We have showed you some pretty crafty old school Chevrolet propaganda videos over the years but this piece here from 1937 may take the cake. The film is set up to let the viewer believe that it’s about preventing forest fires. Some crummy fisherman chucks a lit cigarette on the ground and up goes shady acres. While that’s all well and good, once we get past the Rangers recognizing the fire from their viewing stands it is all about the heroic Chevrolet cars and trucks that hurtle headlong into the woods and not only save the forest but save a bedridden woman sleeping in a cabin that was about to burn to the ground.
As blatantly obvious as the “Chevrolet as hero” theme is here, it is still pretty fun to watch this junk get beat on. The sedan really takes a pounding as it is run through streams, up and down embankments, through fields of rocks, and generally brutalized. Stuff was built to handle it back then. The narrow little tires and likely a locked differential helped this thing do what it does in the video.
The small amount of fire fighting footage is pretty bad ass. From the guys digging a fire line to the dude on the small bulldozer aiding in that effort, to the old pickup full of what look to be cans of water it is all cool. Companies don’t seem to do stuff like this anymore. Sure they try to slide all kinds of imagery and messaging into their TV commercials but these types of films don’t exist anymore.
