Do you remember the Chevrolet Corsica, a car that somehow started life as a rental car? Seriously, it was first sold to fleet agencies in 1987 before being unleashed on the general public. Available with engines of some description pushing an amount of power to the front tires, this exceptionally whelming vehicle was certainly an improvement over the Citation, but that doesn’t seem like a difficult task to achieve. The Corsica isn’t a bad car, it’s just not particularly outstanding. This gave General Motors a problem, because how do you make a perfectly adequate car stand out? Well, you dial ‘M’ for marketing and hope that something good comes of it.
Unfortunately, the marketers dialed ‘A’ for aliens. Look, it was the 1980s, people were trying new things, sci-fi was big, and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” set a benchmark for cars and aliens, so let’s just see where this leads.
Ah, here we go, a Chevrolet Corsica cutting out while driving down a barren roadscape. Make all the reliability jokes you want, I know a Hollywood UFO abduction when I see one. Now, where’s that flying saucer full of little green men?
What the cinnamon toasted hell is that? I get that alien spacecraft probably wouldn’t all look like giant hubcaps, but come on. Really? Right in front of my bagel? Why does it have legs? Who signed off on this?
Anyway, the alien, um, craft descends and vacuums up the Corsica like lint off a rug while also spinning it around just to mess with the occupants. I presume that because it has legs, it can therefore kneel and just lower itself over the Corsica, but messing with earthlings just for fun is probably the most realistic part of this commercial.
Up in the ship, I’m guessing Wade Wilson would be a male model in these guys’ universe. Seriously, did The Flood from Halo get inspiration from these difficult to look at puppets or what? Also, can you imagine the conversation between the art director and the puppet maker to land on this look?
After a scaly hand caressing several square feet of impeccably beige sheetmetal, we land on this shot that I didn’t even edit. If this seems strangely seductive, get your mind out of the gutter, these aliens are talking about the car. The Impala necklace on the one dude should’ve said everything we needed to know — these extraterrestrial beings are Chevrolet, well, not exactly people in the traditional sense, but you get the gist.
It turns out that aliens don’t even need American currency to buy a Chevrolet Corsica because they can just clone an entire car including the people inside through some strange ritual involving a variant of jazz hands. And hey, what are all those bubbles in the background?
Oh, just a whole Chevrolet collection in bubbles, that’s all. Look, a pristine S-10 Blazer, a C4 Corvette, a C1 Corvette, and something that looks to be from the earlier part of the 20th century. Hey, we all have knowledge gaps. It’s a bit weird to think that aliens would come to our planet for the sole purpose of cloning Corsicas and Cavaliers, but it seems more productive than probing.
Once the cloning is over, the Chevrolet Corsica gets teleported back onto the road, which means the aliens were definitely just screwing with the occupants on the way up. As with every UFO cliché, the electronics work again, the car starts, and the family takes off down the road, singing a merry tune. Were their memories wiped or something because I don’t think I’d be the same after experiencing that.
It’s debatable exactly how this ad helped sell Corsicas, and my bet is something along the lines of it didn’t. However, I appreciate Chevrolet’s audacity to create a car commercial so thoroughly cursed in every imaginable way that it leaves viewers slack-jawed in amazement about the entire process, from conceptualization to distribution.
(Photo credits: Chevrolet, Meticulous Motors/YouTube)
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First of all, I had absolutely no idea this existed, though I was watching plenty of tv around the time of the Corsica. Where do two and a half minute commercials air on broadcast tv? I have no idea.
Apparently, the aliens only like Chevrolets… I saw a Corvette, Camaro, and that red 50s car… was that a ’57 Chevy or a Bel Air or what? And was that Dinah Shore driving it? What’s the deal with that? Does that mean Dinah had already been abducted and cloned herself too?
Yes, it’s a pretty creepy ride at the start… looking like an early episode of the X Files or CEot3rdKind of course. I wonder what it cost to make, and who at GM or their ad agency signed off on it… and what happened to their careers afterwards. There needs to be a forensic ‘Making Of’ mini-doc about the production of this commercial IMO.
Personally, it’d have been nice if the ad boasted that the Corsica was immune to the EMP aliens use to disable vehicles. But I guess that wouldn’t advance the story.
Finally: what, no anal probing? I thought that was more-or-less mandatory by this point in abduction lore! 😉
Aliens will collect a C4 but boomers won’t.
Now, we know why those Corsica always break down in the middle of nowhere and when you least expected it. No wonder Corsica wasn’t a runaway best seller…
Somebody at that ad agency had access to some potent psychedelics.
And if that commercial doesn’t permanently alter you psyche, seeing the interior cloth used on a Corsica certainly will. That embedded orange stripe has to be one of the most revolting interior upholstery designs ever.
How about that Impala necklace on the ‘you like it, you got it’ alien?
That was horrifying!!!!
I had a similar experience in my 1977 Pontiac Astre…it was the summer of 1984, I remember my best bud, a bucket of Kentucky fried chicken, 2 warm bottles of Lowenbrau and roll down windows that just WOULD NOT GO DOWN FAST ENOUGH!!! Ahhh GM Memories…
Given alien propensity for sticking long things in the back of other things, I’m not surprised they’ve got a C4 Corvette with the rear fuel filler, but no Caprice?
Thank you for sharing this cinematic masterpiece! I don’t know how I don’t remember this from when it ran, because it certainly made me sit up and take notice today
It’s still better than the hellish landscape ruled by evil robots promoted by the fine folks at Mercury.
I always thought Corsicas and Berettas were nice looking and I can’t really articulate why. Particularly after the interior refresh in the 90s.
Agreed. I briefly had a black Corsica with the very period-correct spoiler/luggage rack combo.
I think I preferred the Z24 Cavalier to the Z26 Beretta overall, but the Beretta tail lights were rad.
My first car was a ’90 Corsica with the pretty rare hatchback. I put 16″ alloys on it the Beretta Z26 grill cover so it would breathe worse and had the whole car repainted black with grey pearl below the door protectors. I thought I was pretty hot shit.