Jim Kenzie's The Driver's Seat

Best Automotive Product Placement of All Time

In my post the other day on the MINI Cooper S owned by Howard Walowitz in the TV Series 'The Big Bang Theory' (which was parked in a spot coveted by the other "Cooper, S." - S as in Sheldon) I suggested it might have been a clever product placement by MINI.

I have no confirmation of that.

But it did remind me of what must have been the best automotive product placement of all time - certainly, the most cost-effective, max Bang for the Buck automotive product placement of all time.

A friend of mine ran (maybe still runs - haven't seen him in a while...) a publicity firm in Southern California which had (maybe still has...) the contract to place General Motors cars in the movies.

He was contacted by a never-was director (at the time, best-known as a stunt man) who had stupid B-Movie script about beer smuggling, and had somehow scored a soon-to-be has-been actor to star in it.

He needed a car, some sort of fast car.

My friend said, "Well, there's this thing over here, they're probably going to discontinue the car next year, so why not use it?"

The director was Hal Needham.

The star was Burt Reynolds.

The movie was 'Smokey and the Bandit'.

The car of course was the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am - the black one with gold trim (a colour scheme apparently inspired by the John Player Lotus Formula One cars of the mid-1970s) and the 'dead-chicken' decal on the hood.

The car became the star of the movie, and went on to many more years of successful sales.

My friend said he got $400 from GM for the product placement.

Pretty good deal for GM, I'd say.

Clever Marketing or Lucky Break?

I don't know if you're following the Olympics (or even give a flyin' wahoo; I am not, and don't particularly, respectively...).

BTW, spoiler alert - if you DON'T want to know who won the 100m Gold Medal because you'll watch it on PVR later, quit now! Otherwise, scroll down...

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I was just told by someone who is and does (respectively) that Usain Bolt of Jamaica won as expected, breaking his own Olympic record and - here's the good part - the first commercial after his victory was for the Chevy Volt!

Bolt for Volt!!

Now, did GM's clever marketing types set that up??

Or did they just get lucky?

I guess you'd have to call Mr. Bolt 'electrifying' - bet he's never heard THAT one before hahahahahahaha...

Sorry...

And you might have noticed in the 'Categories' for this blog posting, I included 'Current Affairs'.

Please, somebody stop me before someone gets hurt...

Will They Never Learn?

One tidbit that escaped my attention at the recent New York Auto Show was a display of humankind's never-ending optimism.

Or stupidity, depending on your perspective.

Because if there's a way to make a horrible car even worse, someone will find a way.

Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks to an Alert Reader (Dave Barry isn't the only one) may I present:

The DeLorean Electric.

The original DeLorean should have been called 'Hubris' - an awful car which ended in a variety of disasters, for investors, for employees of the Irish factory, and of course for Mr. DeLorean himself.

Not to mention for the 9,000-odd people who were saddled with these pieces of junk.

But like owners of Edsels who've been trying to convince the world for over five decades that their cars are valuable simply because they are rare - conveniently forgetting that there are a million very good reasons why they were rare to begin with - DeLorean owners have convinced themselves that they're on to something.

Folks: when they make a comedy movie franchise - not just a movie; a FRANCHISE! - based on your car, that should be a clue.

Stephen Wynne - and no, that's not the Las Vegas Steve Wynn-without-an-e - is a Liverpool-native-now-Texas-based mechanic who repairs and restores DeLoreans. He has ended up with a large collection of new-old-stock and used parts, and has also acquired the rights to the corporate name.

He decided that what the DeLorean needed was an electric powertrain.

The 400 volt AC induction motor produces some 260 horsepower, which is claimed to shove the car from rest to 100 km/h in about five seconds, with a top end of 200 km/h.

Much more than the 88 mph (141 km/h) Marty McFly and Doc Brown needed to go Back to the Future.

The battery can recharge in just 3.5 hours.

Oh wait - you don't have 240-volt / 70 amp service at your house?

Then it'd be more like 14 hours.

For a 160 km range.

Sure, Steve.

Wynne says he chose the particular battery supplier because of its name.

