quote:

F-Bombs Away: PR Institution Jason Vines on Clown CEOs, A-Hole Journalists
Jason Vines, 55, was a public-relations institution while at Chrysler, Ford, and Nissan. His book, What Did Jesus Drive? recalls his adventures in crisis management.

C/D: How did you get into PR?

JV: As a mistake. I was a human-resources guy working at Chrysler and got into marketing, and I was supposed to become the marketing head at Eagle. And the Friday before the Monday my new assignment was to begin, [Jeep/Eagle division head] Joe Cappy said, “Hey, can you do PR instead of marketing?” And I said: “I don’t care. What’s the difference?” I was 26. I had never even seen a press release.

C/D: How did you come up with those stunts at the Detroit auto show? You know, driving through a glass wall and a downtown cattle drive for the new Ram pickup.

JV: It was a team of people—usually with a lot of wine. But our events always had some meaning to them. That’s what was beautiful about them. We sold the message about what the vehicle was about. The cattle drive may be the greatest. Automotive News said it was the image of the year, and my last CEO, Bob Nardelli, just hated every bit of it. And tried to kill it. Because he was completely stupid.

C/D: So Mr. Nardelli wasn’t one of your favorite CEOs.

JV: No, no. He’s a clown.

C/D: So who was your favorite CEO?

JV: Jacques Nasser [at Ford]. He saved a lot of people’s lives. Because in May of 2001, we got this scientific report from our engineers that eight people were going to die that summer if we didn’t recall the Firestone tires [on the Explorer]. He made the decision with me to recall the tires without Firestone. And nobody died that summer. I’m very proud of that.

C/D: So it wasn’t easy to deal with Firestone?

JV: Do you want me to say something nice about them?

C/D: That’s okay. One of the assertions in the book is that Ford was bugging your phones.

JV: Yeah, that’s kind of a trivial thing. At the end of the game, I don’t give two craps about that.

C/D: Who’s the smartest guy you worked for?

JV: Nasser, then [former DaimlerChrysler and current Daimler CEO] Dieter Zetsche. And in a close third place, [Renault-Nissan head] Carlos Ghosn. Those guys are really smart.

C/D: Should Nissan have kept its headquarters in California instead of moving to Tennessee?

JV: Oh yeah. It was a colossal mistake. They lost their character. And Toyota ought to stay on the West Coast. Stop trying to Americanize yourself. People buy you because you’re Japanese.

C/D: What was your best time in PR?

JV: Yeah, 2004 and 2005, when we were winning all the awards for the 300 and living large. It was so much fun at Chrysler. And we had the best CEO in the world, Dieter, who’d do anything we told him to do. It was just fun.

C/D: Through the years, were there any vehicles that, from the first time you saw them, you knew were going to be terrible?

JV: Well, yeah. The Aztek. The world’s ugliest vehicle of all time. The Jeep Compass. The world’s second-ugliest vehicle of all time. Almost everything AMC made was a complete disaster.

C/D: PR guys have to work with journalists. Did you find any particularly tough to deal with?

JV: I’m very proud that most of the journalists and I became close friends. The only ones I didn’t become friends with were assholes—like Keith Bradsher of the New York Times. Just an absolute prick. Did I just say that? Yeah. He’s a piece of poo poo.

C/D: What was Lee Iacocca like to work with?

JV: He was a taskmaster but was the smartest guy in the room.

C/D: Bob Lutz?

JV: I was his speechwriter for a while. Bob has a big loving mouth, and that’s what killed him. If he had just shut up a little bit, he probably would have been CEO of Chrysler. I love Bob Lutz like a brother, but he’s got a big loving mouth.

C/D: Why is your book called What Did Jesus Drive? instead of What Would Jesus Drive?

JV: Because Jesus would drive the truth. I begin my book with the same question: Why do we have such a hard time telling the truth?

C/D: Is there anything you would have done differently?

JV: Oh poo poo, of course. But as I told Dieter Zetsche once, quoting John Candy in Planes, Trains & Automobiles: “I like me, my wife likes me, and I’m not going to change anything for you guys.” That’s the way I feel about my life.

Chemmy posted:

You Am I posted:

Sure, replace the good looking W123 wagon with some lovely boxy Volvo which doesn't have a diesel. Scum.

Krakkles posted:

I feel like that car is the perfect example of the basic problem with most people modifying cars - throwing money and parts at it doesn't make it good. Put some time into designing it, rather than just OH I HAVE TWO MOTECS OH NO I DON'T WORRY ABOUT WIRING.

Powershift posted:

I would imagine there's something like paris syndrome in japan where car nerds get off the plane and walk around, and everybody's driving kei hatchbacks and nobody's drifting and everything is bone stock.

Delivery McGee posted:

And then there's this classic, when draglines break:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrn6ellbtpc

They were restringing the cables or something, and one of the cranes holding it up crapped out.

