Posted on 01/28/2005 2:41:00 PM PST by HappyHere
VW lodged a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Brunswick, Germany, but did not specify a perpetrator, Company spokesman Hartwig von Sass told Reuters.
"This is an attack on Volkswagen's good name," he said of the ad, which he called cynical and criminal.
Under German law, it is possible to file charges against persons unknown and prosecutors and police are obliged to try to track down the perpetrators.
The VW spokesman told Reuters the complaint was about "all crimes that could be considered in this regard."
A report earlier this week on the Website of the British newspaper The Guardian said that VW was considering taking some sort of legal action against the makers of the film but the company had been unable to locate them.
The makers of the film, according to various media reports, are a London based creative team known only as Lee and Dan. They have been quoted as saying that the ad was leaked accidentally and was never intended for public viewing. They have apologized for the film, according to previous reports.
They have reportedly not said how the making of the film was financed.
The film, which looks like an advertisement for the car, shows a middle-eastern looking man getting into a Volkswagen Polo, a compact car the company sells in Europe. The man drives the car to a spot in front of a sidewalk cafe. He looks down and presses the button of what looks like a bomb detonator held in front of an explosive-filled vest.
At that point, filmed from a vantage point outside the car, an explosion goes off inside the passenger compartment and blood spatters across the car's windows. The car, however, remains intact. The film ends with the tag line "Polo: small but tough."
Although THAT was COOL! LOL. Quite professional.
And Mary Jo would be a wife, mother and grandmother!
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