Flux Power.

I wouldn't even dare to make that up.

Not quite 'Flux Capacitor', but close enough. (Thank you again, Alert Reader.)

Wynne says he'll have 70 of these cars available in 2013, for $95,000 (US) a pop.

With the level of self-delusion prevalent amongst DeLorean owners, he might just sell some.

But Steve, fair warning: watch out for the Feds trying that ol' "cocaine bust entrapment" gambit.

Maybe I'll buy one myself and see if I can go back to 1955.

Then I could be the one who discovers 'Johnny B. Goode.'

Makes as much sense as an electric DeLorean...

 

Targa Newfoundland goes Global

In case you are among the three or four people in the world who have not seen the video of the Ferrari Enzo going for a swim in Marystown Newfoundland last week, here ya go.

Among the many amazing things about this incident is the incredible calmness of driver/owner Zahir Rana after the fact. He had just very possibly toasted his million-plus-dollar car (subsequent investigation suggests that fixing the damage to the car - salt-water and electronics really do not play nice together - will run into six figures, none of them to the right of the decimal point...) yet all he can talk about is how it's just a car, no-one was hurt, how wonderful the entire event was, and how much he's looking forward to coming back next year.

Prior to the start of Targa, Zahir told me that the FIA-approved roll cage he had custom-built in Germany for his Lamborghini Gallardo arrived the day before the transport truck which was to bring his cars from Calgary to Newfoundland was leaving, and he didn't have time to install it in the Lambo.

Even then, let alone in retrospect, he agreed that this was probably a Good Thing, that getting a feel for the rally before committing to doing it for real was the right way to do it.

Although this was Zahir's first rally, his little swim showed that he has learned the first rule of rallying - although the car did go off on the left side of the road, he did get it rotated 180 degrees so the co-driver's side actually hit the water first.

Which is perhaps the most amazing aspect of that little video - the enthusiasm of co-driver Roland Linder. He can't wait to come back too.

As I've been telling you for ten years, until you experience Targa for yourself, you just can't fully understand it.

Start planning your budget for next year...

What can the movies teach us? - WEIRD FORMATTING!

Some of you may have noted that the above blog post looked weird on Tuesday - sentences running past the end of the line, odd letters popping up here and there.

I have no idea what happened, but I have a clue as to WHY it happened.

You see, now that I have a - gasp - iPhone, I can theoretically post blogs on the road. (I am also 'tweeting', fer cryin' out loud).

I posted that entry from my iPhone, having originally typed it using an iPhone app called EVERNOTE. I cut-and-pasted it into the TypePad blogging software we use here, and it looked to be OK.

When I clicked on "View your Post", it did look a bit odd, but I figured that was just because I was viewing it on my iPhone as well.

But a loyal reader e-mailed me tonight to say it still looked odd, so I have fixed it using the trusty laptop.

I will try to come up with a better explanation and/or work-around, because blogging from the road is sort of the point of having an iPhone!

BTW, I do not seem to be able to use the 'classic' version of TypePad on the iPhone, which I find much easier to use than the so-called 'new and improved' version, so the likelihood of typos increases when I enter posts from the iPhone.

Also, it does not seem to be possible to assign 'multiple' categories to a post from the iPhone, as I can do from the laptop.

I'll see if I can figure that out too.

Any hints warmly welcomed!

What can the movies teach us?

In the movie "The Blind Side", Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for her portrayal of a rich Southern blonde who helps a poor black kid become a football star.

More important, at one point she tells her young son when he gets into her BMW 7 Series to "Put on your seat belt!"

Throughout the movie she is also wearing her own belt.

OK, so a car crash was a minor plot point later on, and the kid wouldn't have survived without a belt.

The movie is based on a true story. Whether this part is true or not, I don't know. I mean: Deep South USA? Seat belts? You'd have to tie up your disbelief in a plain brown wrapper and mail it to Peoria.

But I'll take small victories wherever I can find them.

Other movie and TV directors, please copy.

And one of the young girl characters in the movie is named ''Kenzie". When did that become a girl's name?