“It would be far easier to build Pierce-Arrows of average quality and infinitely more profitable to produce them in greater numbers. But the tyranny of tradition forbids.”
– Pierce-Arrow, 1930
Many automobile companies used elegant or flashy ads to sell new cars, but there’s nothing quite so eloquent and persuasive as the “Pierce-Arrow Proclamation.” While Packard said, “Ask the man who owns one,” and Cadillac claimed to be the “Standard of the World,” Pierce-Arrow skipped slogans and catchy gimmicks to promote its Classic hand-built automobiles. In selling its cars during 1930, Pierce-Arrow, of Buffalo, N.Y., chose advertising prose to be read as literature:
“In extending its Straight Eight line to meet every latest demand of the fine car market, Pierce-Arrow opens the 1930 season with an array of motor cars which again easily qualify as America’s finest,” boasted one of its ads following the stock market crash of 1929.
“There are four new wheelbases in the 1930 group... all cars of increased inner spaciousness... all slender, low-swung, graceful creations in the finest Pierce-Arrow tradition,” continued the ad.
“The 1930 colorings and upholsterings and appointments are new elements
