Here's something from the draft pile.
Johnny Cash "One Piece at a Time" (1976)
Welcome to another act of cultural vandalism. Today is a sort of small act of vandalism as the subject in question is small. It's the song - "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash. A song about an assembly line worker who decides to get a free car by stealing parts from the factory one piece at a time over a period of a couple of years. It seems a clever idea. The factory could (back then) afford to lose a piece or two a day. It's probability. But this scheme had one huge flaw - where he was working - Cadillac. Why is that a problem? Cadillac is a part of General Motors, a company notorious for the practice of planned obsolescence - the practice of making products that only last a set amount of time in the hope of making customers buy the next new model. Its something many people have raged against since it first came to public attention in the 1930s and attacked in a number of adverts from European carmakers, such as Volvo.
"Beat the System" Volvo ad (1971)
If the man had been working in a factory making, say, Volkswagen Beetles it wouldn't have been a problem. He would have a car that was no different to the ones leaving the factory, as these classic car ads from the iconic DDB Volkswagen campaign clearly demostrate.
Volkswagen ads from DDB (1960s)
But he worked for Cadillac. He desired a Cadillac, like most Americans then. It was this engineered desire (in the form of high quality engineering and shiny chrome) that made Cadillac the aspirational brand. It was the car you saved up for. Its the car you bought to show off that you made it in the world. Its the car rich texans attach bull horns to. You get what I'm saying, don't you? Cadillac was the car everyone wanted if they had the cash. If you made or saved enough, you bought the Cadillac (which may be the reason why Cadillacs are mostly driven by old these days - they saved enough to afford one).
One thing that fuelled that desirability was Cadillac's habit of redesigning their cars every year or so. This made the newest Cadillac look fresh and exciting while the older models (which can be bought more cheaply in the second-hand car market) looked dated and something from yesteryear. It was this that was the biggest flaw in the factory worker's plan. Without realizing, he wasn't collecting the parts to make one single model, he was collecting parts for multiple models of car. Considering the changing shape of the Cadillacs from 1949-73 its astonishing that the factory worker didn't notice the problem until the very end. I mean, I would have noticed that I got a left front wing that has two headlights and a right wing with just one let alone that only one rear wing has a tailfin. But he had the parts and built a car with them anyway. The result was a mutant Cadillac.
So what did this mutant Cadillac look like? Although a fictional object, an actual car was commissioned for promotional purposes. It featured in a music video for "One Piece at a Time".
In case the video is no longer available, here's a photo of it.
Incredible, isn't it? Although the parts weren't made to fit, with some bodging and tinkering, you can make a car out of any collection of mismatched parts. The very car from the video is currently a museum piece in the Historic Auto Attractions museum in Roscoe, Illinois.
So why this subject you ask? Its because of Cat's gift to Ian. You may remember that Cat destroyed Ian's Ford Cortina by in May 2013 and soon afterwards he was beaten to a bloody pulp by Ian. He had spend months in medical care to recover and during that time decided to make a peace offering. This peace offering is...
It's better that I showed you....
Yelp. What better gift to make up destroying an old Ford than a new Ford made from old Fords.
It took him years, but was it worth it?
CAT - Look, things had been busy with....
IAN - Five years Cat! Five years!
CAT - It's my first time building a car.
IAN - You didn't need to. I bought a new car since you destroyed my old one.
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Yeah, when I first wrote this back in 2013, I was thinking of featuring Cat in a "final sketch" at the end of each post. I had sketched out the car back then. It's only today that I finally drew it!
Five years to finish a joke.
Hope you all liked the "Frankenford"
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