Indy 500 - Bob Sweikert

An eerie photograph from a Champion spark plug ad that aired in the March 12 issue of Life Magazine. The driver in the car at the top of the ad is Bob Sweikert. He was born in Los Angeles, California on May 20, 1926. He grew up with automobiles, working at a local Ford dealership in Hayward, CA. He would have been an airman in World War II, but a knee injury suffered during training at Lowry Field, Colorado kept him sidelined until after the end of combat. In 1945 he was honorably discharged from the Air Force.

Sweikert competed in four Indy 500 races, winning the 1955 contest and placing 6th in 1956, the year of the ad. June 17, 1956 of that same year he would be killed in a sprint car race in Salem, Indiana, a wreck that was caught on film.

Indy 500 - Champion Spark Plugs (1941)

A Champion spark plug ad from 1941, in seven months Pearl Harbor would be bombed and the US would be propelled into World War II, ending competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for five years. This is the first Champion 500 ad I've seen that breaks free of the old "all-seeing spark plug" meme.

Indy 500 Ad - Champion Spark Plugs

We're kicking off May's Indy 500 themed ads with this one from the folks at Champion. Champion Spark Plugs has been linked with the Indy 500 for a long time, and much of the time they've employed what I like to call the "beam me up" ad. Typically, a big alien mother ship spark plug hovers over some 500-themed scene, shooting out a power beam.

This particular example comes from the July 1947 issue of Popular Mechanics and is a little more impressionistic than what would become the typical Champion ad. I was attracted to the old-style car with its art deco lines.