In the early days of advertising, the messaging for any product-type, cars included, was very straight-forward. In the automotive industry, brands would win something hard (Le Mans, Paris–Dakar, Pikes Peak, etc) and then say it, loudly, in a single declarative line.

The ads weren’t subtle because they didn’t need to be, and the messaging boiled down to a very straightforward message consumers could latch onto: we proved ourselves under the harshest conditions on earth, so you can trust (and desire) what we sell you.

That era produced ads which are still exciting today because the logic chain was simple, culturally acceptable, and repeated often enough that the public learned the language.

Look at the classic French poster tradition: Peugeot turning endurance results into a one-line manifesto, Renault and Alpine compressing a race result into a claim about efficiency, durability, and engineering pride.

The ads leveraged heritage to build a commercial bridge between competition and commerce; motorsport was not the equivalent of a corporate vanity project, it really was a selling tool.

Today, that bridge has not disappeared, but owing to the changes in the advertising and consumer spaces, it has nevertheless been weakened, fragmented, and increasingly under-monetized.