Car makers get creative on April fools day
BY DANIEL GARDNER | 2nd Apr 2013
In anticipation of a royal baby arriving later this year, not-so-dour German brand BMW launched its Postnatal Royal Auto Mobile or P.R.A.M.
The heavily styled pusher is powered by a Nurse-Assisting Petrol Powered Injection Engine (N.A.P.P.I.E.) and features air conditioning and hood to block prying Paparazzi lenses.
It’s not the first time BMW has used the date to pull a royally inspired prank. In 2011, the company celebrated the marriage of William and Catherine with a special M3 Royal Edition featuring an inverted M badge which read: Will.
Perhaps their most famous April Fools gag came in the form of a new M3 Ute promised for the Australian market. BMW even went to the trouble of producing a one-off working version to burnish the ruse.
For one day only Mini jokingly offered an update for its Connected App. The ‘Connect Us’ in-car dating application compared driving styles of Mini owners and invited compatible couples to meet in person.
The on-screen information indicated a driving style rating out of 5 and updated the user with other potential match similarities. Suspiciously the “update” was only available on April 1.
Subaru also got in on the fun by releasing a video demonstrating an extra-cost self-cleaning option on the XV crossover. Apparently, at the push of a button a soiled Scooby could instantly become showroom shiny once again.
Subaru claimed the self-wash function used some unusual technology including “nanogenerators and overlapping electrical currents” - but we suspect CGI may have been equally responsible.
Volvo is the only manufacturer to currently offer an airbag for people on the exterior of a vehicle so the notion that they would introduce a “car-enveloping External Protection System” may just have fooled a handful of people.
The mock system was said to deploy a roof-stowed series of airbags which shielded the entire car before impact. A mention of surface water as a hazard implied the bag may even provide buoyancy, but until a demonstration is offered it may just be a lot of hot air.
Even Nissan decided to have a poke, announcing their GT-R branded Toast-R sandwich toaster boasting a zero-to-toasted time of just 2.9 seconds. It even had a ‘turbo’ light resembling the tail light of the GT-R road car.
While all of the pranks are made in the name of humour and publicity, let’s not forget that Mercedes have previously given us an ‘invisible’ B-class courtesy of clever LEDs, Nissan is currently developing a self-cleaning, self-healing paint and Porsche Design offer a range of kitchen knives.
Perhaps some of the suggestions in this years April gags aren’t so preposterous after all.
