Car enthusiasts have been utterly shocked and frankly confused at the discovery that Audubon Chrysler had a real Dodge Viper perched atop a pole for 28 years. Why would you do this to such a cool car? Why not use a shell, a wrecked car, or anything else? I get why.
Audubon Chrysler’s stunt is hardly anything new. A boat dealer near me has had multiple real boats perched atop its sign for at least a couple of decades. Though, I’m not sure how real the latest one in the topshot is. Meanwhile, a nearby body shop has had half of a pristine Dodge Stratus sticking out of its walls since I was a kid. Shooting Brake makes a good point:
I’ve lived 5-10 minutes away from this most of life, just across the river in IN, so anytime you cross the bridge to go to Kentucky this is one of the first things you see. It went up when I was 6 years old and it was the coolest thing in The world at the time! At least to me. I get the people that bemoan this car not seeing the road, but honestly I don’t care. Thousands of people drive by it every day and I’m sure many of them, kids and adults, have been captivated by it over the years and sparked in their love of cars. Honestly it’s probably done far more to stoke car enthusiasm up there on that pole than parked in some rich dudes garage and driven twice a year like it otherwise most likely would have been.
The only reason I remember that boat dealer is because of my curiosity. How did that boat get up there? What does it look like inside? If it were a fake boat I’m not sure I would care.
10001010 says it in fewer words:
Guy spent $50K for advertising 30 years ago and here we are still talking about it. If it was a shell it’d hardly break the news.
This morning, Jason gave us a little post about Veterans Day and falling Jeeps. Chronometric says:
Can you imagine the first crew that got towed into the air and dropped, IN THAT THING? On this Veteran’s Day, we can be thankful for troops that trusted their commanders and engineers, and also wonder if that would happen during a wartime today.
StillNotATony responds:
“Hey Gramps! You were in WWII, right? What did you do?”
“I flew a Jeep.”
“You mean drove a Jeep, right?”
“I said what I said.”
Have a great evening and to the veterans in our audience, I say thank you!
Here’s how the inside of our car sounds while driving home…
The i3 isn’t on the roof anymore 🙁 it was also just a hollow shell that got cut up
Car based advertisements are the best! For years when you drove into my hometown of Waukesha, right off of I94, there was a billboard for a body shop. It had the front of a smashed up Neon, looking like it drove into the billboard, with lights on at night advertising a local body shop named “Goff’s”.
Sadly Goff’s no longer advertises on the sign, but the memory always reminds me of the company and it’s stuck with a lot of folks I know.
I miss Jim. My childhood was primarily made up of Ernest movies.
I fondly remember a billboard west of Scott’s Bluff Nebraska visible from a raised road that had the rear end of a car sticking out of it. I want to say the hazards or some other lights were on, too, but I was pretty young so memory may have been embellished. Mom always woke me up for it.
As that was always to me the official start of a visit to my grandparents with their Model T’s & As, it might have been the prompt for my interest in cars
I’ll have you know this is a family site! 😉
Well, it was kinda a family affair 🙂
I think I remember that billboard from our family trips up to Chadron!
Also, Carhenge should be on every Autopian’s bucket list
Same.
StillNotATony, you’re welcome.
Thanks for the lead in!! Couldn’t have done it without you.
With inspirations like you, maybe one day I will get COTD for a punchline.
O.O