So, they stopped at a service station to get new plugs put in. Good thing they're choosing Champions, because they wouldn't want to get stranded in the desert, where there are... delightful bear cubs... to play... with. So, it's good they were stranded... by their crappy off-brand spark plugs.
Wait. Start again. Father and son are safe in the desert because their car is powered by Champion spark plugs, so it won't break down... which it apparently has... which is good... because... otherwise they would have... missed the chance to play with bears?
Jeez, no. Okay. Champion spark plugs are so good that you can let your son play with bears, which are the sole attraction at a zoo in the desert. And the bears are almost certainly doomed, because their not indigenous to arid regions of the American Southwest. Also a giant spark plug space ship. And shooting their car with a ray or whatever. Jeez, advertising is complicated. I'm buying a brand that doesn't give me a headache.
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3 comments:
Hmmm...
See, father and son are on a cross country trip because dad found out mom was banging the cable TV guy, which was weird because this is 1951 and TV hasn't even been invented yet.
Anyhoo, they swing into this gas station to play with the bears and it's a goddamned good thing they have Champeen spark plugs under the hood because any minute, momma bear is coming around the corner and she's going to shit a brick when she sees two humans taunting her kids chained to the ground.
Nothing makes for faster starts when evading angry wildlife than Champion spark plugs.
How could I have been so obtuse? Thanks Craigf!
Also, I have a question for you. Did spark plugs require more frequent changing back then? It seems as if they wanted you to stop and check the plugs with every few stops at a gas station. I couldn't find the answer in two minutes of Google searching, so I figured I'd ask you.
Thanks for reading, Craigf!
They definitely did require more frequent changes.
Plugs haven't really advanced all that much in the last 50 years. The ignition and fuel delivery systems have gotten WAAAAAY better, though.
Cars used points in the ignition system. It was basically a mechanical connection that got worse every single time the ignition rotor turned, which was like eleventy billion times a year. That connection wore out over time and the spark the plugs ignited got less and less "ignitey" (sorry, science word there) as the connection wore out. It's also why a cracked distributor cap that allowed moisture inside could make the car quit running in those days.
In the early '70s, we started using solid state ignition systems like GM's HEI distributor, which eliminated that mechanical connection and made the spark a lot more consistent, which resulted in that nice, chocolate brown ash on the plugs that indicated more complete combustion.
Carburetors were also notoriously imprecise and just dumped fuel into the combustion chambers all willy-nilly like.
Today, we use distributorless ignition systems, which place individual ignition coils directly at the cylinder, which allow the ignition process to be a lot more precise. Electronic fuel injection, and even more now that we have Direct Injection systems, allowed for amazingly precise fuel delivery, meaning that when you pull a plug out of a modern automobile, they look like they're brand new.
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