- The advertisement says you can go into a Suzuki dealership and trade your old car for a new.
- The issue is that the old car chosen is a Lancia Delta Integrale Evolution II, and the new one a Suzuki supermini.
- What makes it a really bad choice of models is the fact that the Integrale trades for $80k-$100k, and the Suzuki a fraction of that.
Automakers have been responsible for the some of the smartest, funniest and most memorable commercials over the years. Remember Audi driving up the ski jump slope, Honda’s Cog TV ad or maybe Porsche admitting that nobody’s perfect, having claimed nine out of the first 10 finishing positions at Le Mans in 1983?
But automakers and car dealers – or their agencies – have also produced some total garbage in their efforts to get us to buy their cars.
Related: What’s The Best Car Advertisement Ever?
Some bad ads are dull, some are simply cheesy, while others are flat out ridiculous. Take this one from CFAO, a Suzuki dealer in Africa, which was spotted by Redditor r/Nanderk. It encourages local Ghanains to “Drive in with your old car, Drive out with a brand new car.”
Nothing wrong with that you might think, except that the vehicle used to illustrate the old car is a classic Lancia Delta Integrale Evolution II that is probably worth $80-100k even in average condition, and the ‘new’ side of the equation is a basic Suzuki economy car that you’d imagine stickers at around one quarter of the price.
And closer inspection suggests it’s not even the ‘new’ car the ad copy promises. We could be mistaken, but from the shape of the door pressing it looks like a previous-generation Suzuki Baleno, a car that went out of production in 2022. Which means it could be worth closer to a fifth as much as the Delta. Sounds like a sweet deal.
We admit we’re taking this too seriously, because that’s what car guys do. We’re picking holes at an image that is not meant to be representative of an actual deal, it’s just showing an old and new car, and it’s quite possible, as some Redditors pointed out, that the designer who whipped up the picture on Photoshop knows nothing about cars and the Integrale or its values, and probably chose it because it was red, like the Suzuki image he was working with.
But is it the worst advert you’ve ever seen? Or can you think of a web, print or TV promo that winds you up even more? The BMW Concept XM promo below could well be a contender. So drop a comment and let us hear about your candidates for worst car advert ever.