As of this writing, NASA’s Artemis I mission is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on November 14. It will lay some of the groundwork for returning to the moon (and, eventually, Mars and beyond) for the first time in half a century.

In 1969, the first time that man set foot on the moon, Volkswagen managed to once again smash it out of the park with one of its Beetle ads. Even during the campaign’s legendary run throughout the ’60s and into the ’70s, the famously self-deprecating ads generally showed a picture of a Beetle. Or parts of a Beetle. Or a line drawing that resembled a Beetle... something that reminded you of the distinctive lines of car itself.

Not this time. There was no Beetle to be seen. Instead, there was a black-and-white photo of (presumably a model of) the Apollo space capsule that landed on the moon in July of 1969 — possibly the only vehicle on earth (or off?) that was better-known than the Beetle in that moment. Presumably, the capsule was a safe choice to show, in part because it wasn’t actually competition — you couldn’t pop down to your local NASA retailer and get a screaming deal on last year’s Apollo space capsule on MSO before the new, facelifted ones were trucked in from the factory.

At the same time, Volkswagen’s hat tip to America’s latest technological accomplishment was meant to do more than elicit a smile or recognition from a magazine reader’s face. It’s celebrating the event in America, to an American audience, without getting all flag-waving about it; because VW is a German company, anything more overtly patriotic would feel awkward and forced. It’s also more than a little ironic, coming from a car company whose policy of slow evolution and rarely changing specification was the selling point of its success.

It’s the tagline — “It’s ugly, but it gets you there” — that pulls everything together. It’s a message that VW had been pounding into consumer’s heads for the better part of a decade, and it’s one that an American vehicle maker finally took to heart. Ugly but reliable. VW ads wore these insults as a badge of honor. The 1930s styling was a feature, not (if you’ll pardon the pun) a bug. It’s game recognizing game. And suddenly, instead of celebrating America’s accomplishments, it’s a car ad again.

Today we are returning to space, but the Beetle isn’t being built anywhere on Earth. Germany stopped building them in the ’70s, air-cooled versions were put to rest in the first decade of the new millennium, and even its water-cooled, front-drive replacement has now been put to rest. What car company, if any, will have the temerity to link their product with our latest space-exploration efforts? Will that ad (whether on TV, in magazines, or clogging up your Facebook feed) become another instant classic? We’ve already waited half a century to find out, but time will tell.