract male attention.
Except, this advertisement is not targeting men. If you think Monaro GTS and GTS 327 were brought to market to appeal solely to
blokey blokes, you would be wrong. It’s easy to view these nameplates today as adorning testosterone-targeted machines, but that would be to ignore the considerable time and effort Holden put into marketing the Monaro at launch time as a fashion item to women. This included an expensive and multi-faceted advertising campaign in The Australian Women’s Weekly.
That’s right, dedicated ads for Holden’s rst muscle car were placed among stories on royals and recipes in the pages of the self-styled ‘trusted voice of Australian women.’
“Colours to match your colouring,” the rather owery ad copy continues. “Whatever you make Monaro, the price begins at a thrifty $2575 tax paid. So on with your riding hood. And down to your Holden dealer.”
The advertisement’s tagline – “Holden’s young body. Monaro” – hasn’t really stood the test of time. It even sounds a bit creepy today. A
good thing LRRH had that wolf, erm, German Shepherd close by! This print ad ran in the February 19, 1969 issue of The Weekly, with Holden spending up big on a series of bespoke, highly-stylised ads in a bid to connect with the lady of the household. It continued the fairytale theme with Cinderella’s glass coach replaced by a Silver Mink-coloured Monaro GTS and the catchphrase, “When you own your own Monaro the ball never ends.” In another, more down-to-earth, placement, a private school is shown in the background with the line, “In a Monaro world you can even enjoy driving children to school.” Throughout this series of ads Holden is clearly pedalling the idea that the stylish and swoopy Monaro is a fashion accessory. When its marketing department elected to go down this path it did so with a spare-noexpense approach. It helped that GM-H’s long-time advertising agency, George Patterson, had plenty of runs on the board in fashion advertising with a long list of clients, including the Australian Wool Board. Pattersons worked extensively with legendary fashion photographer Henry Talbot.
German-born Talbot’s rst shoot for GM-H was the rst Torana, the HB model, released the year before Monaro with a ‘Great Escape’ advertising theme. It was so successful that Melbourne-based Talbot became Holden’s ‘go to’ glamour snapper through to about 1972, when he stepped away from commercial work to become head of the photography department at the School of Art and Design at Preston Institute of Technology, in Melbourne.
Several sources AMC accessed for this story credit Talbot with taking the catsuit shot. A body of his work is retained today by the National Gallery of Victoria – to which he donated some 30,000 transparencies before his passing in 1999 – and the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, in Ultimo, Sydney.
What we do know is that the Little Red Riding Hood shoot is de nitely Talbot’s handiwork.
“The other photo – the yellow Monaro GTS black studio ‘night’ shot – may or may not be Henry’s,” MAAS curator Anne-Marie Van de Ven explained. “During his time with General Motors-Holden, Talbot worked with American photographers from Boulevarde Photographic Inc. who Holden invited over to work at GMH. They were considered by senior staff at GM-H to be leaders in the eld of automobile photography.
“I understand that these visiting American photographers introduced a method of photographing the cars against glossy black backdrops using extremely strong ash, creating
a glossy ‘night’ effect. At the time, Henry was keen to capture and focus on capturing lifestyle and speed – shooting with target audiences in mind such as family car, executive car, youth market, etc.”
Talbot worked closely with George Patterson ‘creative’ Ian Blain, who was art director for Patterson’s Monaro launch work: point-of-sale material including brochures, advertising, and material produced for the many Monaro launch functions. Both had another regular ‘partner in crime’ in creating their imagery.
Look closely at the ads and the ne print reads “Out t by Tullo” or similar, a reference to the high-fashion label of It designer of the era Norma Tullo, who operated a Toorak Road, Melbourne boutique. We’re betting the Tullo creation sported by Little Red Riding Hood had a bigger sticker price than the GTS Monaro she’s standing next to. For the record, the original LRRH is 1960s model, Jackie Holmes.
Tullo was also famous for her catsuits, including a stunning chiffon tiger suit worn by German supermodel Veruschka. Catsuits were all the rage in late sixties thanks to
Batman villian Catwoman in the US and, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Emma Peel character from British espionage TV series The Avengers. But it’s another Tullo catsuit that interests us here. One that has become an Australian automotive icon in its own right.
The white-catsuited model with the Warwick Yellow Monaro is arguably the most famous image from Australia’s storied car manufacturing past. One can only imagine the impact it had when prospective buyers rocked up to their Holden dealers and were handed the glossy brochure featuring it.
It’s a visual feast, the likes of which had not been seen before, appealing to both genders. For women it’s all about style; for men it ticks the boxes described at the start of this story. It also has you pondering whether the model is climbing in or out.
NGV senior photography curator Susan Van Wyk says Talbot was among a global band of photographers who were responding to “the newly emerging youth consumer market.”
“The thing about fashion photography is, yes, it sells clothes but it also sells a lifestyle,” van Wyk says. “The link between fashion and popular
culture and aspiration is what comes out in great fashion photography. It’s selling you a dream.
“Young people had a disposable income in a way that no previous generation had and photographers were seeking out ways of making images that differentiated the modern young woman from her mother.”
History records that the catsuit model was Cathy Wood. The honey-blonde bombshell donned the catsuit on at least two occasions. Firstly, at the Lang Lang proving grounds where a number of brochure and advertising shots were taken on the day, in early July 1968, when the Monaro was unveiled to Holden staffers. This shoot may have also included creating the famous ‘at night’ image. What we do know is that Pattersons had a crack at creating that catsuit image at Fishermans Bend.
Peter Nankervis was a young Holden design department staffer at the time and remembers the day of the shoot and the buzz of activity during its set-up.
“There’s an outdoor area on the top oor of the building where the design studio and department is located. And it’s a big courtyard with grey painted walls and a few bushes in a garden bed across one side. And the shot was set up out there at night, obviously. I wasn’t involved in it all, but I knew it was happening and the guys were setting up all the lights and all that jazz. I knew the cars were there and the models and so forth. It was a good environment for what they were trying to do as it was very dark. All the surrounding walls and the oor was a charcoal colour, so it was a good place at night to have a bright yellow car and a white catsuited model. So they lit it from the back, with the lights shining towards the camera. As I said, I wasn’t involved in anyway but you get to know what’s going on in the building.”
AMC was eager to contact Cathy for this story for her recollections and thoughts on unwittingly becoming a part of Holden history. While our efforts to reach her fell short for this issue, we’d still love to hear from her and others involved.
Holden’s marketing operatives sought to re-create the famous image in early 2002, soon after the launch of the V2 Monaro. However, the images shot at signi cant expense by Patrick Varney at Coventry Studios in Melbourne ended up on the cutting room oor.
Why did they not see the light of day? We’re told they were deemed too ‘politically incorrect’ for public release...
This is truly baffling, as they seem harmless enough, to our eyes at least, seeking only to link the new generation Monaro with a glorious time in the company’s past. But car companies move in mysterious ways.
Holden did publicise the quality of V2 Monaro’s interior fabrics by commissioning fashion design students to create a body-hugging out t from Monaro seat leather scraps. Nice idea, but not one ever likely to achieve widespread print media coverage the re-created catsuit imagery would certainly have accomplished.
Some decisions are, to borrow a phrase, Out To Drive You Wild. The PC brigade within Holden ultimately deemed these seemingly harmless shots to be inappropriate for public release after they were taken in 2002.