Short Takes

NAME-DROPPING, THE NEXT GENERATION

As if people who can afford to drive them aren’t annoying enough to us poor folk, now owners of Porsche sports cars are being offered the opportunity to name their cars. A site called, appropriately enough, Name Your Porsche, is offering the lettering of your choice in the same font style that appears on the trunk of a Porsche, where it would normally read Cayenne, Turbo, Carrera, Cayman or Boxster. “Phrases like: 'My Seventh' or 'Thanks Daddy', 'Not Leased' and 'Follow Me' are just some examples” the company suggests you might want. A five-letter nameplate is $450, and each additional letter is $60. And we can’t think of even one word or phrase that wouldn’t aggravate someone following the car. Is that what you want?

LOOK FAST

In other racing news, world record-setting speed freak (and we mean that in a GOOD way) Steve Fossett has announced his next challenge: to break the land-speed record by driving 800 miles per hour. "This is an exceptional event—and, of course, an extraordinary sponsorship opportunity at every level,” said a rep for Fossett. Seems they’re looking for companies to help underwrite the attempt, and said companies will presumably get to have their name plastered on the side of Fossett’s land-rocket. Which is all well and good, but who’s going to be able to read the sponsors’ names as the thing screams by at 800 miles an hour? Does anyone besides us think these things through?

SPEED-FREAKS

If you want good concert tickets, you have to call the box office line the minute they go on sale, and hope for the best. That must be what it felt like for lucky (?) buyers yesterday who called BMW at noon to buy one of fifty limited edition 2007 BMW M6 Convertibles, featured in this year's Neiman Marcus Christmas Book. BMW says the phone lines lit up like a Christmas Tree at the stroke of noon, and a mere 92 seconds later, all the cars were sold out. At a healthy $139,000 per car, that works out to a rather rich $75,543 per second. Get yer motor runnin’….

FROM THE “YOU HAD TO BE TOLD THIS?” DEPT

Professional bus driver Lorrin Walsh thinks he has a thing or two to teach those baby boomers who just bought themselves a new Recreational Vehicle, or RV. So he wrote a book, “Drive your Motorhome Like a Pro,” and is currently marketing it via a seven-month promotional tour of the East Coast, driving a 45-foot motor coach. And if you don’t catch up to him on the road, his tome is available online at RVBookStore.com, for a mere $12.95. But we especially like Walsh’s take on why folks should read his words: “Without some form of training, or at least some reading to help learn the thought process, then there is a serious danger of problems, especially with big rigs,” he says. (Thank you for that, Capt. Obvious.)

WHERE’S A COPY CHIEF WHEN YOU NEED ONE?

The Dunlop Tire Company has a unique promotion out this fall, but their copywriter went a tad overboard trying to make a point. Dunlop is giving away a pair of high-end Serengeti sunglasses (Retail value: $140) with each set of four select tires purchased through Sept. 23. But the company moved into overdrive-overkill with the copy, using such phrases as “…The tire industry isn't looking through rose-colored glasses…”; “…Wearing some new Serengeti eyewear can give you a new outlook..” and “…hoping the prestigious eyewear promotion helps tire buyers focus on their tires.” (Man, that was just painful.) But Dunlop actually does offer some helpful info further down in the release, with a simple method to see if you, in fact, need new tires: “Turn a penny upside down with Lincoln's head entering the tread groove. Ironically, if you see all of President Lincoln's hair, the tire is bald.” Well, that’s actually pretty helpful. So at least the effort didn’t fall totally flat. (Oh, stop; Like you didn’t see that coming a mile away!)