Steve McQueen, advertising spokesman, 1980 to date
Found on Pete’s Tumblr today. Can you believe it’s been 30 years since the man died? A few weeks later, John Lennon was murdered.
Very enjoyable, though I still like the old Ford Puma ad from a decade ago:
My American friends prefer a later Steve McQueen ad promoting the Mustang:
I still think the Ford Puma Bullitt one was the coolest. It has the quietness associated with McQueen. The Le Mans ad tells me: Lew, stick to your day job (great driver, not much of an actor). And the final one doesn’t do it for me, though I imagine it depends largely on which you saw first.
I agree – the Puma one is the best done and also seems the most authentic Steve; But I enjoyed all three of them, he’s one of my favorite actors so it’s cool to see these.
He’s definitely the man—thanks for inspiring this post!
I think these faked “reappearance” ads are just tacky. Let him RIP I reckon.
The first time was cool IMO (Puma) because it really felt like Bullitt updated. I was a bit blah about the Mustang one and thought the Le Mans one could have been better. I’m more inclined toward Pete’s sentiment—in that I like McQueen’s films anyway, so I don’t mind seeing him again. However, I wonder if I would feel different (probably would) if it were Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn (have seen stills of a really tacky one with the latter).
I agree with your point about who it is. I think maybe it’s because Steve McQueen came across as one of the guys; the kind of guy you could chat to and joke about with. I think I would feel different about Grace Kelly because, well, she’s Grace Kelly.
I suspect that’s the reason. We want to hang out with Steve, so we like it when we see him on screen. Grace and Audrey we revere more (even when they were alive), so we don’t like to see them commercialized.