1955 Corvette Magazine Ad

CHILD OF THE MAGNIFICENT GHOSTS.  This may be the most famous Corvette ad ever written. Barney Clark was the writer and I am not sure who the art director was but I think it may have been Bob Hungerford. I don't know who did the art. When this was done I was at Benton and Bowles in Detroit working on the Studebaker advertising and promotion stuff. Barney was the resident car enthusiast at Campbell-Ewald and did all the Corvette ads. I met him a few times after I got there in January of 1957. He was quite a bit older than I was and I never had much reason to see him. I started in the sales promotion group where my first assignment was the first issue of the CORVETTE NEWS. You can see it way down in the blog. I think I can do you a favor by letting you read his copy. Unless you can find a copy of the Nov. 1955 issue of ESQUIRE magazine you probably will never have a chance to read it. So here it is-----------Years ago this land knew cars that were fabricated out of sheer excitement. Magnificent cars that uttered flame and rolling thunder from exhaust pipes as big around as your forearm, and came towering down through the summer dust of American roads like the Day of Judgement. [Paragraph] They were the sports cars in a day when all motoring was an adventure, and no man who ever saw one can forget the flare of sun on brass, the brave colors and the whirlwind of their passage.[Paragraph] They have been ghosts for forty years, but their magic has never died. And so, today, they have an inheritor--for the Chevrolet Corvette reflects, in modern guise, the splendor of their breed. [Paragraph] It is what they were: a vehicle designed for the pure pleasure of road travel. It handles with a precision that cannot be duplicated by larger cars--and whistles through curves as though it were running on rails. [Paragraph] You can watch a Corvette in action and imagine some of the elation it offers. But you have to put your own hands on that husky steering wheel to taste the full pleasure of really controlling a car. [Paragraph]Who can tell you about the cyclone sound of that 195-horsepower V8 engine, or the fantastic surge of acceleration that answers an ounce of throttle pressure? Who can describe the wonderful feeling of confidence and relaxation that stems from true sports car roadability, or the genuine astonishment that comes when you first tap those rock-solid brakes? [Paragraph] Who can make you feel what it is like to drive a car that always has more on hand----in road- holding, acceleration, stopping power ----than you'll virtually ever use? You'll have to try it for yourself . And when you drop in at your chevrolet dealer's, he'll take particular pride in showing you the car that is a true child of those magnificent ghosts----the V8 Corvette!....Chevrolet Divison of General Motors,Detroit 2, Michigan.        If you happen to have a copy of this torn from ESQUIRE magazine it is worth more than the $25 bucks ads like this command.