Real muscle cars
This is seriously good news for the battered and besieged American automobile industry. American muscle cars astonish their owners bay turning in to monstrous robots, becoming ‘Autobots’ with a mission to destroy any perpetrators of evil they may encounter. Transformers were the absolute hit in any collection of plastic toys owned by kids in the eighties. Sports cars, trucks and even jet fighters could be transformed with a flick of the fingers into menacing mechanical bots. Since 2007 these mutants have been featured as heroes on the big screen. All you need is a sufficient quantity of popcorn in order to forget for a moment the dreadful plight of America’s makers of automobiles.
The plot of any Transformers movie can be written on a cocktail napkin and still leave room for the complete text of the American Constitution (Happy Independence Day, y’all!). In the third film in the series currently reaching screens all over the world we are taken back to 1969. The Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon but the valiant astronauts are by no means the first to visit the planet. They discover the wreck of a mysterious space craft. It appears at first that there is no living creature on board and the government keeps the discovery under tight security for four decades.
But then things start to go awry. On the spaceship a Transformer is suddenly re-activated and so begins a new battle between the good Autobots and their wicked opponents, the Decepticons. As human players in this special effects orgy Shia LaBeouf, John Malkovich and Patrick Dempsey are allowed some witty lines in the pauses between the explosions.
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- The series has also been a boon for Chevrolet, with the cars of the marque featured prominently in the cinematic action, the Camaro in particular.
Ready when you are, Mr DeMille
From the very outset the Transformers films have been world-wide box-office hits, drawing over 3.5 million movie-goers in Germany alone into the dark of the nation’s cinemas. And the series has also been a boon for Chevrolet, with the cars of the marque featured prominently in the cinematic action, the Camaro in particular. The marketing magic has helped to boost the retro muscle car to first place among American sports car models. In 2010 even the ever popular Ford Mustang had to conceded defeat to the Camaro, a bitter blow after twenty-four years of supremacy. The fifth generation of the Camaro is now unquestionably the flag carrier for Chevy and General Motors. In 2011 there have already been over 40 thousand buyers for the latest model.
High time, therefore, for a ‘special edition’ to be rolled out in order to keep the muscle car in the public eye. Inspired directly by the film the Camaro ‘Transformers Special Edition’ is finished in rally yellow with bold black stripes. The car has been given black 20 inch wheels with the Autobot logo on the hubs and on the body behind the front wheel arches. The black leather interior is highlighted with yellow stitching and there are logos prominently displayed here too.
The car which will be available for purchase as from July does not, alas, have the capability of becoming a robot. But there is the promise of even more power with the 2012 model. Muscle car fans will surely thrill to the anticipated 550 horsepower of the Camaro ZL1.
