I have to confess that I’m not a big fan of Jalopnik but somebody sent me a link to a piece that they ran about a real life Chevy experience.
It was tied into the “Chevy Runs Deep” promotion designed to celebrate their Nov. 3rd 100th Anniversary.
This is exactly the kind of automotive marketing that reaches us because it works the human equation like Ali used to work a speed bag.
Except for Jalopnik guys.
A brief explanation is mandatory for the non-Jalopnikites among us. Jalopnik is a huge automotive blog and they are really good at what they do in this vast and rapidly expanding universe known as the Internet. They mine the corners of the earth for automotive related gold and paint it with their own (the establishment used to call it anti-establishment) style.
But Jalopnik is also a bit like a Saturday Night Live sketch-sometimes funny but often longer than a root canal without freezing. Worse yet, imagine a Saturday Night Live that encourages the audience to jump on stage or write the sketches and you’ve defined the essence of Jalopnik.
That’s the fatal flaw with Jalopnik-they are a car site yet they’ve convinced their readers to hate cars. Especially domestic cars-they put a big bulls eye on Detroit. Everybody on the site wants to be the next PJ O’Rourke or Robert Farago (founder of The Truth About Cars) and very few of them have the talent. It’s like filling the LA Coliseum with wannabe Hollywood actors-you might have 100,000 dudes there but the odds are still stacked heavily against finding the next Steve McQueen.
The piece they did on the ‘65 Chevy is a classic example. Basically this guy bought a brand new ‘65 Chevy SS and had to give it up years later because his family came first. Recently his sons picked up the trail on the long lost Impala and after a lengthy and convoluted search, they gave it back to their father for all his sacrifices. It was a classic car guy moment when they reunited Dad with his long lost Chevy-truly break out the hankies Hallmark Movie material.
Jalopnik handled this story well and gave it the proper respect but once they turned the piece over to the Chimps on keyboards (Reader’s comments) it degenerated into a “bash Chevy for their bad slogan” competition. “Chevy runs Deep” seems to rank right up there with Adolph Hitler’s “Sieg Heil” in Jalopnik land. Guys-wasn’t there more to this story than a simple gateway to a jaded and witty comment? How about enduring at least one life lesson before becoming world weary because the guy with the Chevy sure did.
This is a culture that’s been carefully nurtured at Jalopnik but it’s kind of sad. You really want them to take a day off and simply enjoy this incredible automotive tapestry.
The car world is like Disneyland but what Jalopnik does best is get drunk and whiz on Goofy.
For the rest of us with real automotive soul here’s the link to the story-http://www.chevrolet.com/culture/article/1964-impala-younger-family/
Jerry Sutherland
For more car stories with a human equation please click here-https://www.mystarcollectorcar.com/2-features/stories.html
COMMENTS
TOM:“I’ve always loved those cars in the picture! Similar to the 65 Chev Belair two-door I had in the ’80’s.”
BERNARD:“I like that clip. I’d have tears if someone brought my baby back…”
