A couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a clear out whilst reorganising my library and the time has come to dispose of a number of items which may be of interest through my lightpress account on e-bay.

First up from this weeks advertisements taken from Connaissance des arts is this 1969 FIAT 125 “Special” ad. The FIAT 125 was launched in 1967, the following year a 100hp 5 speed Special was added to the range. Note some of the styling features were to be found on the smaller FIAT 124 based Zhiguli 2106. Note the influential grey shades of Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge in the fog paintings in the photography.

The Mercedes Benz advertisement above features a Mercedes Benz W108 with twinned yellow headlights as were mandatory in France until 1993. The strap line approximately translates as “Your first Mercedes dice this year … WHY not!”.

Car adverts which appeal to the allure of the open road are always a hit, when I was travelling the controlled access highways or Autoroutes in France the ads actually lived up to the hype. Above a Renault 16 glides across a yet to be identified landscape in an undated ad from 1968 or later. The strap line approximately translates as “The smooth strength (of) the Renault 16 is more durable”

The copy of in the April 1965 Rover 2000 ad above makes mention of Rovers class winning performance in the 1965 Monte Carlo rally but makes no mention of Roger Clark the driver much less Jim Porter the co driver. The 104hp single carb Rover 2000 was not joined by the 124hp twin carb Rover 2000TC until 1966. The best I could manage with the translation of the strap line is the slightly surreal “Do you like our calender?” If you know better please do not hesitate to put me out of my surreal misery using the comments box below.

Finally another ad featuring low light boosted by artificial light, this Simca 1501 Special ad by the Havas Conceil agency dates from January 1969. The strap line approximately translates as “Simca 1501 Special, the for built for the Le Mans 24 hours (race) daily”