How About a Little Respect for The Genius of Volkswagen?

So what if they found a way to work around the ridiculous American emissions standards?

VW is known for quality, tightly-screwed-together vehicles. They are known for engineering. They are known for their very German-ness. It's the poor man's BMW.

I drive a Jetta. Not a diesel Jetta like the ones the carmaker toyed with in their genius way. Mine is a 5-speed, stripped down, doesn't-even-have-cruise-control, smallest engine available, black Jetta. It is as German as it can be in its functional-ness. It gets me to work and back. In a sporting way. It has no guts on the takeoff, but at cruising speed I can downshift and gain some torque. It's a fun drive. It's a VW. Tight. The doors go, "shunhk" when you close them. It's what I expected from a VW.

So you're in the VW labs in Germany and you've built this very fine, tight, fast, efficient vehicle and along comes an email from the U.S. EPA that says, "You have to meet these requirements when it comes to emissions." You gather with your fellow engineers and you play around. You find that to meet these requirements your car will sacrifice something in the area that you stake your reputation on. Maybe it's fuel efficiency. Maybe it's power. I don't know. I'm not an engineer. But something made these engineers say, "Screw you, America. Here's what we're gonna do..."

So they rig the cars to pass the tests through software! Brilliant! They pass the stupid American tests and still get the car they wanted to build. THAT'S what I expect from Germany. Ingenuity, albeit in a dark and underhanded way. Still, sheer genius.

Makes me even prouder to own a VW.  

Indulgence - They Has It

I have never in my life known anyone to give or get a new car for Christmas, but the car companies sure think it's a good idea. They always have. And I suppose they'll give you the giant bow as well for when you blindfold your loved-one and walk them to the driveway to reveal the gift you'll both be paying for for the next five years.

But Acura is running some spots for the Holidays that you might not fast-forward though on your DVR. Concept, writing, and above all, casting, are sharp. My favorite is this guy, showing off his post-modern gingerbread house. The pauses make it.



Others in the series include:

Over-lighted house guy

800 thread-count stocking lady

And the very Walken-esque "Chestnut." (Seriously, there's no way the writer and director weren't thinking Walken when they produced this.)

The Apology Ad

My first car was a Toyota, a hand-me-down Celica from my Dad. It wasn't mine for very long before I fell asleep at the wheel and rolled it on I-5 in San Diego early one morning. I promptly replaced it with another used Celica, this one a little newer and with one more gear. Since then I've owned two more Toyotas and there's one in the driveway right now. I've been a loyalist I suppose, and have always trusted the company to make long-lasting, reliable vehicles. If I could afford to, I would pay way too much money to own one of the original Land Cruisers, before Land Cruiser got all snotty and shiny and became the preferred truck of snotty, shiny women carting their kids to school.

So now they're recalling how many cars? 8 million? And deaths can be attributed to some manufacturing flaws? How do you rebound from that? Toyota is all over the news in the most embarrassing way a manufacturer can be in the news, with many wondering if they'll ever recover from this blow. In Japan it is being seen as the prelude to the country's post-industrialization era. And while I agree with the company's policy of public apology, (very Japanese of them) I don't like this spot much. They want to "restore your faith in our company" says the voiceover guy who received the following direction: "We need you to sound like you're very sorry, like you're almost crying, like a married politician who got busted having an affair."



Nonetheless, I don't know how you could've done this ad better. They tell the story of a company with a heritage of quality that majorly fucked up and is now working like dogs to fix their fuck-ups and get out of the doghouse. Well, you might've given your voiceover guy a little less simpering wimp intonation and let him read it differently, but whatever, voiceover guys are a dime a dozen. They can easily replace the audio track. 

When you search Toyota on YouTube, you'll find the company has bought the top listing. Another wise move. And leave it to the YouTube comment "community" to let Toyota know how they feel:

"...you can not hide 20 deaths and call your product HIGH QUALITY."

"BUY AMERICAN!"

"Remember Pearl Harbor!"

I can see a day when this bad season is behind Toyota and they are back in form, winning our trust again, but it's going to take something really awesome, like an electric car that goes 500 miles on a charge. Or a jetpack.

From the Streets of Sacramento to the Freeways of LA

I love to throw together truthful parodies of the crap I'm working on sometimes, if only for the benefit of keeping my coworkers lighthearted and mindful that we're really just bullshitters at the end of the day. (My boss called my "cynical" yesterday. I said "You are too, you just try to hide it.") Or I like to inject truth into an ad that I know the market will respond to, even if the client might freak out. Those ideas usually get shot down, but I've always believed in speaking to the audience honestly, and if I can talk someone into letting me do it, I know it will get results.

Sometimes when the camera's rolling, things get a little playful. This spokesman is doing a stand-up for some car dealer in San Bruno, a San Francisco suburb, in what appears to be the late 60s or early 70s. The info at YouTube says this was a live broadcast, but I can't believe that. I'm sure it was to tape, with the crew goofing off and saying what they really thought of this business of selling used cars. At any rate, it's gold. Lots of adult language, so if that might offend you, don't watch.



Here's an essay I wrote in 2002 about used cars.