Shell Oil spent $3.9 million on a television commercial in 2007, creating a collage of historic Ferrari Formula 1 cars on the streets of London, New York and Rio de Janeiro that set a record as the most expensive TV advertisement ever produced. But this was not the first time that Shell set a record in spending for a TV ad with racing cars.
It's scarcely credible, but here's the telephone call that begins this story: "Hallo, Monza circuit office here. You want to hire the track? Certainly. For how long? A month? That's fine. Name? Shell Oil. OK, it's all yours."
It was in 1967 that Ogilvy & Mather, the world-famous advertising agency then representing Shell Oil, engaged Illustra Films to shoot some mileage tests with Shell fuel for a television commercial. Doesn't sound thrilling, does it?
But the chosen test vehicle would be the Ford GT40, a car that had won its reputation at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And the venue would be the huge concrete oval at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, a part of the circuit used by Formula 1 and sports cars.
With a huge crew, the latest filming technology and a helicopter for aerial shots, this $700,000 production would prove to be the most expensive television commercial ever shot up until that time, representing more than a month of filming.
A Long Time Ago and Far, Far Away
Bernie Reeve was Ogilvy & Mather's art director for the shoot, and he compiled an extensive file of still photography to record the events. "Yes, we had Monza exclusively for a month, and in September — not even in the winter!" he recalls. "And of course it was also Ferrari's test track. It didn't have Fiorano then, so at one point a 246 GT Dino arrived for testing and just set off. This was Italy, so no one was bothered about any exclusive booking."
Shell didn't make itself frightfully popular with its month-long track rental, Reeve says: "They canned some local racing because of us, and there was some tension over that. Then we draped Shell banners over the Agip signs. There was a deputation sent to us about that, too."
Shell wanted three 60-second commercials to show how its Platformate fuel additive helped deliver better mileage. In fact, Ogilvy & Mather had already won Shell an award for a commercial about this fuel additive in 1964.
For this new commercial, two GT40s would be filled with identical amounts of fuel and would be filmed in real time until one ran out — hopefully the one without Platformate. In part, this would be a response to claims that the previous commercial had been rigged. Reeve remembers that Shell was very explicit about the truth of the exercise; it couldn't be faked. "Shell was definite about that," he says. "Advertising laws forced us to be honest, though Shell was a bit nervous about whether the correct car would win!"
Racing Cars for the Road
With Ford's retirement from international sports car racing following its win at Le Mans in 1967 with the specialized Ford Mk IV, John Wyer and John Willment's J.W. Automotive (JWA) had taken over responsibility for servicing the production-built Ford GT40 racecars. (Indeed, John Wyer Engineering would win the 1968 and 1969 editions of Le Mans with the very same GT40, no less.) JWA sent three GT40s to Monza, all with 300-horsepower 4.7-liter V8s specially prepared in Detroit to deliver identical fuel consumption.
Even getting the cars to the track was an adventure, Reeve remembers. "The GT40s technically had to be registered for the road to get them into Italy, but we had a selection of plates with us, and my John Coombes-prepared Jaguar Mk 2 was packed with props," he says. "The Swiss border guard was deeply suspicious of this bunch, with a truckload of racing cars and false movie-style number plates. But when we got to the Italian border they waved us through. 'Don't stop; we've heard about you,' they said."
At Monza, the team assembled: director Douglas Hickox, producer Bob Warhola, art director Bernie Reeve, a film crew made up of both British and Italian personnel, a clutch of technical people from Shell, a test driver apiece from both Shell and Ford, and a helicopter pilot from the U.S. In terms of hardware, they had three camera-equipped cars (one a Porsche 911), six cameras and 14 radios. Shell wasn't holding back on the budget.
The Platformate Challenge
The scheme would be to film a couple of two-car challenges between GT40s, one fueled with Platformate-enhanced fuel and one without. One Ford would eventually run dry, leaving one hot driver to walk back to base. This was why Monza was ideal. As they circulated the banked concrete oval, the cars would never be far from a camera (or a driver from a beer).
To vary the plot, one version of the commercial would have the winning car bursting through a huge checkered flag made of paper, mimicking the conclusion of Shell's 1964 Platformate commercial. To reinforce the theme of honesty, the mayor of the Milan township where Monza was located would participate in the "Three-Car Gamble," in which he tumbled dice inside a Vegas-style cage to determine which car of the three available would receive the Platformate-enhanced Shell gasoline.
Amazingly enough, the Platformate car always ran farther.
The Look of Speed
To help dramatize the whole event visually, director Douglas Hickox had brought in a super-long lens, a 1,000mm monster. "Director Ridley Scott was using very long lenses then for his TV commercials; it was flavor of the month," Reeve says. "But ours was the longest lens in existence at the time. We used it for a head-on shot of the car coming off the banking, which was the most dramatic point on the track. But with a car doing 100 mph, we wanted to be well out of the way!"
