Elon Musk recently launched a Tesla Roadster into space in the name of marketing. Car manufacturers have been known to perform some wild stunts to promote their new or older vehicles. If you missed out on the first part of this blog, you can check it out here>>
BMW's Cooper European Perfect Storm
Did you know that in Germany you can spend a couple hundred euros to legally sponsor a weather front and name it whatever you want? BMW was quite aware of this and hoped to take advantage of it when seeking to promote their weatherproof Mini Cooper Roadster car line back in early 2012.
What they didn't know was that the cold weather front would become one of the deadliest to hit the continent in years, causing more than a hundred deaths and getting the whole company on the edge of a PR abyss. After all, you wouldn't want to be the company who's officially sponsoring the worst winter northern Europe had seen in a long while.
The Skoda City-Henge Installation
Skoda is a Czech car manufacturer that may not be too well-known in the US. However, for a brief moment, they shined brighter than ever before by participating in the making of a huge recreation of Stonehenge on London's Southbank, only that it was made with their own recycled cars.
It was called "Cityhenge" and it took about 18 cars in up a structure that weighed 36 tons and stood over 5 meters tall. It was taken on a tour through the United Kingdom since apparently, they like that sort of thing on the other side of the pond. That sort of thing being creative cultural projects the likes of which SKODA enjoyed participating in.
The Lamborghini Police Force
This is probably one of the better know and coolest publicity stunts ever performed by a car manufacturer.
Imagine you're driving around Rome and enjoying the beautiful roads. You feel good, a little bold, and you decide to step it a little on the gas. Suddenly, a highway patrolman spots you and reports a speeding vehicle. Before you realize it, screaming on your tail is the futuristic frame of a Lamborghini Huracan speeding up to you with the speed and raging engine fury of Italian law enforcement.
Why would a police Lamborghini chase you or even exist in the first place? Well, it turns out the police departments in the country from time to time receive specialized cars from Automobili Lamborghini for special assignments including organ transport, highway patrol, and general bragging.
Lamborghini has been doing these donations for some years now. Is it civic duty? Simply a promotional stunt? It certainly improves their reputation, if not their bottom line (once you get into that price range, car manufacturers actually don’t always make much profit). It’s a tough break for the lawbreakers, who will never, ever be fast enough to get away from their pursuers. Woe unto them.
So, even if right now all we can think about is a car that started up at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and hurtled out of our planet so that it could now be cruising interplanetary space for the next few billion years, there's more to look forward to. We can only hope that the need for car companies to grab our attention drives them to put cars into impossibly creative situations that we can all enjoy.
And if by any chance you fell for one of these publicity efforts and are now trying to get your car registration and tags in order, be sure to contact us at t Auto Tags of Florida at (954)848-4808, and we'll guide you through the necessary steps for you to keep driving safely without resorting to bungee-jumping or rocket science.
