Old Gasoline Ad on TV?

[Elwyn]

I remember( or imagined) an advertisement for gasoline on TV years ago (70"s maybe?)where they put the high test fuel in a P-40 and it was able to keep up to or pass a P-51, like the general public would have a clue about the performance of either plane. There might have been a P-38 involved also. Was this a real ad or just my memory getting cloudy again?

[Chuck Gardner]

I dont know about that one, but I do remember one with the CAF that was a Dont Mess With Texas add. Texas Raiders B-17 bombed a truck that littered on the road. Very cool!

[retroaviation]

Not to hijack the thread, but here's a link that'll get you to the "Don't Mess with Texas" commercial with the B-17 in it. Just click on the picture with the head on shot of the B-17.......

http://dontmesswithtexas.org/tv_campaig ... ear=91#ads

Gary

[Elwyn]

Thanks for the link! First time I'd ever seen that one. It's got more zing than the anti-littering ad with the crying indian(who was really an Italian).

[Flashonyrsix]

SJ not Raiders
Norm

[pitts91hs]

It was a Conoco ad. I remember it having grown up with the CAF in south Texas

[mustangdriver]

I love it. I always heard about it from a friend that lives in Texas, but I never saw it.

[Chris]

Right you are Norm. "Sentimental Journey was the B-17 used for the commercial with Paul Kelly and Phil Davies doing the flying. Reg Urshler in Gunfighter and the ill fated FM-2 were also part of the shoot although did not end up in the commercial. I have a VERY poor quality VHS video that one of the CAFers took during the shoot. They must have made fifty passes before everyone was happy. By the way, that was not the lowest pass. YIKES!!!!!

[PJ]

Team that with R. Lee Ermey and his watermelons and you've really got something!

[Steve Nelson]

Neat! Is that Gary Busey narrating?

I still wish the CAF had been able to keep the "Confederate" name (and I'm about as Yankee as you can get..heck, I'm a member of the Yankee Air Force.!)

Not complaining about the CAF's decision..I realize the PC police pretty much forced their hand.


SN

[Randy Wilson]

Yep - I was flying the CAF's original FM-2 Wildcat (N681S, now gone) for that shoot, flying wing off Reg in the Gunfighter. They wanted us to pop up right behind the B-17 over the little hill where the cameras and "target" pickup were staged and that ment that the B-17 had to be down in the "weeds" or rather cactus in that part of West Texas. Reg and I flew through some very interesting turbulance trying to stay close behind the B-17 but they finally cut us out of the final video as we just never got in the same shot at the same time.

I, too, have a copy of the raw VHS tape shot by a member of the whole thing. At one point, Sentimental Journey comes so low over the cameras that the folks on the ground all hit the deck and its caught on the VHS tape - pretty funny. It was a very low pass.

At the time this was shot, early 1990s, I lived in Dallas and was not familiar with the area south of Midland, and neither was Reg. It was before we had Lorans or GPSs in the fighters, so as we headed south down the road, looking for the site we had been briefed on - the B-17 was behind us - at one point Reg called to me to "hang loose" for a minute, or something of the sort and dove down and circled a water tower in the small town below - back he came with our position verified and on we flew to the site.

I'll see if I can post a copy of the video online in the near future.

Randy