In 1974, Hyundai launched its first concept car: the Pony Coupe. Although they only built one model, its forward-thinking design inspired many cars, even the iconic Delorean from Back to the Future. But despite its influence, the original model got lost.

Fast forward to 2023: Hyundai decided to remake this legendary car, with its original designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro. Our challenge was to tell today’s car enthusiasts about it whilst paying tribute to the brand’s heritage.

So we gave the Pony Coupe its first ever ad: the one that it should have had back in the seventies. The long-copy print ad was carefully crafted with all the details synonymous with ads of the era. To give today’s car enthusiasts a dose of the golden age of automotive advertising.

NOTHING TO SAY HERE.

We needed the ad to feel like it could have been produced in the mid-seventies. To do this, we extensively researched long-copy automotive ads of the era, including a deep-dive into Hyundai’s own archives.

For its typeface, we selected a classic serif from the 70s: Garamond. Refining the narrow version (Garamond Narrow) of the typeface to balance its weight, aligning with the aesthetic of the era.

We followed the convention of old-school automotive print ads and gave our print an extra large type for its headline and heavily adjusted its kerning to ensure it was well-balanced.

For the body copy, we also adjusted the typeface to align closely with the 70’s style: increasing the leading, applying elongated indents and strategically placed line breaks to leverage the white space across the text - a common practice of the time.