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Buick LeSabre Uses 360-Degree Video to Give Consumers Virtual Test Drives With Golfer Ben Crenshaw.
Issue: April 17, 2000

DETROIT, April 17 /PRNewswire/ --

When test-driving a new car, most people ride with a salesperson or alone. This summer, you might have another passenger choice -- professional golfer Ben Crenshaw. Well, almost.

Buick is using a new technology to create an immersion virtual reality experience to give selected consumers across the country a simulated test drive in a "virtual" LeSabre. Crenshaw is the virtual rear-seat passenger.

Buick's "Drive with Confidence" tour will visit 11 cities this summer letting consumers experience the 2000 LeSabre in a new, unexpected way. At each event, eight people at a time go inside a tractor-trailer, sit in "Catcher's Mitt" seats like those in the LeSabre, and don virtual reality headsets for eight-minute drives.

Filmed with a 360-degree video camera, the ride sends them across the country, taking Crenshaw from New York to a golf course in California. With the technology, if the driver looks left, a view out the left window seamlessly appears. If the driver looks to the back seat, Crenshaw is there, keeping up a conversation with you, the driver. Since computers track each participant's movements, no two rides are the same.

To make the experience even more real, an aroma mechanism transmits scents through the headgear that match the scenery. When Crenshaw remarks how good the fresh-cut grass smells, a grass smell is released from the headset.

All through the drive, competitive advantages of the all-new LeSabre -- the best-selling full-sized car in the U.S. market for eight years in a row -- are highlighted, including rain-sensing windshield wipers and the StabiliTrak integrated vehicle stability control system.

The virtual reality test drive is part of Buick's "Drive with Confidence" tour. Two trailers are on separate trips across the country stopping at major events including golf tournaments. Each trailer opens into a large-scale (60'x 80') promotional activity center. There, consumers can answer questions about the LeSabre to win prizes, or take a shot at a virtual golf hole to win their own LeSabre.

"LeSabre's Drive with Confidence tour allows us to engage customers and present the car in a new, exciting way," said LeSabre Brand Manager Joseph J. Fitzsimmons Jr. "We know the all-new LeSabre is an outstanding car. Now we have a way to reach consumers at events and leave them with a new understanding and appreciation of LeSabre."

At some stops, GM OnStar and GMAC will be on hand for demonstrations.

The 2000 LeSabre was introduced as an early 2000 model. Mid-model year improvements began with the addition of StabiliTrak as an option (May 1999), making LeSabre the highest volume car on the market to offer this advanced integrated vehicle stability control system.

The project was coordinated by Buick's promotional agency Momentum in Troy, Mich. Phoenix-based Ferris Productions, Inc. created the virtual reality drive. Exhibit Enterprises in Dearborn, Mich., outfitted the two trailers.

COPYRIGHT 2000 PR Newswire Association, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group

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