Stellantis part of America 250, advertising around it

Stellantis announced that it is a sponsoring partner the official 250th Declaration of Independence anniversary—and immediately released an ad around their American brands and “America 250.”

The United States was not exactly born the day the Declaration was signed, but it put into motion the events that led to the signing of the Constitution years later, creating a single nation out of disparate colonies.

In keeping with the nation’s current emphasis on AI (one of two areas the NIH is allowed to issue grants for), Stellantis used an AI impersonation of the late actor Kevin Yon, who was heard in the Imported from Detroit campaign.

The ad includes footage of jeeps in World War II, which were mainly engineered by American Bantam (loosely based off an original English design from Bantam), with Willys engines; they were made by Willys and Ford, which had tried unsuccessfully to make reasonable light-duty recon vehicle prototypes. American Bantam was seen as too small to actually make the trucks they’d designed, but was given a trailer contract. The ad also shows early Chryslers, which were introduced around 101 years ago, in January 1924.

Stellantis is often referred to as a Franco-Italian company, recognizing its most influential stockholders and the origins of most of its executives. Its United States operations are officially a separate but completely owned company dubbed FCA US LLC, the FCA standing for “Fiat Chrysler,” which merged with Peugeot SA to form Stellantis.

David Zatz

David Zatz started what was to become the world’s biggest, most comprehensive Mopar site in 1994 as he pursued a career in organizational research and change. After a chemo-induced break, during which he wrote car books covering Vipers, minivans, and Jeeps, he returned with Patrick Rall to create StellPower.com for daily news, and to set up MoTales for mo’ tales.

David Zatz has around 30 years of experience in covering Chrysler/Mopar news and history, and most recently wrote Century of Chrysler, a 100-year retrospective on the Chrysler marque.