Looking through the Autocar Archive for brilliant old stories to share on our social media channels, I've come across my fair share of iconic car adverts.

Many use taglines that are designed to shock or that are dripping in double entendre (Mini, I'm looking at you), but for the most part these old ads are relics from a golden age of automotive promotion and I wish that modern car commercials tapped into that spirit a bit more.

I'm sure most people picture the old VW ads when they think 'iconic': you know, the ones with a simple, unadorned image of a car and a bold, no-nonsense headline.

The legendary 'Think Small' Beetle ad from 1959 was a revolution in advertising practice for its time, for example, and holds up today as an eye-catching piece of quasi-modern art.

Another VW ad that stands out for me is one from the '60s of a Type 2 and a gaggle of nuns standing next to the bus, with the text reading 'mass transit'—simple, original and funny.

That's what I love about ads like this: they get the message across and they're memorable, helping to cement the pop culture value of the cars themselves, rather than just drily outlining their commercial appeal.

Everyone remembers Honda's amazing 'Cog' spot: a captivating two-minute epic wherein all the parts from the Accord were arranged into a Rube Goldberg machine that ingeniously highlighted Honda's attention to detail and methodical engineering processes, while laying bare the sheer amount of technical gubbins that made up this relatively normal saloon car.

Would you believe it was actually broadcast only a few times on national TV in April 2003? Amazing to consider the legacy it left. It's even got a Wikipedia page.

A more recent gem of the genre was 2007's Skoda Fabia 'Cake'. A group of bakers made a replica of the second-generation supermini out of fondant and sponge, long before AI arrived to make such endeavours the work of a few minutes.

This was an actual, full-scale statue formed of Rice Krispies, Battenberg, fondant, liquorice and other such delicacies. It must have done wonders for the Fabia's public perception, or at least helped to shift a bit of caster sugar.

The strapline 'full of lovely stuff' was a work of genius too—emblematic of both Skoda's value focus and the second-generation Fabia's slightly more upmarket billing than its predecessor's.

'Cake' went on to win multiple awards and later inspired the ad for the hot Fabia vRS, which obviously was 'Made of Meaner Stuff'. It is still cited today as an icon of the oeuvre and its influence on the wider industry was plain to see from the way other manufacturers strived to tap into that same sense of whimsy and cheekiness for years afterwards.

History's great cars are remembered for their stunning designs, scintillating dynamics, brilliant packaging or sublime performance—but maybe we should be giving more credit to the adverts that told everyone they existed in the first place.

After all, how would we otherwise know how the snowplough driver gets to the snowplough...?