A Sneak Peak At Cadillac’s New Olympic Effort, Thanks To A Fellow Woody Boater.

Fellow Woody Boater “Rabbit” at Monaco Boat Works

You can say you saw it here first, that’s right, little dink Woody Boater is Breaking Bad with some inside scoop on some cool new Cadillac films and marketing for the Olympics thanks to fellow Woody Boater “Rabbit”. The web site went live last night at Midnight, and the spots air on Friday.. Dang, We love the Cadillac brand here at Woody Boater, and recognize Cadillac’s long history of Woody Boating! Here is Rabbits Story, he did say I can edit it and mess up some spelling if needed!
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I’m the Executive Creative Director at Fallon and besides being a woody boat guy, I’m a consummate car guy.  For ten years I was the creative leader on the BMW account and for the last two years we’ve been fortunate enough to represent Cadillac. This weekend on the NBC Olympics broadcast, we’re breaking the biggest launch in Cadillac’s history for the new ATS.  It’s a new from the ground up challenger to the iconic BMW 3 Series. The car is just beginning to get reviewed and they’re overwhelmingly positive: Cadillac has built a truly world-class sports sedan.

To launch this car we knew we had to do something very special.  So my team and I came up with an idea called “Cadillac ATS vs. The World.” It seemed fitting for this world class car, being introduced on the world stage. The campaign includes short films, ads and photography, directed by Academy Award-nominated documentary film maker Joe Berlinger, and Jeff Zwart, an acclaimed automotive expert and film maker.  The driver in the spots is Derek Hill, a champion race driver and son of Phil Hill, the only American to win the World Driving Championship.  American actor and filmmaker Ross Thomas hosts the series, which includes short films highlighting aspects of the ATS and the cultures of the locations featured in the challenges.The cinematic adventure takes the ATS from the deserts of Morocco, to the streets of Monaco, to the Guoliang Tunnels in China and windswept Patagonia, Chile. Each challenge showcases aspects of the car’s agility, driving performance and efficient design.

It took over a year and a half to concept and produce the campaign, yet from the beginning one of our dreams was to actually shoot on the famous grand prix course in Monaco.  Through sheer will and a few miracles, we were allowed to do that during the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, which was run two weeks before the Formula One race on the same course. It was an amazing event. Imagine hundreds of vintage formula cars from the 1920s through the 80’s, some worth tens of millions of dollars, racing neck and neck with some even crashing. The Cadillac ATS and our state-of-the-art camera car were actually allowed on the track with the vintage formula cars. I was fortunate enough to be able to stroll the pits with the star of our series, Derek Hill, as he eyed the same Ferrari his father raced to the podium in the early 1960’s. Pinch me.

But literally, twenty feet away from the pits stood the iconic Monaco Boat Works, filled with vintage Rivas. Because we were filming much more than commercials –we created individual short about various aspects of the places we visited– we naturally needed to do a Riva story. Not only do Cadillac and Riva share rich histories as iconic luxury brands, but there also was the Cal Connell Cadillac engine connection. It was a thrill to tour the boat works and look at all those beautiful boats. As fate would have it, the schedule shifted and I had to fly back to the US the day before we filmed, so I never got on the water with our hosts. The seas were incredibly rough that day and without me there to say “no!” the decision was made to take out a plastic Riva for the segment. But I think Woody Boater readers will still enjoy it.

The sick thing? Despite this one-in-a-lifetime experience, I actually caught myself in Monaco, regretting that I was missing a Summer weekend at our cabin in Wisconsin, skimming across the lake in my little Gar Wood Ensign. Then a guy pulled up to the valet at our hotel and tossed him the keys to his $13-million-dollar 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa and I told myself “I can put up with this for a weekend.”

Thanks Rabbit, Here is part of the video series. This is an amazing series and the folks involved are world class folks, including world famous car shooter and racer Jeff Zwart, DANG DANG DANG, makes me proud to know that American world class design and Muscle is still alive and well with Cadillac!

Here is the Monico film

And the insane one from Morocco

If you want to see the entire web page that features all the cool locations that Cadillac went to , to prove a point. Click Here. DANG, I am so jealous! I so ready to do this with an old Chris Craft…

If you want to go out and get one of these cool ATS’s click here.