A new alcoholic version of the classic Australian soda Solo has renewed hopes for a return to screens for the legendary Solo Man.
Solo was launched by Taraxin in 1968, with Sydney PE teacher Michael Ace portraying the very first Solo Man in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Solo Man quickly became an Aussie legend thanks to his fearless ability to row through rapids, wrestle a wild brumby and kayak off a cliff.
The Solo Man was all it meant to be a man in the 1980s
A new Hard Solo promises to be lightly fizzy so you can knock it down quickly
On Saturday, Carlton and United told Daily Mail Australia it was bringing Solo back to the adult audience it always craved with a fully alcoholic version of the drink.
It is sold in four, 10 and 24 packs of 375 ml cans with an alcohol content of 4.5 percent.
“He is a legend of Australian advertising,” “Mark,” from Melbourne’s western suburbs, told the Daily Mail Australia.
“He was part of a wave of blond Aussie men in a golden age that included Alby Mangels and Leo Wanker.
“He was canoeing down mountains and doing all these dangerous things and eventually he would break a Solo.”
Depicted as a macho, traditionally masculine beast, the Solo Man quickly fell out of fashion in more politically correct times.
The launch of Hard Solo comes as American brewer Budweiser continues to try to win back male drinkers after its Bud Light advertising disaster.
Three months after being promoted on social media by a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light still doesn’t seem to be returning to the top of the US beer charts.
You had to stay in shape to be a Solo Man, take the lead and let the others follow
The Solo Man launches himself off a cliff in a kayak in a 1990 ad
Solo was unashamedly aimed at men, with the once-famous slogan: “Solo lemon: a man’s drink.”
The first publicity photos of the new Hard Solo show a well-groomed, hipster-looking vegan character covered in the kind of tattoos popular in the Abbottsford area, where the brewer responsible for the alcoholic concoction is based.
“He looks more like a Kombucha man,” Mark said.
However, sources have told Daily Mail Australia that the new drink is aimed at people between the ages of 30 and 40, fueling hopes that we may see the rise of the Hard Solo man.
The original Solo man advertising campaign was so successful that the character was scammed by soup maker Campbell’s, who ran similar ads featuring the ‘Fully Loaded Man’.
With ‘balls of meat’, the Fully Loaded Man appeared in advertisements as he sailed down the mountains before crushing a can of soup in his hand.
CUB spokesman Hayden Turner said the new Hard Solo has a taste reminiscent of the classic Solo, but with a bitter aftertaste from the alcohol.
The new Solo Man could be mistaken for the ‘Kombucha Man’, one Solo man fan claimed
The Solo Man enjoys a thirst quencher after working up a sweat doing manly things
In developing the new drink, the brewer said it was committed to ensuring it was clearly marked as an alcoholic beverage to prevent it from getting into the hands of children.
“When developing Hard Solo, we were only willing to continue if the can and branding looked very different from the regular Solo,” Mr Turner said.
“We’ve achieved that – Hard Solo, with its striking black cane, looks very different from regular Solo. We also used very prominent alcohol markings on the front of the can so that it cannot be confused with Solo and is clearly for adult consumers only.”
As Australians clamor for a return of the Solo Man, Mr Turner said the company had no immediate plans to bring the legendary man back to screens.
“There will be no traditional out-of-home advertising, TV or radio campaigns to promote Hard Solo,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
However, fans of the Solo Man have already indicated that they intend to launch a campaign to bring back the legend.
Hard Solo will be available in bottle shops across the country later this month, priced around $24 for a pack of four.