We’re sitting at a vast dining table, my friend Máté and I, idly racing a toy Ferrari in the shadow of salmon sandwiches, and he says, hey, let’s turn that Ferrari into a Mad Max Interceptor Pursuit Special.

The Ferrari is an F430 Challenge, sans Stradale, the racing version of the basic F430, and you can get one at Shell gas stations with your purchase of gasoline (and candy bars), at least here in Europe you can. It’s palm-sized and comes with a pullback motor which is synched with a speaker emitting a rather faithful engine noise. I know because I have a 250 GTO and the sound is vastly different, modern flat-plane V8 versus vintage racing 3.0-liter V12.

We’ll skip the hood-mounted supercharger as there’s nothing to supercharge up front, same with the sidepipes and the ghetto black paintjob, but we can’t skip the tanks. On the original Pursuit Special, the tanks stored scarce gasoline, a substance which is indeed getting scarce but which unfortunately does not come in tiny canisters.

What does come in tiny canisters is nitrous oxide, the mother of all dual-use technology, used in dentistry for anaesthesia, in car tuning for, well, you know what, and in the kitchen to make whipped cream. Nitrous oxide is extremely soluble in fat, as in the fat of whipping cream, enabling the user to create whipped cream twice the volume than with air.

Nitrous oxide in cars is usually labelled NOS after Holley Performance Products’ Nitrous Oxide Systems but my mother is a chemical engineer and she would disapprove of that, so we’ll go with the chemical formula N₂0. With a dab of overhead marker and a strip of Scotch tape, the car is ready to rock and roll.

Ready, I lied, but not quite. The heavy N₂0 canisters are overloading the pullback motor, making the car extremely sluggish. And you can’t have an F430 Challenge Interceptor Pursuit Special associated in any way with that dreadful adjective. What we’ll need is an ultra-precise double-barreled nailgun which fires two pins in high sync to rupture both nitrous canisters at the same time, creating in the process a nitrous-powered jet car.

If you have such a nail-gun handy, Jalopnik Nitrous Initiative would like to hear from you.

Photo Credit: Máté Petrány and the author

[Via The Scooter Scoop]

For some reason, I wanted to start out with a write-up of a good car ad. The best ever, perhaps. And that of course, could mean none other than the Shell-Ferrari spot (that's what they call commercials in the biz).

Sure they have a product that practically sells itself: Ferraris. Okay, so technically the commercial is for the Shell gas (and presumably oil) that goes into Ferraris. But this spot makes the most of that opportunity. From concept to execution. And those are just two of the angles I'll use to deconstruct this and other Ad Watch spots down the road.

Creative Challenge
Most advertising projects start with a creative brief, a concise document that summarizes what the ad has to communicate, who the target market is, where and when it will appear, and hopefully some insights into why the audience will not be inclined to TiVo past the 30, 60, or in this case 120 seconds with which you have to work. I don't have access to the briefs for the Ad Watch spots, but I can speak to the challenge before the creative team.

In the case of the Shell-Ferrari spot, the challenge was not to make a complete hash of things. I mean, its not like they had to sell a nail fungus cream. Or a Toyota Solara.

Concept
Armed with the brief, the creatives — generally a copywriter (words) and an art director (pictures) — sit around and read Jalopnik try to come up with a concept. The concept is the core idea of any advertising, whether it be a direct mail insert or a magazine spread or a tv commercial. It's the "big idea" — to steal back a term that Donny Deutsch co-opted for his TV show.

In the case of the Shell-Ferrari spot (which is officially titled "Circuit"), the concept is to illustrate the long association that Shell has had with Ferrari (glossing over the Agip years, of course) by showing a moving timeline of sorts, a parade of great cars fueled by Shell through the years. The genius here is that, instead of having some talking head (industry speak for an on-screen narrator) walking through a garage full of dusty vintage cars droning on and on about the technical merits of Shell fluids, they let the cars do the talking. Believe me, that this concept was approved is a credit to both the advertising agency (JWT London) and the client.

