This 15-year-old Saturn ad shows why cars are so bad for cities The ad is puzzling right from the beginning. A guy jogs backwards out of his garage?maybe going out for a run"?but he?s in regular clothes.
He?s joined on the street by other people doing the same: couples, families, coworkers, and even what looks like a group of kids going to school together, yet everyone is just walking in the street. Could this be it" A city where multimodal streets serve people, not cars"
It?s the voice over, at the very end of the spot, that gives it away: ?When we design our cars, we don?t see sheet metal. We see the people who may one day drive them.? The camera pans down from the twilight sky to reveal three new cars by Saturn parked above the twinkling lights of Los Angeles. Awww, gotcha! It was about cars the whole time! 2002 was a different time?long before social media, as American cities were just starting to see an influx of new residents, and before serious collective action had been taken around climate change.
Cars were still king in most cities, and car ads were, in many ways, the apex of popular culture. Automotive messaging had the biggest budgets, the best directors, and the funniest agencies. ?Sheet Metal,? as this ad was entitled, was part of this golden age of car advertising.

Jamie Barrett was a creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco when he wrote the ad (he left in 2012 to start his own agency). Saturn was not j...