RICHARD PORTER

Porter enjoys an audience with a giant of automotive advertising

‘There were huge stunts, stuff blowing up, and at the climax, a helicopter goes boom!’

IF YOU REMEMBER WHEN CAR ADVERTS weren’t just banners on websites, you might recall the work of legendary ad man Harry Chalice. Now in his 70s and retired from the ad game, Chalice was an enfant terrible of advertising, most notorious for his work on car campaigns throughout the 1970s.

It’s hard to pick the highlights of Harry’s career with such a broad spread, from his early days at Bartle, Hartle & Berrington, his career-defining stint at Spartle, Martle & Hathaway, or his infamous days at Bendix, Hendricks & Spillatrope (later Bendix, Hendricks, Spillatrope, Castle, Hassell & Hillare and, later still, Artesian). In its day Chalice’s work was feted for its complexity and sophistication, so I start by asking him what elements were essential for a good ’70s car campaign.

‘Sex,’ he replies instantly, lighting a cigarette, much to the fury of the landlord of the pub we’re in who has repeatedly asked him not to. ‘Sex sells, right? I remember in about ’74 we were pitching to Austin, or maybe Triumph, and I came up with a killer concept. It was a naked woman on top of the car. And the tagline was “Get some sex appeal”. Of course, the client didn’t get it and they gave the work to someone else. Their loss, eh?’

Harry pauses to have a robust argument with the landlord about whether the 2007 smoking ban really did apply to all pubs and then continues.

‘Another time we were pitching for Volvo work and I came up with this brilliant idea. The car’s parked there, the driver’s door is open, there’s a blonde woman in the driving seat, and when you look closely, she’s naked. The strapline says “Safe sex”.’

I confess that I don’t remember seeing this campaign and Chalice takes a rueful swig of his Scotch before admitting that the ‘boring Scandi bastards’ didn’t go for it.

One company that did run with Chalice’s ideas was Renault. ‘They had loads of money for ads,’ he explains, after attracting the landlord’s attention and then making a point of aggressively eating a cigarette. ‘So we pitched them this idea, I can’t remember the details but something to do with a naked woman, and they said they loved it but what if, instead, it was an exploding helicopter, then they showed us the budget and we agreed. So we shot this thing out in Morocco, huge stunts, stuff blowing up, and at the climax, a bloody helicopter goes boom! Explodes right out of the sky as the car jumps to safety. Cost millions. We showed a cut to the client and they went, “No, no, no. The car’s white and we wanted it to be red. Could you go back and do it all again?” So we did. More stunts, more explosions, another bloody chopper getting blown up. All good, the car’s red, we’re happy. Then, bugger me, the client decides they don’t like the idea anymore, worried it might encourage punters to jump their Renaults over exploding helicopters. So we came up with a quick fix, which was a naked woman rubbing herself over the car for 30 seconds. One take, dead cheap, worked a treat. I came up with a killer strapline: “Le sex”.’

We move to a different pub so Harry can have some more whisky and an argument about indoor smoking with a different landlord. ‘You couldn’t get away with my best work these days,’ Chalice laments. ‘All this bloody wokeness now, they’d tell you the naked woman couldn’t be covered in baby oil and that she had to have some clothes on, and that she couldn’t be a woman. Or they’d insist you couldn’t have the word “sex” on a billboard because it’s near a school or a church or some bollocks.’

As Harry tucks into steak and chips, though I’m not sure where from since the pub we’re in doesn’t do food, I ask if he had a favourite ad and how many naked women were in it.

‘Actually, none,’ he says, to my surprise. ‘It was a TV spot for Lancia, 1977. The one that opened on an Umbrian road at dusk, soft light covering the hills, and in the distance two headlights. They get closer, there’s a faint engine note, closer and closer they come, then we cut inside the car. There’s opera blaring, loud and wonderful, and a man in a suit, handsome, smart, there are tears in his eyes. He keeps driving, down these beautiful roads in the beautiful countryside. The car looks amazing as the gentle orange sunset picks out its metalwork, while inside the car the music swells, the tears flow down the guy’s face. It’s intense and gorgeous all at once and then we see he’s smiling, he’s actually smiling. And then he pulls up at this fabulous house, his wife runs out and we realise, of course, those aren’t tears of sadness, they’re tears of joy.’ Harry pauses for moment to reflect on this masterpiece he created. ‘It was a great looking ad, and one of my greatest end lines to boot,’ he says quietly. ‘It just said “Sex”,’ he adds. ‘But in Italian.’