Did Camaro Print and TV Ads Influence Kenner's Choice For Thunder Hawk?

I often wonder how the creators and producers of M.A.S.K. came up with the vehicles selections. It's possible they struck a deal with manufacturers to use specific vehicles for the toys/animated series and really didn't have a struggle. However, I'd like to think at some point they created a wish list of all popular vehicles that they wanted to use and had a roundtable discussion. If that happened, then you know the minds of M.A.S.K. also gathered a great deal of print and TV advertisements of the time to make their decision.

I decided to do some research specifically for M.A.S.K.'s main vehicle Thunder Hawk to see if my theory could be true. I'll let you be the judge of the results, but I'm pretty convinced that print ads, showroom brochures, and TV commercials definitely impacted the decision for Thunder Hawk to be a Chevy Camaro. With the angles and lighting effects in the images below, you can see how the Camaro almost flies off the pages. Add in the flashy, street-legal racecar perception in the TV commercials and it appears the Camaro was at the top of the list for Matt Trakker's jet in disguise.

Take a look at these Camaro print ads and TV commercials I found from the 1983-85 era. Can you see how they might have impacted the M.A.S.K. creators at Kenner?

Images courtesy Berlinetta.info, iOffer.com