What on Earth has happened to the Vauxhall Astra? And who are these people who sit in the letters of its name, looking a bit like movie stars but not quite enough? Is that Clive Owen on the top right, or a lookey-likey? Who is the woman in the middle (her face has been corrupted by the fold, it’s hard to tell). Is that Rupert Penry-Jones’s less successful cousin in the first ‘A’? Such questions have vexed the News Hour office on an early Sunday shift.
In our joint recollection, the Astra was the car of cosy Sunday drives, sausage rolls and Tartan blankets – now, in the aftermath of the failed purchase by Magna, it appears that more excitable hands have seized the creative tiller. “Full steam ahead with the people you may know, but aren’t sure you do,” surely went the charge in the advertising mindjam that generated this free-spooling lampoon of modern movie marketing.
Or, this could be a matter of faulty memory syndrome. A scan through the archives reveals that the Astra has long been promoted as the aspirational vehicle of choice for the secret adrenaline junkie. Witness this man choosing his motor over a woman, or its unexpected entry into motor racing. Both 80s ads come with the tagline ‘Once driven, forever smitten’ and a burst of dadrock classic Layla by Derek And The Dominos.
Still, the question remains. Who on God’s Earth are these trio? Vauxhall the place is close to both MI5 and MI6, so could they be spooks earning a little extra on the side?
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 