If car commercials have shaped the history of the automobile industry, then the automobile has played a crucial role in the shaping of the advertising industry.

Since the early days of the horseless carriage more than a century ago, North American culture has been obsessed with the car - as a mode of transportation, status symbol, sexual surrogate and the ultimate expression of the consumer society. If car advertising mirrors its times, then the commercials promoting the Ford Motor Company, founded by Henry Ford in Detroit in 1903, have reflected - and fuelled - the evolution of American popular culture as vividly as the advertising associated with any other industry. And when Henry Ford, the revolutionary inventor of the assembly line and mass production, died in 1947, he didn't realize his company was on the brink of yet another revolution: the birth of television.

During World War II, production of cars for civilians was suspended for the war effort. Winning the Ford dealer business in 1944 and the car business in 1945, J. Walter Thompson began running print ads with a crystal ball declaring "There's a Ford In Your Future."

More than 55 years later, JWT has clearly remained in Ford's future, maintaining one of the longest-standing agency-client relationships in history. (Today, Ford's agency roster also includes Ogilvy & Mather, Detroit; and Young & Rubicam, Toronto.)

The post-war boom in car sales spurred the rapid growth of freeways, suburbs, motels, drive-in theaters and restaurants. In an era of enormous optimism and sense of possibility, Detroit pumped out gaudy, gas-guzzling cars bristling with tail fins and chrome, symbols of acquired status and affluence.

TV emerged in the 1950s as the dominant ad medium, ushering in the golden age of television, car sponsorship of live shows like The Ford Theatre/Playhouse 90, and a neverending stream of celebrity endorsements. Legendary radio comedian Fred Allen was hired by Ford in 1948, the first year of TV. Actors Vivian Vance and Bill Frawley, the Fred and Ethel Mertz characters in the massively popular I Love Lucy Show, performed a song and dance act for the 1957 Ford. Other pioneering celebrity appearances included Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, the Dr. Seuss cartoon characters and Tennessee Ernie Ford, who did about 60 commercials for Ford from 1959 to 1964. Bing Crosby launched the 1955 Thunderbird, and annual TV unveilings of new car models took on the trappings of royal coronations.

As Ford realized the power of TV and movie celebrities to drive car sales, it added sports stars throughout the ensuing decades: basketball's Bob Petit, football's Dick Butkus, skater Dorothy Hamill, tennis players Arthur Ashe and Bjorn Borg and legendary quarterback Joe Montana.

"Back in the 1950s and early '60s, Ford's TV ads were all about mass-produced products of transportation and convenience, without much creative pizazz," remembers Ross Roberts, president of Ford Investment Enterprises Corporation and a 37-year veteran of the company.