Car-to-car shots were accomplished either from the 911 (the hood was removed so the cameraman could crouch in the luggage space) or from a Citroën DS that had been stripped down to a skeleton. "The Citroën was the perfect car," says Reeve. "The hydro-pneumatic suspension was super-smooth, and we knew you could unbolt the DS body panels, so we did — trunk lid, rear window, even the roof. And afterwards we bolted it together and took it back to Hertz rental cars."
Because every sequence had to be real and couldn't be restaged, cameraman Stan Pavey used twin cameras for many shots, running the cameras in parallel to be sure of getting the goods. But with the bulky 35mm movie equipment of the era and no remote controls, there was no easy way to film the onboard camera sequences, as director John Frankenheimer had discovered the year before in Grand Prix (1966), which had been nominated for an Oscar in best visual effects and directly inspired the concept for this Shell commercial.
The passenger door of the right-hand-drive GT40 had to be removed, the camera was mounted in the passenger seat and the operator perched on the GT40's broad sill, held in by ropes while his backside literally was exposed to the breeze. Reeve remembers asking Pavey, "Are you OK?" Came the emotive reply, "You bastards!" Luckily the cars were generally doing a steady speed — only 90-100 mph. "It was boring for the drivers, actually," says Reeve.
It's a Wrap
And the final outcome of the $700,000 budget? Three one-minute television ads, representing 180 seconds of film.
You only saw these television spots if you lived in the U.S., Reeve recalls. "Shell was very specific. Fords would be used for the U.S.; Jaguars for the U.K." That's why not long afterwards, Bernie Reeve found himself setting up a similar shoot at the high-banked oval circuit at Montlhéry near Paris with Jaguar E-Types for a commercial that was later broadcast in Britain.
Shell had a long tradition of efforts in automotive filmmaking before this commercial, notably a series tracking the history of motor racing directed by Bill Mason (the father of Pink Floyd drummer and now vintage racer Nick Mason). Since then, Shell has produced some notable efforts as well, especially in conjunction with its commercial link to Ferrari, and its latest collage of Ferrari Formula 1 cars is reportedly the most expensive television commercial produced to date with a budget of $3.9 million.
But the thing Bernie Reeve remembers most about his month at Monza in 1967 is what the man from JWA said at the end: "Does anybody want to buy a GT40? It's going to be more expensive to take them home. You can have them for $4,000 each." But there were no takers. As Reeve says, "Why would you pay that for a Ford engine and a few bits of fiberglass?"
It's scarcely credible, but here's the telephone call that begins this story: "Hallo, Monza circuit office here. You want to hire the track? Certainly. For how long? A month? That's fine. Name? Shell Oil. OK, it's all yours."
It was in 1967 that Ogilvy & Mather, the world-famous advertising agency then representing Shell Oil, engaged Illustra Films to shoot some mileage tests with Shell fuel for a television commercial. Doesn't sound thrilling, does it?
But the chosen test vehicle would be the Ford GT40, a car that had won its reputation at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And the venue would be the huge concrete oval at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, a part of the circuit used by Formula 1 and sports cars.
With a huge crew, the latest filming technology and a helicopter for aerial shots, this $700,000 production would prove to be the most expensive television commercial ever shot up until that time, representing more than a month of filming.
A Long Time Ago and Far, Far Away
Bernie Reeve was Ogilvy & Mather's art director for the shoot, and he compiled an extensive file of still photography to record the events. "Yes, we had Monza exclusively for a month, and in September — not even in the winter!" he recalls. "And of course it was also Ferrari's test track. It didn't have Fiorano then, so at one point a 246 GT Dino arrived for testing and just set off. This was Italy, so no one was bothered about any exclusive booking."
Shell didn't make itself frightfully popular with its month-long track rental, Reeve says: "They canned some local racing because of us, and there was some tension over that. Then we draped Shell banners over the Agip signs. There was a deputation sent to us about that, too."
Shell wanted three 60-second commercials to show how its Platformate fuel additive helped deliver better mileage. In fact, Ogilvy & Mather had already won Shell an award for a commercial about this fuel additive in 1964.
For this new commercial, two GT40s would be filled with identical amounts of fuel and would be filmed in real time until one ran out — hopefully the one without Platformate. In part, this would be a response to claims that the previous commercial had been rigged. Reeve remembers that Shell was very explicit about the truth of the exercise; it couldn't be faked. "Shell was definite about that," he says. "Advertising laws forced us to be honest, though Shell was a bit nervous about whether the correct car would win!"
