A Brief History of Kongs
The enormous, frighteningly friendly King Kong balloons on the roofs of your louder car dealerships and apartment complexes are in trouble. They’re already banned in many cities in Texas as well as St. Louis, after city councils deemed them an eyesore and a distraction to drivers. When Houston finally banned them, the city’s mayor said: “We want to try to improve the physical appearance of the city.”
Nobody associates the 40-foot high inflatables as anything but garish sales props, but in reality they have an interesting historical connection. And perhaps one of the strangest accidental discoveries in automotive retail.
Of course, all inflatable primates reference Cooper and Schoedsack’s iconic King Kong from 1933, but car dealers didn’t start using them in earnest until the late 1970s, when three important things happened.
In 1972 the city of Birmingham, England commissioned pop artist Nicholas Munro to construct a sculpture for Manzoni Gardens in their commercial center. Munro took on the challenge and delivered a towering fiberglass King Kong, with outstretched arms and menacing red eyes. It stood at 23 feet tall.
Munro’s King Kong in Birmingham, 1972
But, some six months after its unveiling, Birmingham gave up on it. The city refused to pay for its upkeep and wouldn’t keep it as a permanent fixture. So Munro’s sculpture went up for sale and a businessman named Mike Shanley appeared with the necessary 3000 pounds sterling. Shanley figured the enormity of the thing would be a good roadside draw to his business, a car dealership. It did just that, and he rebranded as King Kong Motors. It became a fixture of Camp Hill.
While Shanley’s oversized bet paid off, that alone didn’t bring the Kong craze to American car dealers. But a 1976 remake of King Kong (starring Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange and Charles Grodin) proved to be a success and drove all manner of nostalgia for the oversized primate. Then technology stepped in: laminated vinyl grew up — and could be produced in larger and larger forms and more complex shapes. The time was right. Munro’s idea for King Kong quite literally blew up — it would now become a staple of automotive retailing.
Now thousands of Kongs brighten (besiege?) the American landscape. They cost anywhere from $5000-$10,000 and weigh about 800 pounds all in. They’re usually 40-feet tall in largest form, with grommets on the chest to display banners and signs.
Munro’s original, by the way, lives on. Shanley sold King Kong to a Scottish market owner in the late 1970s where it stood atop his store. It has since moved to Penrith (Scotland) where it could use a bath and a return to glory atop a building. Or perhaps a car dealership.
Below, a collection of Kongs in various colors and dispositions.