Execution
Once the concept is approved internally (sometimes the hardest fight of all) and with the client, it's time to make the commercial. To turn storyboards into reality. Many a commercial has lived or died on execution. Thankfully, the folks at Shell were kind enough to bankroll what is one of the more expensive (no, it's not the most expensive, I checked) commercials made — estimates put the production budget for this at $3.9 million. Or roughly 3.9 Enzos.

And it shows. The footage (by the production company Partizan...who also did the famous Honda "Cog" spot) is beautiful. That they borrowed the cars, closed the roads, and got the shots with minimal CGI is simply amazing. No seriously, go watch it again. With your speakers on 11. Tell your office mates you're doing important research. Then watch it again.

Casting Judgement
With a simple, smart concept and pretty much flawless execution, this commercial is among the best automotive spots I've ever seen. Some people might say "Sure it's great, it cost $4 million dollars." But I assure you that the Ford "I like to live on the Edge-uh." commercials set the blue oval boys back at least half an Enzo. Those spots are forgettable. The Shell-Ferrari "Circuit" spot, on the other hand, will probably enjoy life on YouTube long after the Edge's replacement's replacement is on the road.

Artistic merits aside, the spot succeeds because it makes me aware of Shell's relationship with the Scuderia, but also because it makes me feel good about filling up my lowly Audi TT with Shell product. I pass 3 gas stations on my way home from the office— so if the commercial can make me more inclined to stop at the Shell instead of the Hess or Gulf, which it does, it's working.

Which is why, on my 4 point rating scale, the top mark is called simply "Ferrari-Shell". It really doesn't get much better than this.

Thanks for reading. See you on Madison Avenue sometime.

On the "Hate/Not Terrible/Good/Shell-Ferrari" Scale: Shell-Ferrari

We've got a treat for your inner Ferrari fan boy that'll make even the worst case of the Mondays disappear. This past weekend, as was alluded to earlier, the folks from Ferrari put together a 60-year celebration of epic proportions for the prancing horse brand. Rather than simply a big cake or everyone gathering 'round to sign a rousing rendition of the "Birthday Song," (in Italian, we'd presume) the Italian stallion brand put out an invite to basically every Ferrari owner on earth to head on over to Maranello for the b-day bash. The response was certainly a record — over 1,000 Ferrari vehicles from every age under the yellow crest — beat that Silverstone! But more on that later. The coolest part of the weekend is what may be the closest thing we'll ever see to a live-action version of the Ferrari Shell commercial from back in March. All that, plus F1 cars doing burnouts and donuts. Epic. – Ray Wert

Related:
Molto Bello! Ferrari Ad Watch; Good Morning: Here Is Your Ferrari Wake-Up Call; Too Many Ferraris Crowd Silverstone, Guinness Notes Record [internal]

I've known my girlfriend for years. We met as teenagers and immediately connected. We kept in touch sporadically, went through a lot of parallel experiences and a multitude of different ones. Way back when, she thought I was a goofy punk rocker with bad taste in motor vehicles, but she wrote about my cars and I anyway. We danced around each other, intrinsically knowing that the other one had things to do. And since I'm seeing her tomorrow, and I figure that she needs more punk rock in her life at this juncture, I've made her a compact disc in place of the mixtape I was too shy to to give her over a decade ago. There's a freedom in letting go of seductive romance and saying, "Okay, the plays are over and here's where the collaboration begins." Not that I'm not a sucker for participating in seductive romance. After all, I did own an El Camino.

The only thing that truly kicks me in the ass like a kickass woman (which I have) or a kickass car (which I don't currently have) is an absolutely kickass song. And one song that made the playlist is Avail's cover of Mellencamp's '80s chestnut "Pink Houses," which, much like Springsteen's "Glory Days," is an incredible slice of American life undone by overproduction. It's a song I remember listening to as a kid and enjoying although it never rocked me. But in the hands of Tim Barry and Co., it comes out note-perfect. Smacking, thwacking drums, barely-controlled, killer guitar work, and Barry's rail-riding, whiskey-gargling, three-point-stance bear-hug of a rough and warm growl.

