Honda Commercial

[JohnHKart]

So have you seen the new Honda commercial, that pans across many cars in the company's museum....it's pretty curious....Lots of long pans and looks at Champ Cars like Ribeiro's Tasman car and a Chip Gannassi Reynard, and a John Surtees F1 car....then at the end, I think it's a crapwagon, but you only see it from behind, and hardly well enough to really tell what it is, and then the screen fades to a congrats to Buddy Rice. It's almost like they're embarrassed that he won in a crap wagon!!! And they're more proud of their other cars (like the Champ Cars that get more screen time than the crap wagon) Hee hee :thumbup: hee...:)

John

[Ed_Severson]

I've seen that commercial, and that's not what you think it is.

That's an F1 test machine, probably from the early BAR development days. If you look closely next time you see the commercial, you'll notice it's a double-element rear wing -- definitely not an IRL ****box.

What I found most interesting was that they chose not to make any mention of the six consecutive Champ Car titles -- all they managed was a shot of Zanardi's Reynard and a quick peek of the front end of deFerran's (which, of course, they can't show because of the stupid tobacco regulations) with no mention of what they were, then showed Ribeiro's car and labeled it as their "first IndyCar win."

Besides that and the lots and lots of motorcycles, there wasn't much else to see.

[Sean O'Gorman]

I thought it was a cool commercial, but I saw it before Rice won. Not as good as the Nissan one from 1996, where the little kid follows Mr. K. (thats his name right?) through the collection of all the Datsuns and Nissans including the GTP car. Almost brought a tear to my eye. ;)

[skaven]

...then showed Ribeiro's car and labeled it as their "first IndyCar win."

That reminds me of an old shirt of mine. I bought it at Loeber Motors in Chicago out of the trophy case in 1998. At the time, I thought it was novel and wore it to Indy to the tune of some mean gomer looks. Now, I fear it is permanently retired. :(

On the back it has:

1996 INDY CAR CHAMPIONS

HONDA RACING TEAM

and has pictures of:

12- Target (Vasser)
4 - Target (Zanardi)
8 - Penzoil (de Ferran???)
49 - Motorola (Blundell???)
32 - Tecate (Fernandez)
31 - LCI (Ribeiro???)

[RichK]

That reminds me of an old shirt of mine. I bought it at Loeber Motors in Chicago out of the trophy case in 1998. At the time, I thought it was novel and wore it to Indy to the tune of some mean gomer looks. Now, I fear it is permanently retired. :(

On the back it has:

1996 INDY CAR CHAMPIONS

HONDA RACING TEAM

and has pictures of:

12- Target (Vasser)
4 - Target (Zanardi)
8 - Penzoil (de Ferran???)
49 - Motorola (Blundell???)
32 - Tecate (Fernandez)
31 - LCI (Ribeiro???)

Honda gave out some great t-shirts back then. I have one that has Rahal's car and Groff's car (the hideous sounding first year of Honda in CART). It's one of my favorites, but getting just about unwearable, unfortunately!

[Ed_Severson]

That #49 Motorola car was Parker Johnstone, driving for Brix-Comptech Racing.

Parker did quite a bit of the legwork for Honda in their formative days in Champ Cars.

[skaven]

That #49 Motorola car was Parker Johnstone, driving for Brix-Comptech Racing.

Parker did quite a bit of the legwork for Honda in their formative days in Champ Cars.

Ahhh... that makes sense. Thanks! :)

[Winston Wolfe]

That reminds me of an old shirt of mine. I bought it at Loeber Motors in Chicago out of the trophy case in 1998. At the time, I thought it was novel and wore it to Indy to the tune of some mean gomer looks. Now, I fear it is permanently retired. :(

On the back it has:

1996 INDY CAR CHAMPIONS

HONDA RACING TEAM

and has pictures of:

12- Target (Vasser)
4 - Target (Zanardi)
8 - Penzoil (de Ferran???)
49 - Motorola (Blundell???)
32 - Tecate (Fernandez)
31 - LCI (Ribeiro???)

Guess what? I have 'em all from 1998 - 2002 (the "REAL" ones, when it was CART), and I also have the '03 & '04 irl shirts - the '03 is black (ugh!), and I have NEVER worn them. Obviously, I'll NEVER wear the irl shirts, but I thought it would be cool to keep the old CART ones, and I have saved them.

Y'all may or may not be interested in this, but next Friday, Buddy Rice will be making an appearance at the Honda Corporate HQ in Torrance, to sign autographs and give away copies of the USA Today full page ad that Honda ran after the "hollow" victory of the 8hr 22min. rain shortened irl500.

As many of you know, and as I have posted before, when Honda powered drivers ran in CART, they'd have these get togethers on the main campus in Torrance, and hundreds, possibly even a thousand or more AHM employees from the Auto Sales, Parts, Motorcycle, Law Dept, and retirees would show up, and cheer on the drivers (later to include the 2wheeled guys as well).
The best was when AZ did a pit crew demonstration back in '98 before Fontana, and actually did some donuts in the parking lot!!!! That was in a regulation sized intersection with cold tires and a cold engine !!!

It'll be interesting to see how many people show up for this one. I, for one, aint going, but I know some people up there who'll give me the 411.

[Ankf00]

That Nissan commercial was the greatest.

[skaven]

Thanks for the note WW. Let us know how the PR thingy goes in a week.

Being bitter over racing politics isn't much fun, but sure I hope the entire Honda organization stays indifferent to the other league, hurries along and gets to the part where they screw TG.

I used to respect Honda and I'd like to respect them again one day. In the meantime, I won't be buying any of their products.

[Winston Wolfe]

That Nissan commercial was the greatest.

Believe it or not, I worked for Nissan Motor Corp at the time (with Infiniti, before they were just rebadged Nissans :rolleyes: ) and the Mr.K's Garage was the only thing Nissan had going for it at the time. The 300zx died a slow painful death, the 240sx was a lame duck, and the Sentra SE-R was recently retired and the NX2000 was the "performance" car in the line-up.
Anyway, Mr K was the non-fictional character that was based on the original Japanese leader of getting Nissan (or Datsun) into the US market. The pulled together a great collection of original Nissan\ Datsun products, and put them in "Mr. K's Garage".... that was the deal when the kid was playing ball in a field and the ball went down a hole (a la Alice in Wonderland), and the kid ended up with Mr K in his garage.... checking out all of the cool cars.
They had posters, and full 2 minute long TV spots to document the deal.
Its amazing what the ad agency can come up with when you have no exciting new product to offer !!!! :cool:

[racer2c]

Honda should be embarrassed that they outsource their engines. I wish they would let A.J.'s sop wrench their own though.

[Napoleon]

Honda gave out some great t-shirts back then.

They had some great posters also.