Chevrolet alluded to it in its "Stunt Anthem" Super Bowl commercial for the Sonic, and during this weekend's Super Bowl, the genuine article appeared. As promised, the Sonic tests out its musical chops by playing OK Go's "Needing/Getting."
Two miles of instruments were laid out in the Southern California desert, lots of practice and planning to get it just right. Of course, that was after four months of preparation, during which time OK Go's lead singer had to learn how to stunt drive.
Follow the jump to check it out, and follow the source link to get more behind-the-scenes tidbits on what went into it.
Continue reading OK Go plays "Needing/Getting" with the Chevy Sonic
The sun has long since set on the Ford Crown Victoria and the big sedan's Police Interceptor variants, but many parts of the country still haven't seen the next-generation of pursuit vehicles take to the street. In the case of the Chevrolet Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle, that's because General Motors has hit a delay in providing the Holden-based sedans. According to the DuPont Registry, the delay is two-fold. Shipping from Australia is taking longer than expected, and Chevrolet dealers aren't outfitting the vehicles quickly enough to satiate demand.
The report quotes Deputy Chief Jeff Undestad of the Largo Police Department in Largo, Florida as saying his office waited more than eight months for GM to deliver their Caprice Patrol Vehicles to the dealer. Undestad should consider himself lucky. A neighboring department waited 10 months for its new patrol cars. Chrysler, meanwhile, usually takes two to three months to deliver its police-duty Dodge Charger models.
GM, meanwhile, says that the company is working to address the shipping issues. The company now has a pool of Caprice Patrol Vehicles at port, which should help trim the wait time.
Chevrolet is having some pointed fun with its apocalyptic Super Bowl ad featuring the Silverado called "2012," only the fun is pointed directly at Ford, which finds it a little too sharp to be all that much fun. So on the eve of the big game, Ford sent Chevy a cease-and-desist letter to pull the ad and "pressured" NBC not to run the commercial, according to a report on Yahoo!'s Motoramic blog. Chevy has released a statement in response, which you can read after the jump, indicating that the ad will run despite Ford's protest.
Ford found no reason to chuckle at some of the commercial's claims, "particularly around durability." One in particular comes from a character that says of their now-deceased, F-150-driving pal, "Dave didn't drive the longest-lasting most dependable truck on the road. Dave drove a Ford."
Ford spokesman Mike Levine says his company has more trucks with 250,000-plus miles on the road than any other brand, which would appear to contradict the small print that appears in the "2012" ad that reads, "Dependability based on longevity: 1981-2011 full-size pickup registrations." Ford says its lawyers will decide what to do (if anything) after the ad airs during tonight's game, but Chevy's legal minions must have vetted the spot closely well before time.
Or Ford could take Chevy marketing honcho Joel Ewanick up on his offer and bide its time. Said Ewanick, "We can wait until the world ends, and if we need to, we will apologize."
Continue reading Ford asks Chevrolet, then NBC, to pull Silverado Super Bowl ad
Chevrolet continues its onslaught of Super Bowl ads released before this Sunday's big game, clearly hoping that volume plays in its favor when the points are tallied by marketing analysts on Monday.
Today's commercial, entitled "2012," stars the Chevrolet Silverado in a post-apocalyptic world. In this ad, Chevy reminds us of its oft-repeated statistic that its trucks are the longest lasting, most dependable trucks on the road, and it does so by imagining that the Mayans were right and that 2012 is our last year on Earth.
It's a well-done spot with lots of fun things to focus on - we're even amused by the soundtrack, which isn't what we'd immediately expect to hear as the backing music following life after an Extinction Level Event.
Follow the jump to view the end of the world through Chevy's eyes.
Continue reading Chevy Silverado takes shot at Ford in apocalyptic Super Bowl ad
Just when you thought you'd seen all the Super Bowl ads there were to see, Chevrolet is jumping in with a whole new spot for the Volt. The General Motors plug-in hybrid has been struggling to make sales headway for a number of reasons, including a now-closed government investigation into the vehicle's safety. With negative press at its peak in January, Volt sales took a nosedive last month - GM managed to move a paltry 603 units. With some Chevy dealers refusing their allocations, the automaker is understandably keen to put the spurs to Volt sales. This Super Bowl ad features a host of very curious aliens attempting to comprehend the science behind the propulsion system in the Chevrolet Volt.
It would seem GM believes buyers are being scared off from the Volt because they simply don't understand the mechanicals in the plug-in hybrid. If that's the case, this new commercial should help clear up any mysteries surrounding the vehicle. Hit the jump to see E.T. in action for yourself.
Continue reading Chevy turns to aliens to pitch Volt in Super Bowl ad
If you, like us, were wondering how MG managed to snag Jason Plato away from Chevrolet in the British Touring Car Championship, well you had good reason to wonder. The racecar driver and Fifth Gear co-host had, after all, driven the factory-backed team to both titles in 2010 and landed himself third and his team second just this past season. But you can wonder no more, as the latest news from the BTCC paddock is that Chevrolet has withdrawn from the popular saloon racing series.
