Mission: Impossible (and more)…

No, I’m not talking about teaching manners to people on the Internet or getting politicians to remember who they actually work for…I’m talking about the latest Tom Cruise movie.   That would be Mission Impossible:  Rogue Nation.   We saw it yesterday afternoon.

It’s good, and it’s one I’d recommend.

It’s all about product placement (you know, getting your stuff in a movie), and BMW sure did it well in this movie.   Nearly every car was a BMW, and the obligatory motorcycle chase scene used nothing but Beemers (and a lot of them).

We looked into product placement years ago with the CSC Mustangs, but the cost was prohibitive.   It was $300K just to have an agency consider you.   To get your stuff in a major movie like BMW did in this one, I’ll bet they spent something north of $10 million.

I guess it’s coincidental, but I had lunch with the geezers yesterday over at Brown BMW in Pomona and I spent a bit of time looking at the latest BMW models.    They have some nice motorcycles.   All of their bikes are expensive and technology intensive.   Like I’ve been saying for a while now, my days of spending big bucks on bikes are long gone, but I can still look.   And then Susie and I went to the movies.   More BMWs.  It was a BMW kind of day, I guess.

The Mission Impossible franchise has gone beyond James Bond with special effects, martial arts, and the chase scenes in this latest Cruise movie.  There are the usual Hollywood silly things (like sliding off motorcycles wearing no protective gear and walking away from it with not even a scraped knee), but it was entertaining.  The last time I had a departure from controlled flight like some of the ones in the MI chase scene I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital and 6 months recuperating.   But still, the movie was good.   I liked Tom Cruise in it, too.

I’m going to fire up the KLR later today just to get some gas flowing through the carb.   I’m bringing the bike into the plant this week and Steve is going to sell it for me.  I might sell my little CSC 150, too.   I’ve got three bikes in the garage and I only ride the RX3.   And I want to make room for another one that I really enjoy riding…

We’ll be posting more info on the TT Special soon. A few facts up front…it’s a carbureted, air-cooled 250 single with a 5-speed gearbox, it’s older technology than the RX3, it’s not nearly as fast as the RX3, and it’s a lot of fun. We’re not selling these (yet) and we don’t know if we ever will; we just brought a few in on an EPA exemption letter to evaluate them.  We’ve geared ours taller for our kind of riding, and we’re playing around with a few other things on the bikes.   You might let us know what you want in a bike like this, and maybe even tell us what you think it should sell for.

One more thing:  I received a lot of email from you about the book (5000 Miles at 8000 RPM) yesterday and it was 100% positive.  Thanks for all of your inputs (based on those, the book is a go).  I’m starting the book this week and I’ll have it finished in a month.   When Hollywood buys the rights and makes it into a movie, I’m going to insist that Tom Cruise play me (but with appropriate protective riding gear).    We’re going to do all of the chase scenes in Chongqing and Medellin.  I’m going to insist on cameo roles for all of the guys on our Western America Adventure Ride, too.  We’ll get Joe Gresh in the movie for the RX3 burnout scenes.  Justin Herx will play a role equivalent to Q (the equipment specialist) in the James Bond movies (he’s a natural for it, and I can already imagine some of the secret weapons he’ll fashion out of thin gauge stainless steel wire).  My good buddy Hugo will have a lead role (not bigger than my role, of course, but it will be a good one), and his tag line will be “it’s okay, it’s okay.”  And more.

Coming soon, to a movie theatre near you.