Getting a charge out of Nissan's Leaf
November 20, 2009
This thought came to me as I was piloting the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle prototype around Dodger Stadium last Friday: When gasoline-powered cars sleep at night, they dream of being electric.
-
2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing: The mind-blowing 1950s version was cooler, but . . .
November 13, 2009
It goes about a zillion miles an hour, looks tougher than jailhouse steak and has explosive bolts in the doors, but before getting to the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing, if I may, a nod to the old (1955-1957) Gullwing.
-
Chia Obama's hairy question: Is it racist scorn or sincere tribute?
November 10, 2009
The scene: A vast crowd at a political rally raises a tumult of adulation. Triumphal music rises. Graphics of President Obama's image slide across the scene as we hear the now-familiar voice say, "Change has come to America. . . . Our moment is now. . . . Yes we can!" The crowd chants. Slow pullback on the image of the White House. Announcer: "To commemorate the inauguration of our 44th president with a well-known American icon, introducing. . . ." Jingle: Chi-chi-chi Chia! Announcer: "Chia Obama!"
-
2010 Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon: It sleekly transports your stuff
November 6, 2009
When Italian car-making giant Fiat announced it would be taking over bankrupted, bailed-out Chrysler, I was skeptical. Indeed, I thought the whole plan had ingested powerful hallucinogens. Yet I continue to hope that somehow, one day, I might be able to go down to my local Fiat/Chrysler dealer and purchase an Alfa Romeo 159 Sportwagon. This is a gorgeous Roman lyre of a car, a sleek transporter that -- when painted gloss black and kitted with 19-inch turbine alloy wheels -- will stop traffic like an overturned big rig.
-
Ad guys' new book is self-glorifying and half-baked
November 3, 2009
A new book on advertising reminds me of a joke William Shatner once told on "Saturday Night Live": "Star Trek" is really popular in Japan, where it's known as "Sulu, Master of Navigation."
-
Lexus HS250h: Keep the lights off in the garage
October 30, 2009
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening and all over the Lexus HS250h until I beat it into something that vaguely resembled a luxury car.
-
Online advertisers are monkeying around less
October 27, 2009
Do you miss the monkey?
-
Mazdaspeed3: The fast and the curious
October 9, 2009
Look, the world needs some good news. Wars, the economy, swine flu. My God, Andrew Lloyd Webber is making a sequel to "Phantom of the Opera."
-
Will this milk commercial get sales?
October 6, 2009
The San Francisco powerhouse agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners takes as its corporate mantra "art serving capitalism." But I wonder if it shouldn't be the other way around?
-
2010 Range Rover: I'm besotted, but how long can the gas guzzler last?
October 2, 2009
Look, I'm not immune to the subtle charms of enormous. Barreling down the road in a Range Rover -- big as a barn and about as aerodynamic -- feels really good.
-
A whopper of an illusion is being shattered by Burger King ads
September 29, 2009
For anyone fascinated by advertising as culture, I recommend an afternoon watching a NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car race on TV. I also prescribe an overstuffed chair and a bowlful of M&Ms mixed with No-Doz.
-
Mercedes' 2010 E550 Coupe wins the E-class beauty contest
September 25, 2009
Is the 2010 Mercedes E550 Coupe pretty?
-
Breast cancer ads use lechery for good
September 22, 2009
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a new crop of public service announcements leverage male lechery to an astonishing degree. The latest and greatest is a spot called "Save the Boobs," from the Rethink Breast Cancer charity, in which a voluptuous young woman in a white bikini walks into a pool party scene. Strip-club music kicks in and the camera slow-mo's her fleshy assets while the partygoers attempt to pick their jaws up off the ground. No discreet, quick-cut editing here. The camera stares, unblinking, unashamed, at the woman's figure.
-
IKEA's Burbank store and the guerrillas in housewares
September 8, 2009
For reasons known only to the pop-culture gods, IKEA -- the Swedish retailer of cheap, lingonberry-flavored furniture and other shinola -- has suddenly become a ubiquitous presence in the ether. Example: in August, when the 2010 IKEA catalog came out, people went utterly bonkers because the designers had changed the print font from the familiar Futura to Verdana -- an esoteric difference, to be sure. The story rocketed to No. 2 on CNN.com's most-read list, according to Mona Astra Liss, IKEA's director of public relations. But for the passing of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the story might have gone to No. 1.
-
Audi, BMW sell the sizzle of diesel, not the soot
September 1, 2009
Imagine trying to market a product that most Americans regard as old and obsolete, that is remembered -- if at all -- as low-class and low-tech, noisy and noisome, and whose most notable advocates are truck drivers with prominent trouser cleavage.
-
Porsche wraps a 4-door hulk in racy corset
June 26, 2009
The new Porsche Panamera is the best-handling big sedan in the world, which I grant is a little like being the smartest kid on the Arizona State football team or the most chaste governor of South Carolina. No matter how hard you try -- and Porsche's engineers have busted their adorable lederhosen here -- a 4,344-pound, 16.3-foot four-door cannot beguile physics like a sports car, and it certainly cannot be made to handle anything like a 911.
-
Chrysler will feel unfulfilled in its Italian romance
May 1, 2009
After an abusive affair with Germany's Daimler ending in 2007 and a dysfunctional relationship with former owner Cerberus Capital Management that ended with the company in bankruptcy Thursday, can Chrysler learn to love again?
