The best car ads of all time

Whether or not you're excited by automobiles themselves, the best car ads offer a fascinating glimpse into advertising history. The earliest examples, around the late 19th century, focused on the novelty of the car itself, stressing its practicality over horses. The early 20th century saw a rise in detailed illustrations and a focus on technical specifications.

15. MSCHF: Key4All (2022)

• Groundbreaking for: Reinventing car marketing through participatory art.

Breaking every convention of traditional automotive marketing, art collective MSCHF's Key4All project took a unique approach. Rather than selling a car or highlighting its features, the Brooklyn-based provocateurs purchased a used 2004 vehicle and created 5,000 different keys for it, selling them to the public with access to a location hotline.

This radical experiment transformed a single vehicle into a shared resource and cultural happening, as key holders across America searched for, found, decorated and drove the car. The project sparked organic online communities of key owners who collaborated to track the vehicle's journey across the country.

As Jordan Dale, creative director at Amplify, puts it: "The best car ad of all time didn't look like a car ad. It wasn't shiny. It didn't sell the car. It sold the idea of taking it. MSCHF's Key4All was a one-car campaign built on chaos, not consumer benefits. One car, a thousand keys, a hotline, a country full of people trying to find it, and legally steal it.

"This wasn't about features or horsepower. But it was still about the thing that a lot of car companies push through their ads: FREEDOM. The flex and the thrill of not just owning something, but earning it, stealing it, showing the world you got it. It's the truest take on that cheesy old ad truth: 'Don't sell the car. Sell the adventure.' MSCHF didn't just sell a vehicle, they created something people wanted to be part of. A story they could tell, post, film, relive."

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