Ferrari 400 Big Boys Autoweek

I just figured to keep track of a draft blog about this upcoming TV item. As I noticed as well on the stats, this blog get hits quite frequently. In fact it seems to spin off somehow. Unfortunately the stats are not as detailed as on Google analytics but it does give me enough insight. I'm not doing any effort to promote it either. Anyone with a true interest in the 400 will find it. This blog is not about myself either, although I do it for my own Leisure and pleasure. It's all about the 400 and trying to build up and share information. No more no less. And so it happened I was approached yesterday (8th May 2014) by someone who had an interest to make a television item about the 400. By searching around they stumbled upon my blog. So they dropped me a line to see if I was willing to cooperate. Without a doubt I positively responded immediately. The only downside for me was they wanted to get me on camera and provide background and all of that on the car. Personally I don't have any interest to "show off" myself and the car or being qualified as a so called expert. Of course I knew beforehand that Ferrari ownership brings a lot of "unwanted" attention (read negative exposure). Even if it's a 400. As over the past year I have been going through the experience and motions I think I easily can write up a few paragraphs. But let's not drift to much off-topic. The next day I called the journalist and they were happy with my reply. He started telling enthusiastic about the plans and wanted to get my buy-in, including me being interviewed. I fully understand they want to have someone to tell in more detail about the car and hear from the owner why he decided to pick this model. In fact I like to see this myself when I watch other car reportages. It's a pleasure to see and hear from other passionate car owners. So why would I hold back. Basicly it's because I'm not in need of attention and the negative comments of Ferrari ownership. If that's the case you might wonder why you would buy a Ferrari in the first place or being this loud visible with a blog. Well, the simple answer is, I like fast luxury gran turismo's (or is that a pleonasm?). For sure I had other options but my interest was focussed on the Italian market. The other Italian brands, specifically Maserati, and models that were on my radar turned out to be very difficult to find and often outside my budget. And so I ended up with the 400 which also hit all my requirements. I wouldn't qualify myself as the typical Ferrari fan (if there is such thing). I don't collect or wear Ferrari items. I have never followed any Formula 1 racing, in fact I find it quite boring. Next, I have a weak spot for slightly quirky cars, so this 400 automatic fits me nicely. In any case, I committed my car for the item and would reconsider my personal involvement. We agreed the date for the 21st of May to make the shooting. Consequently further email confirmation happened and I left them a suggestion to shoot the item at Kroymans. Reason being is they found my blog due to a blog post about Prince Bernhard. He was a well known 400 owner and customer at Kroymans. And my 400 turned out to have been part of the private collection of Mr. Kroymans himself. The next day I received a call from the production leader (he was cc-ed in). He also wanted to touchbase with myself regarding the plan. I was informed they did happen to be in contact with Kroymans for this item - likely for his expertise but also to see if they had one available. Another idea of their plan was to educate the people a bit more on cars and their history. They wanted to put the car up on "the Neude" (a square in the centre of Utrecht) and shield of the logo's and randomly ask the people about the car. I liked the idea. Still they were interested to hear from myself about the car. If it was going to be very limited and a few questions only I tended to go along. By now they also had revealed my name and I saw one of the guys visited my LinkedIn profile. I didn't expect any different from a good journalist. Again, it's not a big secret but I rather remain outside of the spotlight. I'm now awaiting for the next steps.

Today (16th May) I received a call from the producer to keep me updated on the status. The plan had slightly altered. Unfortunately mister Kroymans couldn't contribute to this item due to company related matters. Instead we would now be heading to Oud Beijerland to film at Koni. Then we would travel back to Neude square in Utrecht. The producer informed me he arranged permission at the local police department since this is a public square which is restricted for cars. When he informed them about the plan and the car he ended up in a interesting discussion about the 400. Due to this the permission aspect was almost overlooked and got easily sorted out afterwards. Part three of the day would be shooting and filming the car at a location nearby Hilversum. The fourth part will be done at the 26th of June. This part will take place at Munsterhuis, which is a known exclusive car dealer overhere on the east side of the country. Clearly they have the wanted Ferrari knowhow and expertise to present for this TV item. The producer did mention a F40 might show up which will be part of the filming as a funny hidden gesture driving by in the background.
The different locations does mean quite a bit of driving which I don't mind at all. I'm looking forward to it. I have also decided not to tell anyone about this making off. I will only release this blog once the item has been released on TV. Just curious if anyone would have seen it or will approach me about it. I bet they will ask me why I haven't told them about it. Make no mistake, I'm very happy with the 400, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. And I love to show it but for other reasons then to please my ego only.

