Flown the Mini Coop?

We usually don't pay much attention to car advertising. But while I was sitting in the manager's office at the local Mini dealer, finishing the transaction to buy our 2007 Cooper S, I couldn't help but notice a flat-screen monitor in the showroom. It was playing a loop of video. Oddly drawn in to the screen, while I hadn't seen the video before, somehow though it felt like I already had. I'll explain.

Mini's parent company BMW created "The Hire," a series of Internet films starring Clive Owen in 2001-2002. Following that lead, Mini created its own series of films to highlight the launch of the all-new-but-looks-like-the-old-one 2007 Mini Cooper.  "The Hire" featured a string of directors who (mostly) created a series of serious films in different genres. But as is typical for Mini's marketing, they took a different tact.

Consider Mini's target demographic, the members of Gen X and Y that seemingly every consumer company covets. (I'm one of them.) We grew up watching schlocky hour-long action series in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. Who can forget "Magnum P.I.," "Starsky & Hutch," "Knight Rider," "Hardcastle and McCormick"—the list of formulaic, car-themed shows goes on and on and on.

The recipe for just about all these shows includes:
- A hero with a big perm and a fast car who can't keep his Hawaiian shirt on for every scene and is big on karate kicks
- A lot of electric guitar solos in the soundtrack
- A cliché-filled title sequence and theme song (rare in modern TV dramas)
- An archvillan who wears woefully impractical all-white outfits
- A seemingly-ditzy love interest
- Stumbling bad guys who failed their "How to Be Successfully Evil" career aptitude tests
- And, at least in the case of "Knight Rider," a smart-alecky talking car

All of these show up in "Hammer and Coop," the Internet video series of a man, his car, and the evil pseudo-military industrial complex that wants the car back. (Shades of "Airwolf" there?) No wonder the video looked vaguely familiar to me in the showroom. If you grew up watching any of these shows, it all makes a lot of sense (especially if you see the parody value within). Mini has all the details down, including the "Hammer and Coop" action figure lunch box sitting in the sales manager's office. Six episodes are posted at hammerandcoop.com.

Oh, and you want to know about the car, the new Mini Cooper S? All I'll say for now is that it was a fun drive back from the dealer in our Mellow Yellow Cooper S. Stay tuned, there's more to come.

--Tom Mutchler