® A Day in the Life: Making the First V4 Commercial

Probably because their planned help had another committment, I was asked to accompany a commercial video shoot team out on location for the first VF750 Magna TV commercial. So in the wee hours of the morning, there I was, standing by in case the prototype bike (with sandcast, hand-carved carburetors) had a hiccup, waiting for the dawn. We were at the Palmdale, California airport, where yellow street stripes had been painted onto a little-used and temporarily blocked-off runway. The producer was a cranky old guy who was famous for having done the Mercury Cougar commercials for Ford, you know, with the cougar standing on top of the Mercury sign? It was all beyond me as I have never been a star follower. But it was interesting. He made us all wait until the light was just perfect, then at one point he called over a minion to, with a razor blade, carefully trim the offending threads off the model rider's gloves. They were visible in his camera, you see. Fortunately, nothing happened to the bike, and it all went well. Strangely, a year later that prototype showed up by accident in the used bike inventory of a dealership in San Diego and had to be returned to Honda for destruction.

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