Drive my car!

Throughout the years, many car manufacturers and oil companies have praised their products by means of all sorts of promotional records. In the early seventies, for instance, BP issued a series of 10 flexi-discs containing 'meticulously selected masterpieces' from the Phonogram catalogue. The inescapable Dutch presenter Gerrit den Braber is permitted to introduce the music to us on the back of the sleeve. "Hello BP-customer, hello discophile", he welcomes us. Among the (Dutch) artists he recommends are Saskia en Serge, John Woodhouse and Ronnie Tober. Much more fun is the single which Corry Brokken made for BP in 1961. The BP Super Mix Song, in which Corry is accompanied by the Hi Five, is not only much more interesting from a musical point of view, the cover is also more charming.

Shell too made a name in the record business. It even introduced a new label: Yasmin. 'Brand new recordings of outstanding quality. Sealed at the factory. Nobody has played this Yasmin-record (except of course for the controller at the factory)'. The 'outstanding quality' mentioned on the sleeve, though, is not quite overwhelming! The titles in this series varied from Tijuana Party and Dixieland Party to a number of children's records. Probably the most amusing title is the Yasmin Stereo Test Record, a flexi-single which contains excerpts from the various Yasmin-records.

Apart from promotional records dealing with cars, all sorts of records containing the sounds of these motorised vehicles have been issued. A fine example is an English series called 'Sound Stories', which was issued between 1958 and 1969. The initiator of this series was Gordon Pitt, who worked as a sound engineer for film maker Stanley Schofield. The Schofield-team regularly filmed car races and thus earned a good reputation among the various companies in the motor industry. The foundation for the Sound Stories series was laid when the PR-department of one these companies suggested that a "picture in sound" of a car race would be a good idea. The first single contained recordings of the London-to-Brighton 'Diamond Jubilee Race'. Response from the public, however, was not quite as enthusiastic as was hoped for, whereupon Schofield decided to try his luck with a commentary of the TT on the Isle of Man. The 10 inch LP of the '1958 Senior Race' was an instant success and the series would continue to 1969.
Apparently, Schofield also sold his recordings to others. Toy manufacturer Scalextric, for example, used the race sounds for 'Roar! Authentic Sound Thrills of Grand Prix & T.T. Racing', a record which was intended as "a new dimension to your enjoyment of the Scalextric miniature racetrack". Vroom vrrroom! Better have a look in your attic! Maybe the old racetrack is still there somewhere...
 

Car related links

 ◦ More columns/articles/reviews
 ◦ Songs about cars
 ◦ "Cars of Vinyl" book
 ◦ Stanley Schofield Sound Stories on CD
 ◦ The history of the industrial musical
 ◦ Chrysler's in-car phonograph
 ◦ Scalextric @ Wikipedia