Despite being well known for his sleigh, Santa was an early adopter of the automobile. The advent of the motor-carriage allowed St. Nick increased mobility without the need for more flying reindeer. Case in point, this postcard of Santa from 1909 driving a hand-cranked car from the ‘brass era’ of automobiles.
His vehicles aren’t all focused on utility and carrying capacity. Some of Santa’s cars are purely about style, like this image of Santa from the 1940s driving a Bugatti roadster. Considering that he’s only carrying one package, it must be something special for Mrs. Claus!
Eventually, the the automakers got involved and created Santadvertizing as seen in this Chrysler advert from 1960. Speed, power and dependability are all hallmarks shared by Santa and the new car in the ad. Rumour has it that St. Nick received a coupe and convertible as payment for his roll in this advert.
Young at heart, Santa Claus was also involved in advertising for Hertz Rent-a-Carwho were renting out ‘blizzard white’ Corvette convertibles in 1968. Once the sleigh was empty, and all the Christmas gifts had been delivered, the Corvette was the perfect weekend get-away car for Santa and Mrs. Claus.
In recent years, German automakers like Mercedes have shown their love of Santa by bestowing on him cool cars each year. Aside from a red Mercedes Formula 1 car, and some vintage vehicles, Santa was one of the first to receive the new Mercedes-AMG GT.
Santa deserves the Benz for all the hard work he does.
Poor Santa having to choose from all those Mercedes!
Santa knows how to take a good ride. The Benz commercail is great.
Isn’t it cool? How he meets up with his crew of 8 silver gearheads and goes cruising?
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I really like the commercial zee Germans came up with.
How did I miss all these fun posts?! I love stuff like this — vintage Christmas. Good fun.
Well, part of the problem is that there’s a new post on demaras.com every single day (for years), so it’s easy to miss some.
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I, too, like the vintage X-Mas stuff. Everyone thinks of Coca Cola and the modern jmage kf Santa. But he’s been ‘getting paid’ by companies like Hertz since the ’60s!