Racing Cars for the Road
With Ford's retirement from international sports car racing following its win at Le Mans in 1967 with the specialized Ford Mk IV, John Wyer and John Willment's J.W. Automotive (JWA) had taken over responsibility for servicing the production-built Ford GT40 racecars. (Indeed, John Wyer Engineering would win the 1968 and 1969 editions of Le Mans with the very same GT40, no less.) JWA sent three GT40s to Monza, all with 300-horsepower 4.7-liter V8s specially prepared in Detroit to deliver identical fuel consumption.
Even getting the cars to the track was an adventure, Reeve remembers. "The GT40s technically had to be registered for the road to get them into Italy, but we had a selection of plates with us, and my John Coombes-prepared Jaguar Mk 2 was packed with props," he says. "The Swiss border guard was deeply suspicious of this bunch, with a truckload of racing cars and false movie-style number plates. But when we got to the Italian border they waved us through. 'Don't stop; we've heard about you,' they said."
At Monza, the team assembled: director Douglas Hickox, producer Bob Warhola, art director Bernie Reeve, a film crew made up of both British and Italian personnel, a clutch of technical people from Shell, a test driver apiece from both Shell and Ford, and a helicopter pilot from the U.S. In terms of hardware, they had three camera-equipped cars (one a Porsche 911), six cameras and 14 radios. Shell wasn't holding back on the budget.
The Platformate Challenge
The scheme would be to film a couple of two-car challenges between GT40s, one fueled with Platformate-enhanced fuel and one without. One Ford would eventually run dry, leaving one hot driver to walk back to base. This was why Monza was ideal. As they circulated the banked concrete oval, the cars would never be far from a camera (or a driver from a beer).
To vary the plot, one version of the commercial would have the winning car bursting through a huge checkered flag made of paper, mimicking the conclusion of Shell's 1964 Platformate commercial. To reinforce the theme of honesty, the mayor of the Milan township where Monza was located would participate in the "Three-Car Gamble," in which he tumbled dice inside a Vegas-style cage to determine which car of the three available would receive the Platformate-enhanced Shell gasoline.
Amazingly enough, the Platformate car always ran farther.
The Look of Speed
To help dramatize the whole event visually, director Douglas Hickox had brought in a super-long lens, a 1,000mm monster. "Director Ridley Scott was using very long lenses then for his TV commercials; it was flavor of the month," Reeve says. "But ours was the longest lens in existence at the time. We used it for a head-on shot of the car coming off the banking, which was the most dramatic point on the track. But with a car doing 100 mph, we wanted to be well out of the way!"
Car-to-car shots were accomplished either from the 911 (the hood was removed so the cameraman could crouch in the luggage space) or from a Citroën DS that had been stripped down to a skeleton. "The Citroën was the perfect car," says Reeve. "The hydro-pneumatic suspension was super-smooth, and we knew you could unbolt the DS body panels, so we did — trunk lid, rear window, even the roof. And afterwards we bolted it together and took it back to Hertz rental cars."
Because every sequence had to be real and couldn't be restaged, cameraman Stan Pavey used twin cameras for many shots, running the cameras in parallel to be sure of getting the goods. But with the bulky 35mm movie equipment of the era and no remote controls, there was no easy way to film the onboard camera sequences, as director John Frankenheimer had discovered the year before in Grand Prix (1966), which had been nominated for an Oscar in best visual effects and directly inspired the concept for this Shell commercial.
The passenger door of the right-hand-drive GT40 had to be removed, the camera was mounted in the passenger seat and the operator perched on the GT40's broad sill, held in by ropes while his backside literally was exposed to the breeze. Reeve remembers asking Pavey, "Are you OK?" Came the emotive reply, "You bastards!" Luckily the cars were generally doing a steady speed — only 90-100 mph. "It was boring for the drivers, actually," says Reeve.
It's a Wrap
And the final outcome of the $700,000 budget? Three one-minute television ads, representing 180 seconds of film.
You only saw these television spots if you lived in the U.S., Reeve recalls. "Shell was very specific. Fords would be used for the U.S.; Jaguars for the U.K." That's why not long afterwards, Bernie Reeve found himself setting up a similar shoot at the high-banked oval circuit at Montlhéry near Paris with Jaguar E-Types for a commercial that was later broadcast in Britain.
Shell had a long tradition of efforts in automotive filmmaking before this commercial, notably a series tracking the history of motor racing directed by Bill Mason (the father of Pink Floyd drummer and now vintage racer Nick Mason). Since then, Shell has produced some notable efforts as well, especially in conjunction with its commercial link to Ferrari, and its latest collage of Ferrari Formula 1 cars is reportedly the most expensive television commercial produced to date with a budget of $3.9 million.
But the thing Bernie Reeve remembers most about his month at Monza in 1967 is what the man from JWA said at the end: "Does anybody want to buy a GT40? It's going to be more expensive to take them home. You can have them for $4,000 each." But there were no takers. As Reeve says, "Why would you pay that for a Ford engine and a few bits of fiberglass?"
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