WHAT? Super Bowl ad trivia from the 1920s?

[BobPalma]

Did anyone else notice an automotive trivia item in this 2012 Super Bowl ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMxSZQZuBYc

Focus on the salesman's name tag at .15 of the 33-second spot. You have plenty of time to read it:

Will St. Clair

To me, that sounds suspiciously close to the 1921-1927 upper-price-class car built in Marysville, Michigan, the:

Wills Sainte Claire

Anybody else notice that?

I did a little research on C. Harold Wills, the man behind the car. He made a fortune as an engineer and designer in the 'teens with Ford Motor Company. He left Ford in mid 1919 with a check for almost $1,600,000 (woo-hoo; in 1919!) from ole' Henry, per a verbal agreement they'd made many years prior.

Harold was the genius behind the use of vanadium steel that helped the Model T earn its deserved reputation for toughness. Among his other accomplishments at Ford, he is credited with designing the famous Ford script that you probably saw on the back of a new F-150 if you drove anywhere in a motor vehicle today.

So I wonder how the ad agency "happened" to choose Will St. Clair for the salesman's name. Certainly no one in advertising today, especially preparing an ad for would-be "hip" Cars.com, gives a hoot about a Wills Sainte Claire automobile built in the 1920s...or maybe they do?

Perhaps someone at the agency has a father or friend with a Wills Sainte Claire. Could be; that's the only explanation I can come up with.

Anyone else have any ideas? I have a hard time believing it was purely coincidental. BP

[kmac530]

Maybe someone at the add company is named Will and loves his Aunt Claire....WillsAuntClaire.....

[8E45E]

Probably conicidental, but the Wills Sainte Clare was kind of interesting, being a lot of it was made of molybenum steel:

http://www.willsautomuseum.org/

[JBOYLE]

Matter of fact I did notice that and made the connection.
The auto industry (and or its ad agencies) does have a sense of history...well some of the time (especially if it doesn't cost them anything, as is the case here).

I'd love a Wills Sainte Claire badge, it's beautiful and one of my favorites.

[Sdude]

I wrote a training program for the Postal Service and it was chock full of stuff like that. Most of it was less obvious than that. I'm sure not many people even recognized the names I used but they were all significant to me. Hey, I had to use names anyway, it might as well be something or somebody that I knew. I would think I was not the only person to do such things. As a matter of fact, my oldest daughter is writing text books in San Diego and when I told her what I had done, she told me she did the same thing with her text.

It's probably more common than you might think.

[BobPalma]

Good thoughts, all.

There has to be a connection somewhere, I would think, even if just as Jon suggested, using names a writer happened to like or otherwise be familiar with.

And they even had a name tag made!

I thought it was pretty cool and am glad to see others noted it as well. BP

[comatus]

Wills' own name is a little bit of an in-joke. The C stands for "Childe." There was a widely read book -- long poem, actually -- in the eighteen teens called "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." It was by a fellow named George Gordon, known to us, if at all, as Lord Byron.

[jclary]

Personally, such commercials with tiny bodies, swelled heads, or an arm with a head...creep me out!

To me, what is more impressive is the education, background, and experiences revealed by some of you in your comments. Except for the speck of grease under your nails and the aroma of spent fuel on your clothes...some of you are quite sophisticated!