The news arrives as a bit of a surprise coming from the front-running team, particularly at a time when the grid has expanded enormously in the past couple of seasons. The reason? According to Autosport, Chevrolet wants to focus its energies on the World Touring Car Championship, where the same outfit RML that ran the BTCC team fields similar Cruze touring cars - driven by Yvan Muller, Rob Huff and Alain Menu - with considerable success: The RML Chevrolet team has claimed both the drivers' and constructors' titles for the past two seasons running, making it something like the Red Bull Racing of touring cars.
A longtime competitor in the BTCC, RML reportedly hopes it won't be long before it is back on the grid in the British series, and given that most of the cars in the championship are fielded by privateer teams, we wouldn't be surprised to see them return as early as next year. In the meantime, General Motors will be well represented in the series by Vauxhall.
In the wake of last week's bruising hearing on Capitol Hill about the safety of the Chevrolet Volt (which itself followed an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that concluded plug-in vehicles do not "pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles") former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has written a column for Forbes that strikes back against the media (especially conservatives) who are attacking the car he thought would be one of his most important legacies.
Politicians and members of the media on the right, from Mitt Romney to Neil Cavuto, have talked smack about the Volt, and Lutz says this "has attracted my attention and ire." In typical Lutz fashion, he doesn't mince words, writing:
The Oscar for totally irresponsible journalism has to go to The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, with, as its key guest, Lou Dobbs. Amid much jocular yukking, the Volt was depicted as a typical federal failure. ... Boiled down to the subtext, Dobbs' message was this: "All Volts catch fire, and therefore all Volts have been recalled." That simply isn't the case. ...
To top it off, these two media pros lamented the fact that the same government that had forced GM to produce the Volt was now extending $7,500 tax credits towards its purchase, thus squandering even more of "our taxpayer" dollars on this failed Socialist-collectivist flop. Truth? The $7,500 tax credit was enacted under the Bush administration!
Don't let Lutz's words make you think he's taking a left/liberal stance. He's still a self-declared "conservative Republican" who hates that right-wing talking heads are spiraling downward into this sort of "deliberate misstatement of facts." They "have managed to make me embarrassed to describe myself as a conservative," he writes, adding, "Let's leave the 'invention of facts' to the left-wing climate-change alarmists." There - that should offend pretty much everyone who's not in the dead political center.
BMW M goes Diesel, Ford Focus fleet sales numbers, California 2025 green car mandate
Episode #267 of the Autoblog Podcast is here with Chris, Dan, Zach and Chris Paukert this week. Topics include the addition of diesel-powered BMW M models overseas, the surprisingly high fleet sales figure for the Ford Focus, and a new green car mandate coming out of California. Your questions and comments power the end of the 'cast, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. We've embedded our Q&A module after the jump for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #267:
BMW M goes diesel
Ford Focus loads up on fleet sales
California pushing for more green cars by 2025
In the Autoblog Garage
2012 Mazda3 Skyactiv
2012 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab
2012 Audi A4
2012 Dodge Durango Citadel
Hosts: Dan Roth, Chris Shunk, Chris Paukert, Zach Bowman
Runtime: 01:15:33
Get the podcast
[UStream] Listen live on Mondays at 10PM Eastern at UStream
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The Chevrolet Sonic has been busy lately - taking part in a host of adventurous activities like sky diving, bungee jumping, kickflipping, and making a music video. We've seen snippets of a lot of the extreme sports activities the Sonic hatch has been involved in, but we have yet to see the music video for OK Go and its song "Needing/Getting." Chevy has just released a teaser to whet our appetites, however, as well as its latest full-length Sonic ad for the Super Bowl, both of which you can view after the jump.
The 60-second extreme sports spot is part of an onslaught of seven ads that Chevrolet will run before and during the game, and at least four of the brand's ads will be devoted to the Sonic. Follow the jump to check out the new spot called "Stunt Anthem," and if you like the song in the ad - The Fun's "We Are Young" - you can download it here.
Continue reading Chevy Sonic teases Ok Go music video and extreme sports ads for Super Bowl
The world would be considerably less entertaining if we could all predict the future. Even so, the classic car gurus at Hagerty Insurance have cast a few chicken bones in an attempt to figure out which vehicles produced today might eventually turn collectible.
The company restricted entrants to hardware with a price tag of less than $100,000, so the list isn't populated with too many wild exotics. While vehicles like the Nissan GT-R Black Edition, Ford Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca Edition, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 and Porsche 911 are low-hanging fruit, the list also featured a few surprises.
For starters, it begins with none other than the mighty Buick Regal GS. Hagerty says the vehicle is a win because it's the first Buick with a manual transmission since the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. The Fiat 500 Abarth also makes an appearance alongside an even hotter hatch, the Volkswagen Golf R. Of course, we're simply thrilled to see the sinister Audi TT RS make a showing. Hit the jump for the full list or view each vehicle in our gallery above.
Continue reading Hagerty predicts this year's future classics
