Modified On January 23, 2006
…as the Big Four shrivel to nothing on the world market, this item appears in The Detroit News:
Fake newscasts have become something of a moonlighting job for Chrysler’s PR chief and ex-standup comic Jason Vines. After killing with Saturday Night Live style news at the Society of Automotive Engineers meeting at the Greenbrier in West Virginia and at the Stakeout fundraiser in Detroit last year, Vines was asked to close the Automotive News World Congress Wednesday on a similarly light note. With fresh material from the Detroit auto show, Vines skewered everybody from GM product honcho Bob Lutz to Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
A crowd favorite was this “news” about China-based Geely, which showed a car at the Detroit show for the first time this year: “The Chinese automaker Geely created a stir at the Detroit Motor Show, but everyone agrees that the name must change since it is eerily close to the horrible J. Lo/Ben Affleck disaster ‘Gigli’ (also pronounced GEE-LEE). Geely Chairman Li Shufu said the company is already looking at other names for the car and has narrowed the list to four. They are: Ishtar, Rocky V, Waterworld and Ernest Goes to Camp.”
Pretty funny stuff. Grim humor if you’re in the car-making biz! Perhaps Mr. Vines can bracheate into the live standup biz just as the car manufacturing biz here goes under!