Need that extra little boost in holiday season traffic to your site? The Garage is at your service, with our sexy little 125 ad blocks. There is just one left for the month of December. Readers of The Garage would love to learn about your service.

Go ahead, you can do it. Send an e-mail to gary @ blairvalleymedia.com without the spaces of course!

When I think about vintage adds I remember many of them from watching the single TV station we had when I was growing up on my parent’s ranch. The ones that seem to stand out after all these years were the Kodak commercials that were always on during the Wonderful World of Disney show and the Chevrolet commercials that were on during every Bonanza. Both of those shows appeared every Sunday night and back in those days watching a TV show was a family affair. (Boy have things changed.) How many of you remember the Chevrolet theme song sung by Dinah Shore?

See the USA in your Chevrolet
America is asking you to call
Drive your Chevrolet through the USA
America’s the greatest land of all

On a highway, or a road along the levy
Performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her
Life is completer in a Chevy
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One would have never thought that alternative fuels would be on anyone’s mind back in the 1930’s. But think again, as we go into the Garage archives and pull out these two stories. Seems like the hydrogen dude was way ahead of his time.

TV host Mike Rowe, creator of the Discovery Channel’s hit show Dirty Jobs is now getting dirty Ford style with the 2007 Ford F-150. Beginning with a series of Dirty Job ad spots this weekend, the Ford & Dirty Jobs team will be taking their promo to the streets.

Ford press release after the break
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There has been a lot of talk about branding here in The Garage lately. A really great brand is one that transcends language and culture barriers. Here at the dealership I’m about to leave, there is a VW franchise. Naturally, there is a parts delivery van cruising downtown Toronto with the above logo plastered all over it.

We just received a phone call from a heavily accented individual:
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After all this fuss, it seems that Advertising Age had gotten it all wrong. The blogosphere was alive with the story that BMW had dropped their slogan of 31 years in favour of A Company of Ideas.

Cars.com is reporting on it’s Kicking Tires blog that this whole thing was a mistake and that BMW has no intention of dropping their slogan. Good for them!

Long live The Ultimate Driving Machine.

Over at The Truth About Cars the debate rages on about advertising. Does it belong or not? Will it affect the journalistic integrity of the site or it’s writers? Apparently, the TTAC leader, Robert Farago has been deliberating this topic for a very long time. Detractors of advertising point to the drivel that we now read in the monthly print magazines. In fact, TTAC recently had some problems with a major German manufacturer after comparing a Swedish grille to an airborne ham wallet. This when TTAC is not even running any ads.

Blogging is a time consuming activity. If it is undertaken as a hobby and traffic is not a concern, then missing a week or so of posting isn’t an issue. Even as a hobby, blogging takes time. If one cares to put together a professional appearing product, it really becomes a part time job. TTAC is certainly a professional product, put together by a capable team of writers. They deserve to support themselves off of what is obviously more than a hobby.

The beauty of the internet is the fact that a writer can express their opinion without having their magazine moved to the top shelf. When was the last time you saw Motor Trend compare a car to female genitalia? Unfortunately, some of the mainstream marketing people haven’t been able to wrap their heads around the modern media. This worry about political correctness may cost a blog a dollar or two, but a well written blog will draw in other dollars to replace them.

The Garage has become an obsession for me, but that was it’s original intent. Blair Valley Media was formed with the intent of generating enough income for me to quit my job in the retail car industry. Those who earn a living blogging say that you should write about your passion so that you don’t burn out. I took this to heart and The Garage was born as the first Blair Valley blog. With The Garage, the intent was to learn how to generate traffic and then gradually introduce some advertising if we actually did generate a base of readership. The advertising will start appearing over the next couple of weeks here in The Garage, but plans are for the ads to be unobtrusive and automotive related. Will advertisers affect our content? NO. Even once my livelyhood depends on the Blair Valley network, the integrity and flavour of our writing will not change. Is it possible to do this? Of course it is.

Over at TTAC, readers comments have focused on the big guys. Road and Track, Car & Driver, Automobile, Motor Trend. Well, Peter Egan aside, none of the big guys have rowed my boat in years. There is a little Florida based publication called Grassroots Motorsports that truly is a Grassroots car mag. They write about building and racing entry level cars in entry level series. This print mag is written by real car guys & girls for real car guys and girls. They have been so successful over the past couple of decades that they have recently launched a sister mag, Classic Motorsports. These folks have a hell of a lot of fun and continue to stick by their original intent. I think that you might call that having integrity. What does this mean for TTAC or The Garage for that matter? What it means is that you can continue to write what you feel and what your readers have come to expect and still generate the advertising dollars needed to grow your business.

Let’s face it, a well written blog is a part/full time job. To be paid for a job well done is the least that anyone can expect.

The 1967 Player’s Grand Prix of Canada was held at Mosport. Reigning World Champion Jack Brabham was the winner, driving a Brabham B19-Repco. The program holds some pretty cool advertising for the 67 US GP as well as an ad featuring Graham Hill Girl’s Driving Gloves for $9.95