Dannywilson posted:

Did you know the V-band clamp was invented by one of the Marx Brothers?

neckbeard posted:

InitialDave posted:

"On average both murals have the right-sized arse"

razorscooter posted:

Professor Bling posted:

I swear that thing's pissing something out all over the drive in the final shot.


It marked its territory.

Giblet Plus! posted:

http://ls1tech.com/forums/conversions-hybrids/1623630-2003-porsche-996-c4s-ls3-conversion.html

revdrkevind posted:

DEAR RICHARD posted:

Took this yesterday

Farmland Park posted:

That's a Shanghai SH7221 sedan made between 1974 and 1994 I don't know which year this was though, as they were more or less unchanged during these 20 years. I've never heard of these before, and I've never ever seen one in the wild. They had 3 in the collection. The interior pic with the curtain is also from a SH7221

Enourmo posted:

NEVER

LIFT

That was awesome.

Somewhat Heroic posted:

Posted on the local Facebook group. It's for sale currently, it has a suede head liner and other ridiculous bits.

Wasabi the J posted:

Which one of you goons runs UKDMHatesYou?

Enourmo posted:

something something 80mph FR-S something euphoria

kastein posted:

I think you're all forgetting about the mass pike, which doesn't even have tollbooths except at the entrances/exits from roughly the NY border to almost Boston.

I (and the dozen people I was clumped up with) passed a speedtrap at 85mph this morning. Officer didn't even loving blink.

Pretty sure my favorite moment of that ring video is the DHL van passing someone.

From the "Sam parks next to other FSJs" channel:






I need to get a J-truck one of these years.

A3th3r posted:

i know it's not going to change but the swearing in the thread title bugs me.. anyways..

For some reason I want a GTO now!

Sigma X posted:

you don't understand, the car is 40 feet long and that's a 70 L V-10.

Collateral Damage posted:

This time on Roadkill...

quote:

The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO project kicked off all smiles and swagger, a team hungry to run at Circuit de la Sarthe alongside perennial German titans Porsche and Audi in LMP1.

"Goliath had the wrong tools. David had the right tools," preached designer Ben Bowlby, the brains behind Nissan's first Le Mans prototype effort since 1999. "Have we the right tools? We think so."

But after numerous technical setbacks, primarily involving the GT-R LM's new flywheel hybrid system, Bowlby has pared back the rhetoric and hedged expectations. Le Mans 2015 became, as one NISMO spokesperson called it, "a learning year." Winning? "Well, one of the cars finishing would be nice..."

An hour into the race, the No. 21 Nissan P1 was blue-flagged for holding up a P2 car. Then its cockpit mechanism malfunctioned, the driver's hatch flew open, and No. 21 trundled back to the pits like a floppy puppy with one ear cocked.

Ooof.

Still, I like the GT-R LM. You should, too. It's a 1940-lbs hybrid racer, a 1250-hp, front-engine, front-drive peculiarity that looks the result of forced breeding between a Chapparal 2J and Panther De Ville kit car. That's a 'prototype' in the truest sense, a curiosity realized in woven carbon and odd ducting and strange noises. It breaks tons of unspoken rules without breaching a single regulation. The GT-R LM wasn't competitive this year on motorsports' grandest stage, at Le Mans. Nobody knows if it'll even lead a lap anywhere, ever. But the thing is literally—and bravely—rear end-backwards. And I dig that.

The Germans, however, do not. This became apparent while chatting with a bigwig from one of Nissan's P1 rivals minutes before the race. The GT-R LM is an attention grab, he said, a sideshow not worthy of racing at la Sarthe. He called the NISMO program "a disgrace," then asked not be quoted by name. Which, considering what he said next, is understandable:

"What is their intention? You can come here and do whatever you want, say whatever you want, but when the final minutes come, what will you show? That's what racing is about. Is coming to race just a marketing tool? Just marketing? That's what pisses me off. In the old days, the technical side was on top. Now, marketing is the top. The technical side is not as important.

"And if it is just marketing that Nissan is doing, then there is something wrong with the sport. If [the car] isn't showing promise in simulations and testing, it will never fly. Never. They may be embarrassed, but they knew from the beginning, after the Sebring test. Stay home. Even if it's totally different, it still has to work."

Dude was genuinely offended. And this is more than a little gamely poo poo-talking; it's an insight into the German corporate culture, how they approach racing. This guy doesn't hate the GT-R LM because it's a competitive threat—he hates it because it's not. Basically, the Germans think Nissan is trolling Le Mans. Hard.

Is that true? Maybe the better question is: Does it really matter? Racing's staid landscape needs more ballsy propositions, more weird and unnerving, competitive or not. Without it, the sport will wither and die. The Nissan GT-R LMP1 may be a marketing tool, and it may be slower than a P2, but it's drat good for racing. When Goliath has all the right tools, you just hope David shows up driving something interesting.