Golden Sahara Seiberling Advertising

July 13, 2015 Rik Hoving

FEATURE STAR THE GOLDEN SAHARA I

In the mid 1950’s Jim Skonsakes’ Golden Sahara I, was hired by the Seiberling Rubber company to promote their new tire range . The futuristic Golden Sahara was used in an advertising campaign for the company.

Jim Skonzakes (Street) has always been a very good business man. When Jim and the Barris shop had created the Golden Sahara I, he realized that the cars futuristic appearance drew a lot of attention. Jim used this knowledge to promote the Golden Sahara the best way he could. And not only that, he also offered the Golden Sahara to companies and Television Networks to help promote their business. In the mid 1950’s, Jim made a business deal with the Ohio based Seiberling Rubber Company. Seiberling would hire the car to help promote their new line of tires, the Sealed-Aire tires, at shows and at dealers throughout the country. The company marketed their tire with the pay-off line the tire of tomorrow – is here today, and the futuristic appearance of the Golden Sahara I, was an absolutely perfect visual for this. This deal was very welcome to Jim, since the built of the car had cost him a small fortune. Seiberling also used the car for a series of magazine ad’s, both full color ads as well as black and white used on single pages, and full width spreads. As far as we know, the ads were used in magazines like Life magazines, and not in the specific car magazine.

For one of the Seiberling ads, the Golden Sahara I was transported to Daytona Beach. The car was driven on the beach for this photo session.
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I found this photo on an recent (july, 2015) ebay auction. Very interesting snap shot by somebody who was there when the movie and photo shoot for the Seiberling ad campaign was made. (photo taken from the ebay ad)
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Back side of the photo reports the event as taken place in August 1955. (photo taken from the ebay ad)
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This image is part of a two page (spread) ad that was used in 1955. It shows a photo of the Golden Sahara I in combination with an illustrated Seiberling Sealed-Aire tire.
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