Unveiling of the New Autopia Cars, Interview II

Unveiling of the New Autopia Cars
Page 4 of 4

Concept.jpg (32378 bytes)
Concept art for the new Autopia

LP: Will each of the three new types of cars come in various colors?

GW; Yes, there'll be three or four colors of each of those although Sparky is its own self, the paint on that, is a brand new paint from DuPont. It's called Chromoillusion and it's a real fancy paint. You may not have seen it today, but as you stand in front that car and the light hits it, it changes colors - everything from an orange to a blue to a purple to a red. It's actually, as it's going by, it's going to change colors right in front of your eyes. So it's a pretty fancy new paint job.

LP: When is going to open?

GW: We're looking at almost the last day of June.

LP: And the project is going well so far?

GW:  Oh yeah, it gets pretty exciting. It's a real fun thing for us at Chevron to be part of. We've tried real hard to integrate our Chevron world into the Disneyland experience and do so in a way that the guests are going to more or less absorb it. It's not going to be an in your face thing. You'll just kind of walk away and say "that was a Chevron thing" instead of big sign with neon lights flashing "Chevron".

LP: Do you personally do a lot of work on the project?

GW: Yes, I spend a lot of time down here, between here and Burbank where a lot of the design is done up in the Imagineering area

LP: So you're kind of a temporary Imagineer?

GW: I kind of try and be. I haven't gotten a badge yet, but I try real hard to do that. I'll be there tomorrow morning. I head right up there with three hours of meetings with Imagineering tomorrow morning.

LP: I'm glad to hear sponsors do more than just give money.

GW: no, no, no, in fact it's quite the opposite. This is very much a collaboration on this thing and I think everybody here [at Disney] would be the first ones to say that. Everything from what the attraction looks like to how we're going about marketing it to the whole press event - how we're going to really talk about it in everybody's eyes. We've collaborated on revamping the engines on the cars. So It has been, every step of the way, it has been a real partnership. Maybe much more so than what you're referring to where you might go someplace and they put a sign up and they're done.

LP: The cars will be getting new engines?

GW; There are new engines going in all those things. We wanted to get in there and revamp the engine and put some cleaner burning, more fuel efficient, environmentally sensitive engines. So those are all going in the cars as well

LP: Has Chevron considered doing a similar treatment to any other of Disney's Autopias?

GW: We haven't. It's kind of like let's get this one done. And it made sense for us because there's such an overlap with Disneyland's market and consumers in our market, and so it makes a lot of sense here and we just haven't thought about places like Florida or Japan or Paris.

LP: Thank you very much for your time.

GW: Thank you. Appreciate it.

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-- Story and photographs by Doobie Moseley
-- Posted February 17, 2000

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