[Lee Stewart]

Originally Posted by Mr70

That SUPERCAR ad was actually "photoshopped" back then.I have the original somewhere showing it was a regular dirt road and they later edited the ditch in the center.

That's not what the creator of the ad, Art Director Jim Bernardin says:

''This was one of those unexpected delights that sometimes can be found if you keep your eyes and mind open for picture opportunities. We were on our way to a location at the Disney Ranch in Los Angeles when we were confronted with a washed-out road. It had been raining for several days and we were way behind on our schedule. It looked like we were not going to make it to our location but it didn't matter because here was something nobody could have imagined. I told Warren, our photographer, that this was going to be the best picture we would make of the Chevelle SS or anything else on this trip.

''The Chevelle, with its big new engines, you might imagine could leap across this road like Superman going over a tall building. We made three versions of the situation: the one you see here and two others that featured the front of the car with the washed-out road in the background. We did the one you see here first and I was satisfied that we had it, but Warren argued for the other views.

''We often had disagreements about pictures and solved them by doing two versions. Because I was the art director, I usually won out in the end--but not always. Warren and I were very good friends and had grown up together in the business. I tried my very best to sell this ad to Chevrolet, but we had too many other good, more heroic views of the car with good situations that they chose to use.

''This is an ad that I wish had run, but I am happy to have saved the layout and to show it now. The colors in the print are faded and the retouching on the tire marks is crude, but would have been made right for the finished art. Win some, lose some.''

https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/mu...S/3334661.html