It may be to '90s punk covers what Hüsker Dü's "Eight Miles High" was to '80s versions of urgently-written songs originally performed too quietly. And more to the point of this story, it gives me the same yummy chills that my relationship with my girlfriend gives me. It's a continual piece of my past recontextualized, yet still classic.

Which finally gets me to the point of this essay. I interrupted the Loverman in the midst of a game of online poker this evening to ask him which longish-form spot, between the fantastic Ferrari/Shell spot and Honda's incredible "The Impossible Dream" piece (the making of which is show above) was the better advertisment. He called Ferrari/Shell hands down and proceeded to bust out — set of Jacks cracked by a runner, runner flush. Quoth the Loverman, "Dicks!" And we were about to start referring to him as "The Lovermaker."

He also suggested we add the Ferry Porsche two-minute commercial we ran a few days ago to a poll. All three ads tug at one's heartstrings. They are all masterpieces of promotional history illustrations. Watch 'em all. Six minutes of your life, and no matter what your taste, we can positively guarantee it won't be time wasted. We then request you vote for which one you'd most want to marry over a decade after the fact.

Shell/Ferrari
Pros: Racing Ferraris out the freaking wazoo — which makes "bad thing" an impossible phrase to use unless you're a complete and utter know-nothing asshole. Amazing freaking camera work. Exotic locales. A cute kicker. Almost makes you believe that Shell gasoline could turn a Dodge V8 into an Italian V12.

Cons: Oil companies are manipulative, evil monstrosities. It focuses on F1 cars to the exclusion of Ferrari's incredible sports-racer and road cars. It makes you realize how rad racecars were before they took the lead out of gasoline.

Ferry Porsche
Pros: One of the most lucid, concise explanations of the philosophy of Bruce ever set to tape. Ferry Porsche. Rallying 959s. Sliding 928s. Not being afraid to show their racing cars falling apart.

Cons: Cars falling apart. Ferry's dead. The fact that they don't run a Cayenne in the Dakar Rally. That the GT3 RS hadn't been invented yet.

The Power of Dreams
Pros: Brilliant song selection. Note-perfect actor and wardrobe selection. Illustrates the company's progression via both competition and road vehicles. The soundtrack syncs wonderfully with the engine notes selected. Builds to a crescendo, hits a tense, freaky pause and then drops "Holy crap! Hot air balloon!" on you like an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe locomotive.

Cons: The boat goes over a cliff. Some people don't like Andy Williams or Miguel de Cervantes. Hondas don't have the cachet of a Ferrari or a Porsche.

So there it is. Which one does it for you? Which one, if you owned one of the cars in question, would make you feel you'd finally scored the woman you'd wanted since you were a teenager; make your thighs tingle like rabbit-ear static made flesh? Which one is a great song perfectly recontextualized for now people? And how soon are now people anyway? Which one will make you give up vacationing on the Gulf of Mexico for a shot at making California? – Davey G. Johnson

"Fast as a Shark" is a weekly electronic broadside aimed at what has been historically right and terribly wrong with the autmotive industry and culture. And no, we don't know of any bootleg U.D.O. John Cougar covers. Thanks for asking.

Related:
Fast As a Shark: The Problem With Words [Internal]

Many requested we start the day with this luscious cinematic experience starring Ferrari F1 cars of the past 60 years. In fact, between the comments and the mail we've gotten on this one. We may have to start showing it twice a day. And maybe a bonus third. We'll see. Good morning. – Mike Spinelli

Related:
Molto Bello! Ferrari Ad Watch [internal]

Try not to die of hotness when watching this Ferrari spot by ad house, Partizan. It's meant to celebrate 60 years of collaboration between Shell and Ferrari, and will roll out to TV soon. Crews shot in Rome, Monaco, Rio, Sydney, New York and Hong Kong. The finish line is at The Mill, London, where the film underwent post-production. Crank the volume. – Mike Spinelli

Related:
Ein Mama Mia! Driving Zee Ferrari 599 GTB [internal]

Free Sticker Set Give Away [Shell via Spoofee]

Related:
Keith Crain Opens Gates, Lets Peons In: Automotive News Free For The Week; Ford UK Insures You'll Be Happy With This Deal [internal]

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