Today I wanted to take the readers of Sports Design Blog along for a ride on a design project I was involved in when I worked for Hasbro toys, designing NASCAR related products. This project involved some great creative ideas and the hard work of one of the greatest creative teams ever assembled. I thought you might enjoy some insight into this project. If you look closely at the image of the car and the Hasbro team, you may find a certain sports design blogger in there somewhere!
For the 2000 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt took to the track in a special
#3 car featuring the famous Looney Tunes character Taz. The Taz
character was part of a GM Goodwrench advertising campaign at the time.
The car featured a red paint scheme with Taz on the hood. The number 3
on the roof was day-glo red, indicating Dale's inclusion in the Winston
million dollar promotion. Dale ran well all day in this car but was
involved in a late race incident that left him in the 21st position.
After the race, you would think that this car might end up in a museum
or on display somewhere. Surely the car's shell would be immortalized
in someone's collection? Well, at first, that was not the case. This
photo shows the shell of the Taz car behind the race shops of Richard
Childress Racing. The car's shell was not sitting in a museum, but was
sitting in some tall grass outside the race shop.
That year, the design team at Hasbro was looking for a unique product
idea that would bring a part of the race to the fans. The idea was to
bring a piece of the actual race car and deliver it to the collectors
of Winner's Circle products. The team found out about this piece of
NASCAR history wasting away behind the RCR shop and decided to purchase
it. The team had the body of the car shipped to its facility in the
Cincinnati area and began a process to deliver pieces of the car to the
fans. The product was eventually called the Team Authentics Series.
The car was shipped with the entire body in place. No chassis or motor,
just the shell, windows and all. The Winner's Circle team disassembled
the car and began a complicated process that would divide the
sheetmetal into 1 inch squares that would be placed inside Winner's
Circle product. The hood, windows, nose, rear and roof flaps were
removed and the remaining sheetmetal was used to create the squares.
The squares were then placed inside a plastic container and were
included with a 1/64th scale diecast with the Taz car paint scheme.
The
Team Authentics product was randomly inserted into packages of regular
Winner's Circle product in 2001. The series also included other drivers
and in addition to sheetmetal, there was a set that included swatches
of drivers' uniforms as well. Of all of the Team Authentics pieces,
none had more history than the Dale Earnhardt Taz car set. In a way,
the Taz car no longer exists, but in another way, it lives on because
it is now in the hands of Dale Earnhardt fans everywhere.
that's a cool idea... kinda like selling bricks from old stadiums or pieces of floor from basketball arenas. everyone can have a piece of history for a modest price. i'm surprised they don't sell off chunks of baseball bats or football helmets.... or do they? i'm not too hip to the collectibles scene, so someone very well may be doing it.
Posted by: marc | June 23, 2009 at 09:16 AM