The three-apples-high ambassadors of Smurfland had colonised mainland Europe and the columns of Look-In before they rolled up on your local forecourt. In a marketing masterstroke, National Garages lured in the kids and their harassed Talbot Horizon-driving dads by giving away collectable plastic Smurfs with every tankful of four-star, while Windsor Davies got in on the act by narrating the animated commercials in full-on It ain’t Half Hot Mum mode (‘now, car drill! Smurf yourselves, Smurf yourselves!’) before the indefatigable blue sprites reprised their hit single to proclaim in song: ‘National, the one place on earth, you get service with a Smurf!’ We’re not entirely sure where Father Abraham was in all of this, mind.
National Garages
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Arthur Nibble
August 14, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Are there (m)any National garages still about? Reminds me of the Regent garage that was five minutes’ down the road back in the 70’s.
Richard Davies
August 10, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Most National garages had been rebranded by the mid 1980s, about the last one I remember seeing in 1986 still had Smurf stickers on all the pumps.
Applemask
June 18, 2013 at 1:08 pm
Father Abraham was an opportunist who never really had anything to do with the Smurfs beyond employing them to make him money.
George White
March 28, 2018 at 9:38 am
The Smurf campaign was in France too. Features in the services where Macnee dies in a View to a kill.