Yesterday was the day of the reportage. One of the camera guys did happen to be in my area and so we agreed he would visit my place. From there we drove together to the storage location to pick up the 400 and make it a combined drive. We went to a small village harbour in Oud Beyerland to make the first reportage shooting with the two presentors. The crew almost arrived together at once. In total the crew consisted of 8 people: 2 presentors, 2 camera men, 1 sound man, 2 production leads and 1 director. The item will be broadcasted on Dutch TV (SBS6) for a new program called "big boys". I suspect the title is also referring to the presentators. The idea is that each week one off the presentators can take a pick of their favorite car. Whereby the other clearly doesn't like the choice made. So it's up to the presentator to highlight and convince eachother why it's so special. The crew themselves were working for Autoweek which is part of the Sanoma holding that recently purchased SBS6. And apparently their senior management was pushing for a TV Car program.
Although the location was a quiet place the filmcrew and the car attracted some attention from some locals - mostly eldery people. At one point someone in his scootmobile was driving by on the set when they were filming, very funny. Of course lot's of lines/shots had to be done over and over again. Which resulted already in a delay in the day program. Some pictures I made during this shooting, so you can see how it looks like behind the scene:

After this we went to Koni to make the 2nd part. On this setting the relationship between Koni, Ferrari and Prince Bernhard was made. Overhere the car attracted a few employees outside of the office. Clearly, and not a surprise, a lot of car enthusiasts overthere. When I was asked by one of them what my involvement was I confessed I was the owner of the car. Which resulted in some further car discussions and the hobby cars they owned. One of the guys brought me some nice Koni goodies and the whole crew got a Koni shirt as a gift. Another guy was so friendly to look up a contact for Koni revision and he was also going to look into his contacts regarding windshield reproductions. This is also one of the reasons why I participated for this car program. First of all I consider it an unique opportunity and experience to get my car profesionally filmed. You meet up interesting people and locations which normally you don't meet or visit easily. The good thing is, it's all arranged for me and doesn't cost me any effort. Only taking a day off. And of course lending out my car.

 

 

 

Again a lot of filming was done which resulted in more delay. We left to make some more footage on the local roads. Some extra GoPro's were attached to the car to make shots from different angles.The other shots were taken from the crew car passenger seat and the trunk. To bad I forgot to make some pictures of this filming piece. I also found it a nice view to see my own car driven. It's a rare sight to see a 400 on the road. Now I could see it with my own eyes. Due to a huge traffic jam caused by a road accident we could not make it back in time to Neude square in Utrecht. As such it was decided to visit a local city centre. For this part they shielded off the logo's and interviewed several people about the car and make them guess the car brand. It was not exactly crowded but they got ahold of enough people to capture sufficient feedback. Again I forgot to make some pictures of this part. But all of this will become visible on the TV program in any case.

Afterwards the director wanted to make some more local driving footage with both presentators in the car. This became another lengthy exercise. We finished around 19:30 that day and I sensed everyone was a bit tired. This included myself, although I hadn't done anything throughout the day. So onwards home we went. I couldn't resist to post the 400 Koni picture on my FB and my blog. Only as a teaser but without revealling the story behind it. Although the picture was liked by the majority nobody asked regarding the background of my visit. Which is perfectly fine though. We still had to do another part on the 26th. And the actual program will be broadcasted somewhere in September. That's another downer, I have to wait so long before I get to see the outcome and results. The filmer told me he would share the footage with me in advance. I'm really curious what it looks like.

That's it for now. In between I'm going to make a very nice road trip to Italy with the IHWC folks. Looking forward to that.

Well, some small suprise came in between. I met up with the guy behind www.cinecars.nl This was mostly a coincidence. Somewhere on FB I saw he offered the following t-shirt for sale. I thought it was a nice shirt to wear on my Italian trip. So I ordered one.

