Park That Thought

The thing that attracted me to this Car+Driver story is that it means I don't have to mention Coronavirus.

Because it's got absolutely nothing to do with Coronavirus.

It starts back in early February - this was before the West got too concerned about Coronavirus.

Oh Bugger.

Anyway, Car+Driver tried out Hyundai's "Smart Park" self-parking system as demonstrated by an advert in the middle of The Super Bowl.  That story is here.  Here is their still from that ad:

The bloke without the coffee is impressing the bloke who looks like him but does have coffee by allowing his Hyundai Sonata to park itself into a narrow gap.

Now, being me, I was more interested in the very badly parked car to the right of it.  Now it had obviously been very badly parked by somebody connected to the advert in order to demonstrate the parking feature of the Sonata.

But, in the real World, you wouldn't want to use that feature in this case because the moron who can't park is almost certain to damage your car by:

a) trying to get in to his own car and

b) trying to reverse out into the road

 

But, back to that car itself. I spent ages trying to work out what the hell it actually is.  It sort of looks vaguely familiar in an old Jeep Cherokee or perhaps Nissanish sort of way - but it has a strange R logo on it so it's either a make that we don't have in Britain that Americans would identify straight off or it's an old Hyundai (or Kia) that the ad people have disguised so as not to distract viewers from the Sonata.

 

Well that didn't work.

 

And, judging by the article that led me to write this, the Smart Park can't be trusted either.

Nice - Not Nice.

Autoguide to day have this story about Hyundai's Elentra advertising campaign.  In particular, their Super Bowl ad featuring Johnny Galecki from the brilliant Big Bang Theory or, if you are very old, Roseanne.

The theme of the campaign is nice (like the Elantra) and not nice (like slipping on a banana skin).

Here's the main ad:

Quite amusing.

This BBC story, meanwhile, is about a nice advert.

At least I think it is very nice.

It features a very nice Bobby Ewing-era Merc SL and a very attractive woman on a bike.

And this picture:

Which seems a bit cruel to the very attractive woman on the bike.

 

But five people with incredibly dull lives thought the advert was not nice.

 

They complained to the Advertising Standards Authority and caused the advert to be banned because the very attractive woman on a bike isn't wearing a helmet.

 

A helmet isn't a legal requirement and would have messed up the hair of the very attractive woman on a bike.

 

And the ad isn't even aimed at cyclists, it's aimed at motorists warning them to give cyclists like the very attractive woman on a bike plenty of room.

 

As well as thinking those five people and the Advertising Standards Authority are not nice, I also think this caradvice.com.au story is not nice.  Basically, it is saying that BMW are working on an app to pump adverts into your car or, as they put it, “develop solutions for context-adaptive, personalised filtering of large volumes of real-time offers generated by location-based service providers”.

 

I see that article as an advert to not buy a BMW.

 

Not nice.

Take a Break

Sunday February 5th 2012 sees a big day in the world of football. At 2:30pm GMT, assuming they don't have any problems with a frozen pitch, Airbus UK take on Port Talbot in the Corbett Sports Welsh Premier League.

Now if, unlike me, you don't happen to be Welsh and are perhaps, like Barack Obama, American (yes Fox News - we've seen the birth certificate) then you may be interested in a different football match - involving a different game called football.

Sunday February 5th 2012 also sees the New York Giants take on the New England Patriots in something called "Super Bowl XLVI". This is an opportunity for big corporations to pay millions of dollars to get advertising slots in the middle of the broadcasts. The big car companies are no exception.

The online motoring press worldwide have been taking the oppoturnity to preview these ads and my favourite Australian site came up with this report which includes an amusing effort from Toyota:and a pleasant (if slightly schmaltzy) one from Hyundai:
Autoguide also have a few including my favourite - the one in this story featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. It also features (very briefly) the new Honda NSX. It would have to be "briefly" because it is still just a concept car - they haven't even designed the interior yet.

Nevertheless, enjoy: