With some fancy art direction, vintage cars and nostalgic music, Chrysler and bbdo are bringing audiences back in time to the Me Decade, when rec-room walls were adorned with Farrah Fawcett posters, Led Zeppelin played on the eight-track and Tab Cola was the diet choice of the day.

The Top Spots favorite for both its look and sound, ‘First Love’ encapsulates the feel of the 1970s through a montage of vignettes featuring bell-bottomed, long-haired guys and girls washing, admiring and cruising in their first cars.

Art director Roberta Seidman says the job got rolling after a discussion with Directors Film Company’s Robert Quartly, producer Suzanne Allan and others about the ’70s and what the decade meant to them.

Seidman admits that when it comes to her craft, the 70s is her favorite era to ‘wrap her head around’ and to replicate for commercials. In the last year, the art director, who specializes in period spots, says she has been asked at least 20 times to recreate that particular piece of history.

‘I think people got tired of the ’50s,’ says Seidman. ‘It was a significant look, but it is too pretty and innocent. The ’60s is a bit too psychedelic for the average commercial. The ’70s is just plain normal and ugly and I think the ugliness is appealing,’ says Seidman. ‘We went through a serene, pretty beige era where everything was cream and colorless and I think now people are quite intrigued by the patterns and colors of the ’70s era.’

When it comes to art directing, Seidman refers to herself as a purist: If it’s a ’70s-style spot she is working on, then every detail must be authentic – from the license plates on the vintage cars to the candy lining the shelves of the corner store (which actually didn’t make it into the final cut).

In researching the spot, Seidman had the best possible reference – her father, who has been in the automobile business for 45 years. He helped her design an old-style car lot, and supplied her with ’70s slogans, such as ‘Make Me a Deal,’ for the signs, which were then painted in the bright colors of the day.

Approximately 60 vintage cars were wrangled for ‘First Love,’ but only those that succeeded in bringing the production team back 30 years in their minds made it into the spot. And while the ad is for Chrysler, not all the vehicles that made the final call-back were that make, because the agency creative team prioritized the art of inspiring memories of the ’70s. A Gremlin, Pinto, Pacer and Talon all made the cut, along with a red 1969 Astin Martin convertible and some old pickup trucks.

Time stood still at the location, Seidman says, as the area west of Toronto looked the same as it would have 30 years ago, making her job a little easier.

Wardrobe stylist Barb Sidoruk dressed the talent in vintage garb, Quartly added to the look by shooting the spot using Super 8 and 16mm reversal film stock, while Norman Greenbaum’s original version of Spirit in the Sky gave the spot its emotion.

The song had to be specific to the ’70s, says bbdo writer Steve Denvir, and after putting China Grove and Radar Love up against the pictures, Spirit in the Sky was the obvious choice. The original track that moves the pictures through the spot was partially edited by Mick Griffin at Flashcut and fine tuned at Great Big Music.

‘Sometimes a well-known track can substitute for an idea and other times it is meant to enhance the idea,’ says Denvir. ‘I very rarely use original music, but in this case we went to a lot of trouble to get the wardrobe, the cars and everything else – we had to have the right music to accompany it.’