Cosby
02-05-2005, 12:13 PM
Volkswagen Drops Action Against Spoof Ad
By MELISSA EDDY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Volkswagen has agreed not to pursue further legal action against two Britons who posted a spoof advertisement on the Web suggesting the company's cars are so tough they can withstand a suicide bombing.
In return, the two men, Dan Brooks and Lee Ford, have admitted filming the spoof and formally apologized to Volkswagen, company spokesman Hartwig von Sasz said. The two have pulled the video from their Web site and agreed not to make any further unsolicited ads for the company, von Sasz said.
``We don't need this kind of attention,'' von Sasz said, adding the company viewed it as ``an attack on our global good name.''
Brooks and Ford did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the ad, a dark-haired, dark-skinned man wearing fatigues and an Arab headscarf gets behind the wheel of a black Volkswagen Polo, a model slightly smaller than the popular Golf. The man drives up beside a sidewalk cafe and detonates a bomb, causing a blast inside the car that fails to damage the outside.
``Polo. Small, but tough,'' then appears on a black screen, beneath the blue-and-white VW logo.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig are still looking into the case after Volkswagen filed charges for incitement last week, before the company had worked out the agreement with Ford and Brooks. The pair are not named in the charges.
The ad is still widely available on the Internet and von Sasz said VW has no ``technical ability'' to get rid of it.
By MELISSA EDDY
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - Volkswagen has agreed not to pursue further legal action against two Britons who posted a spoof advertisement on the Web suggesting the company's cars are so tough they can withstand a suicide bombing.
In return, the two men, Dan Brooks and Lee Ford, have admitted filming the spoof and formally apologized to Volkswagen, company spokesman Hartwig von Sasz said. The two have pulled the video from their Web site and agreed not to make any further unsolicited ads for the company, von Sasz said.
``We don't need this kind of attention,'' von Sasz said, adding the company viewed it as ``an attack on our global good name.''
Brooks and Ford did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the ad, a dark-haired, dark-skinned man wearing fatigues and an Arab headscarf gets behind the wheel of a black Volkswagen Polo, a model slightly smaller than the popular Golf. The man drives up beside a sidewalk cafe and detonates a bomb, causing a blast inside the car that fails to damage the outside.
``Polo. Small, but tough,'' then appears on a black screen, beneath the blue-and-white VW logo.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig are still looking into the case after Volkswagen filed charges for incitement last week, before the company had worked out the agreement with Ford and Brooks. The pair are not named in the charges.
The ad is still widely available on the Internet and von Sasz said VW has no ``technical ability'' to get rid of it.