We had a quick chat via FB Messenger. I recalled his name on the Linkedin 365/400/412 forum. So I asked if he had one? And he had one in the past. As you will imagine this triggered of a nice short chitchat. After 2 weeks I still hadn't received my shirt, so I pinged him. Apologies were given and a new attempt made. Another 2 weeks went by and still nothing received. Since I'm now connected with him on FB I knew he was extremely busy. Besides that, it's only a t-shirt. But as I'm heading next week to Italy I wanted to have it. It appears he lives in a city next to mine. As I visit that city every week we met up and he brought me even two T-shirts as compensation. Since he also noticed my 400 Koni photo on FB he was interested regarding the background. As such I told him it was for a TV item. Since his company is also into media he was very interested and wanted to know more detail. So there you go, I have already buzzing the word about this TV item. The good thing is, I'm having another friendly and resourceful connection in the scene. I got invited for the upcoming Viva Italia event on the circuit in Assen. For this I will write a seperate event blog.

As I was curious about the next piece of filming that was suppose to happen next week I pinged the producer as I wanted to make arrangements in time. The next day I received his apologies as he was under the impression I was informed about the change of plan. He would contact me when he was back from holiday leave.

We are now another few weeks down the road and I still  haven't heard from the TV makers. Not sure what's happening. Perhaps they have got enough material to broadcast. Would be nice to get some kind of update. Oh well.

Today, 4th september, I received an email from the production assistent. I was informed my car would be presented in the upcoming first broadcast on Saturday (6th Sept). It will be broadcasted on Saturday afternoon at 16:30 Not exactly prime time. Furthermore there was not much promotion done for this new car programm (as far as I can tell). I surely would not have known about it if I wasn't involved. Typical enough Autovisie (competitor of Autoweek) also is coming up with a new TV car programm - which is kicking of on Friday 5th. Saturday I'm occupied and can not even watch it that time. So I have to look it up on "uitzending gemist" and see if I can put it up on my blog. I also need to approach the filmer to get the filmed material.

On their website intro: http://www.autoweek.nl/bigboys/tv I saw one little comment regarding the 400i (it's a carb version though):

BigBoy van de Week
Iedereen heeft wel droomauto’s, en Edo en Roland zijn geen uitzondering. Elke week zetten de BigBoys daarom één van hun helden in de spotlights. Deze auto noemen we de ‘BigBoy’ van de week en die krijgt dus alle aandacht die hij volgens de Boys verdient. Het leuke is: Edo en Roland hebben allebei een hele andere autosmaak, dus ook hier ontstaan leuke, soms felle discussies. Belangrijker nog: de BigBoys nemen je mee op een verrassende ontdekkingstocht. Wat maakt de onbekende Ferrari 400i nou zo bijzonder?

Well, I guess I will know more on Sunday when I hope to see the rerun on Internet.

 

http://www.autoweek.nl/bigboys/aflevering1

 

 

I just have watched this very first episode and it did look pretty good to me. I also saw one Tweet about the programm and one picture with the 400 on it. It's amazing how little material is used after 1 day of filming. But as said, I'm very happy with the content. And yes, we have all seen it, the front window is suffering delamination (milky window) - it's only a cosmetic problem so not very worrisome but still it's such a annoying spot. So if you have a front window (used or new) for a fair price I'm all ears.

 

I just have posted the Tweet on my blog and am curious to see what response it will trigger off. Till now I haven't heard or seen anything from anyone. I suspect the show did not attract much audience or attention.

 

Well, surprise, within 10 min the first response from a very close friend regarding the BigBoys Tweet post :-)

 

September 8th: And today someone on the Lancia Thema forum makes a posting about it. He recognized one of the areas of filming in his home town. That posting triggered of some further notice

 

September 23rd: Today I got a whatsapp message from a friend asking if I had provided a car for the Autoweek Test. He stated he saw my name on the episode of the Big Boys. Not sure where he had seen that as my name was not mentioned anywhere. Nevertheless a nice reaction. Didn't expect anymore really.

 

November 30rd: Since the last update I didn't got any further reactions. I have been trying multiple times to get the promised filming footage from the makers. Despite many reminders and promises they never provided me any material.

 

Story and case closed.

 

Update 28-5-2015:  I noticed a while ago that someone uploaded the broadcasted series on YouTube which made it very easy to strip of the usefull parts and compile my section. It's now uploaded on YouTube as well. So perhaps a good timing to release this draft as well :-)