Cars back in the days of "promotional consideration"

[Ghoste]

Back when a manufacturer would supply all the vehicles for a tv series, would they come from the press fleet or just off the line or what?  For example, in Mannix we all know about the Dart and the Cuda but some of the episodes from 1969 have good footage of new 69 Chargers, where were the Chargers pulled from?

[Mike DC]

  
I don't really know if there was a standard rule for Hollywood cars, but I feel like the stories more commonly involve just pulling cars off local dealerships. 

Whatever the factory did for Hollywood was probably the same thing they were doing for other promotional stuff like win-a-car kinds of contests, the factory giving extra whole cars to NASCAR teams, etc.


I have always been struck by how small the press fleet pool of cars seemed to be.  They would make 100,000 copies of some model in a single year, while it seemed like the magazines & commercials were all flogging the same half-dozen of them to death.    
 

[Ghoste]

That is kind of exactly what made me start wondering about it Mike.  A handful of cars to show the world but a limitless supply for Hollywood.

[tan top]

intresting   

[Ghoste]

And after Hollywood was done with them, where did they go?  Back to a dealers lot, back to the sales bank?  They would have miles on them, how do you explain that or did they unhook the odometers?  Roll them back maybe?  Chrysler was caught doing that with test vehicles in the 80's or 90's.

[stripedelete]

And after Hollywood was done with them, where did they go?  Back to a dealers lot, back to the sales bank?  They would have miles on them, how do you explain that or did they unhook the odometers?  Roll them back maybe?  Chrysler was caught doing that with test vehicles in the 80's or 90's.

They probably fell under the category of "Factory Official" car and sold at auction (factory demo).  I think this term started to get a little diluted in the 80's, when dealers used it for rental cars from the auctions("rental" scared everyone back then).  But I think it's origin was non-new from the manufacturer and I'm almost certain they went through the auction. 

IMO it's where a few of the odd optioned puzzles come from.

   

[Mike DC]

 

I really wonder about the "Vanishing Point" Challys.  I still think one or more of them might have lived past the filming of the movie.  


I can totally picture the factory saying scrap them.  But that doesn't mean the local dealers that were in charge of doing the job always followed through on that order.  We're talking about several brand new 440/4spd cars that looked mostly intact from 10 feet away.  

And the 383/727 car probably never got beaten very much at all.  I'd just about lay money on that car having survived to end up in a private owner's hands.  It may not have been sold in the Alpine White paint and it may not have been sold as a brand new car . . . but I'll bet it got sold. 

[elacruze]

I don't remember the name of the company, but this place in Romulus, Michigan used to haul test/R&D etc. cars for Ford (at least) directly to the shredder, because the tax write-off was more profitable than selling the car. The drivers would get fired for allowing anyone to take so much as a tire or radio from one of them before scrapping. I wonder how much similar policy has been around under the radar all along and how many interesting cars got turned into toasters.

[1969chargerrtse]

Back when a manufacturer would supply all the vehicles for a tv series, would they come from the press fleet or just off the line or what?  For example, in Mannix we all know about the Dart and the Cuda but some of the episodes from 1969 have good footage of new 69 Chargers, where were the Chargers pulled from?

I remember watching a Mannix episode and this rumbling 69 R/T rolls by the camera and into a parking lot.