Car Ads

Ford wanted to show how a new model would make its rivals disappear, so they called in the artist known as “the invisible man”.Chinese contemporary artist Liu Bolin flew to Los Angeles to put his skills to work camouflaging cars on the streets melt into their surroundings.Bolin oversaw a team of Hollywood studio artists who meticulously repeated the details of surrounding scenery – including buildings, street furniture and footpaths – onto the parked cars.While acknowledging a similar result could have achieved digitally, Bolin said in a Ford statement that working by hand gives a more emotive result.“My work can be done on the computer without the use of paint,” he said.  “But computers cannot convey emotions. That is something that the artist captures with his paintbrush.”The ads for the Ford Fusion – which is not sold in this form Australia, although it has visited for hot weather testing, and shares a platform with the Mondeo – will appear in the US. To see how the painting was done, check out our video. 

General Motors ran the ad a couple of years ago to promote the 2010 GMC Terrain -- a small crossover SUV – with the tagline: Ideas are sexy too. The court case was brought by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which claimed the ad violated its right to the use of Einstein’s likeness which he’d left to them in his will. Einstein died in 1955 – 55 years before the ad ran – and at the time the estate was settled, a 50-year limit applied to copyright. In a complicated legal argument, the University essentially asked for a ruling to extend their copyright to the 70 year limit that exists under California law today.  The case – heard not in California but in New Jersey, where Einstein died – was decided in GM’s favour, with the ruling that New Jersey’s 50 year span after a celebrity’s death was sufficient time for copyright use of their image. Even if the use was deemed “tasteless”. “The obviously humorous ad for the 2010 Terrain having been published 55 years or more after Einstein’s death, it is unlikely that any viewer of it could reasonably infer that Einstein … was endorsing the GMC Terrain,” the ruling says.  

The world's smallest car can park nearly anywhere it likes. The midget motor is so compact that about 12 of the cars fit in a normal parking space.Around North Sydney, the car has been attracting curious glances and much mirth. "We've had a funny reaction to the car - people see it and burst out laughing," The Classic Throttle Shop at North Sydney owner Rory Johnston said."It's a real novelty but it could be the car of the future, who knows?" Mr Johnston said the car is so small that you could literally drive it into the office (the car fits into a lift). If the car breaks down, two men can carry it home.The Classic Throttle Shop is selling three of the cars on consignment. They are reproductions of the original Peel P50 manufactured in the 1960s by Peel Engineering on the Isle of Man, and are powered by an electric motor.More recently, the Peel P50 was made famous by Jeremy Clarkson when he drove it on the set of the television show Top Gear. "The car has great novelty value. Maybe someone will buy it who wants something a little eccentric to drive it around their place or their office." 

   

The company tricked the competition by taking space for just three cars inside the Darling Harbour Exhibition Centre for the Australian International Motor Show - but will have 14 cars on display

This week a minor victory was won in the war of attrition waged by people who hate cars -- which is to say time-rich, underemployed people with absolutely nothing better to do.On the basis of complaints by these wowser stickybeaks, the unsmiling bureaucrats of the Advertising Standards Board censured Peugeot for a television ad in which a passenger in a 4008 SUV waves her hand outside the window. They weren't aiming an Uzi at rival gang members or even making the universal salute. They were waving."A person must not travel in or on a motor vehicle with any part of the person's body outside a window or door of the vehicle," parped the Board. The sequence is to be edited. There is some consolation that the Board rejected two other complaints -- one that the car was being driven in reckless and menacing manner.I've made it a point to see this innocuous and otherwise forgettable ad and can only suggest that the last accuser should refrain from watching TV under the influence of hallucinogens. I've been told who made one of the complaints, but have a policy of withholding from print the name of this notorious publicity seeker and sufferer or relevance deficit disorder. Giving these people oxygen only encourages them to breath.An advocacy body or even political party for and by the people who drive is long overdue. One of you, surely, must be up for it. Just think, you'll represent a hitherto silent majority, one tired of having life made miserable by government authorities and then being forced to pay them for the privilege. I'd vote for you. 

The Rolls-Royce 'Spirit of Ecstasy' bonnet ornament is one of the most recognised -- and beautiful -- in the car world. The luxury British brand has taken it to another level in this sultry commercial. We’re a bit surprised Rolls thinks it has to advertise… even the last Kalahari Bushman we bumped into knew who they were. However, they’re doing it in great style and with very sexy flavour, judging by this behind-the-scenes video.