Go here first:
http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/focmca/-/-/focmca_micro/-/-/-/#Then hit "visit the new Focus "beautifully arranged" microsite (flash)" in blue lettering on the right hand side of what you see.
Wait for the animation to assemble the car. Eventually a violin key will appear at the right headlight of the car. Hit it and voilà you have a fender double bass! With the options shown above it you can even hear it play in a small orchestra of instruments made from other auto parts with each instrument's volume separately adjustable.
I first
(see the next para for my revelatory experience though!) had no idea whether Ford's design department actually built those instruments and recorded them - the music sounds pretty much wood instruments to me. But I find the design of the Fender Double Bass quite stunning, sort of like the Bongo designers from BMW helped out plus some alien intelligence inspiration.
There is an advertisement campain in Germany (that is how I got to this) where a double bass player is pictured besides the Focus car playing the above "Fender double bass". Only in the advert the "Fender double bass" doesn't look as computer animated as on the above microsite but like something they actually built, maybe only as a (non-playable) prop for the photo shooting I thought. So I started searching and if you hit "media" and "videos" on the above Focus microsite,
you actually do see a luthier building an electric guitar from the car parts and playing it, so its not just props either! Right down to an interview with the composer of the classical piece and its recording at Capitol Studios. The last vid features the orchestra playing all that stuff
and its available on youtube:
(Fender double bass featured at 0.12/0.13)
"Fender double bass" -man those advertisement guys actually had humor.
And a lovingly executed idea.
Blame it on my morning coffee and maybe its all one giant PR hoax, but I like it
(though the Focus car looks pretty unspectacular if you ask me).
Uwe
