Why Was Every Wagon At A Horse Show?

I Started Noticing A Pattern

At first I thought it was a coincidence.

Then I found another brochure.

And another.

And another.

Pretty soon I realized Chrysler's marketing department had developed what can only be described as an unusual attachment to horse shows.

The Horses Keep Showing Up

Once I started looking for it, I couldn't stop seeing it.

Brochure after brochure showed Town & Country wagons parked near horse arenas, riding facilities, country estates, and carefully maintained fields that definitely cost more than my entire project budget.

Nobody was loading hay.

Nobody was cleaning stalls.

Nobody was using the wagon for actual horse-related work.

The horses weren't there because the wagon was practical.

The horses were there because they meant something.

What The Horse Really Represented

In the 1980s, horse ownership wasn't just a hobby.

It was a signal.

Horse shows, country clubs, private schools, sailboats, and vacation homes all lived in the same marketing universe.

Advertisers weren't selling transportation.

They were selling identity.

A horse instantly communicated wealth, stability, success, and a certain kind of upper-middle-class lifestyle.

Whether the buyer actually owned a horse was completely irrelevant.

The goal was to make them feel like they belonged in that world.

Chrysler Needed To Elevate The Station Wagon

Here's the challenge Chrysler faced:

Station wagons were practical.

Practical isn't always exciting.

Nobody hangs a poster of practicality on their bedroom wall.

So Chrysler had to convince buyers that the Town & Country wasn't just useful.

It was desirable.

The woodgrain helped.

The plush interior helped.

The turbocharger definitely helped.

But the imagery did a lot of heavy lifting too.

The Marketing Department May Have Been Having Too Much Fun

I like to imagine there was one person at Chrysler who discovered horse photography in 1984 and simply refused to stop.

Need an ad?

Horse.

Need a brochure cover?

Horse.

Need to communicate luxury?

Believe it or not, horse.

It's probably not true.

But after looking through enough brochures, it starts to feel possible.

No, Chrysler Didn't Think Everyone Owned A Horse

At least, probably not.

What Chrysler understood was that people don't buy cars based solely on specifications.

They buy stories.

The horse represented a story. The country-club setting represented a story. The perfectly dressed family represented a story.

The wagon was simply the vehicle that connected all of it together.

Forty years later, the funny thing is that I barely remember the specifications from some of these brochures.

But I definitely remember the horses.

Continue The Investigation