Pepsi MAX & Jeff Gordon Present: "Test Drive"

[AsahinaKimi]

Yikes! "O.O"

[steve2470]

1. wow..... nt

[olddots]

2. that was a tame 09 Camaro

The new full tilt booger Camaro is lethal .I drive a 2001 Walter Mitty .

[davsand]

3. If you've ever sold cars that is a nightmare you may have had.

MANY years ago, right after I first got married, I sold cars for a short time. There was a lot about it that I disliked (hence the very short career in car sales) but one of the things that I especially disliked was the "test drive." I felt that getting in the car with a complete stranger and driving off that lot presented a very real safety threat. There are some really strange people out there and getting in the car with some of them could end up as a visit with a serial rapist or worse. (Bear in mind, there had been a realtor raped and killed just a couple of months before when she met a "prospective buyer" at a vacant house.)

Another thing about test drives that made me really uneasy, was a scenario a lot like the one in this video. One of the veteran car salesmen on our lot had been out on a test drive with a kid who really wanted to drive one of the new sports cars. The kid missed a curve and totaled the car. The injuries were minimized by seat belts, but they still both got to ride in an ambulance, and the salesman was in a lot of hot water with the dealership. Trust me when I tell you not all people who take test drives are drivers with Jeff Gordon's skills!

I laughed at the video, but I had a very real sense of compassion for that salesman! I'll tell you point blank, that had it been any of the guys I knew when I was selling cars in that situation, the language would have been a lot more colorful, and most likely it would have ended up in an assault/battery charge after they beat the crap outta that test driver!


Laura

[Robb]

4. Good (?) news: it's fake.

That Jeff Gordon Terrifying A Car Salesman Pepsi Ad Is Totally 100 Percent Fake

[davsand]

5. I figured it was.

Had it been legit I'm pretty sure it would have ended in bloodshed. Plus, there's no way anybody with a shred of credibility as a driver is EVER gonna do that to an unwilling/unknowing passenger.

All joking aside, one of my worst experiences with a test drive was a woman with a toddler in the backseat (no child-seat, I might add!) She was determined to test drive a car that was a standard shift--in spite of the fact that she had NO idea what a clutch was for let alone how to even find a gear. There's something about jerking your way out of a parking lot when somebody's popping a clutch and listening to anybody grind gears that really sends chills down your spine. That was not just a matter of a "test drive" but a DRIVING lesson...



Insult to injury? That cow would not buy the car because she didn't, "...like how it rides." I mentally wished her an early transmission failure on an expressway in rush hour.


Laura

[Turborama]

8. I saw a vid on ABC's site just now saying the same thing

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/jeff-gordon-test-drive-pepsi-ad-video-racing-18727424

BTW, thanks to your link I came across this Jalopnik video which is worth a watch:

[Shankapotomus]

6. LOL

I suspect they got the idea from here:

[rrneck]

7. I've done a few things like that...

Once me and the boss went for pizza on a break from doing inventory. On the way back to the store I was driving slow. He said, "You drive like old people fuck." Shouldnta tole me dat. Before we got back I had gotten a '72 Monte Carlo airborne and left a hundred feet of skid marks getting it stopped. In the parking lot. His hands were shaking so bad he could barely light a cigarette. He never criticized my driving again.

Another time I was visiting a friend on a 750 Honda. One of his friends, who was a bit of a goofy nerd, showed interest in the bike. I said, "The key's in it." He had never ridden before and asked me if I would give him a ride. Sure. Jump on. You can wear the helmet. We went over ninety on a residential highway, turned around in a cul de sac slow enough to let the local dogs nip at his heels and zoomed back to the house. Later he asked me, "If somebody had pulled out in front of us when you were going so fast, you would have known what to do, right?" I said, "Sure. But I wouldn't have time to do it."

"What!?" He said.

"Yep, we'd be dead now."

I thought he was going to have a stroke. He was a born again fundie, so it's not like I wouldn't have given him an express trip to Jesus. And I let him wear the helmet too.

Sometimes I wonder how I survived being young and stupid to be old and foolish.