LUNCHED LAUNCHES: At new-model events, 'lunched' means more than just being fed

摘要

TUCKEY'S LAW says that when anything can go wrong with a new model press launch, it will. Take Holden's drive program for the 1981 VH Commodore. Routed along the Great Ocean Road towards Melbourne, with the usual white-faced, trembling executive in the left-hand seat, we turned the last 30 kays of road into Apollo Bay into a simulation of a Bathurst opening lap. About 15 minutes after we sat down to lunch the local gendarmes arrived. We thought some irate bystander had dobbed us in, but it turned out that Holden's new PR boss, on his first drive program, promoted from the personnel department and lacking people skills, had expectorated the dummy and asked the fuzz to intervene. He should have known better, for as the cops quizzed us about who was driving what car, we turned it into a sort of "Who's on First?" dialogue by saying we just didn't know.