If you grew up watching Wacky Races, you must be pretty happy to have learned it will make a comeback as a stop-motion series. If you have no idea what it is, you ended up here by accident: no one who loves cars has failed to meet Mutley, Penelope Pitstop, the Ant Hill Mob, and all the gang created by Hanna Barbera in the 1960s. Peugeot was smart enough to put them in a commercial to compete with the Peugeot 208 made in Brazil. Guess who won?
The story begins with a regular Peugeot 208 driver waiting for the green light somewhere in Brazil – it looks a lot like Rio de Janeiro – when the Ant Hill Mob stops on his left. We never knew the Bulletproof Bomb was a Hispano Suiza… Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly menacingly come right behind the French hatchback with the Army Surplus Special, while Peter Perfect and the Turbo Terrific join the crowd stopping on the right of the 208.
We can soon see Penelope Pitstop and the pink Compact Pussycat, the Slag Brothers and the Boulder Mobile, and the Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe a bit before the green light shows up. The Wacky Racers shoot in a drag race as soon as they see it. Peugeot certainly did not want to be accused of stimulating dangerous driving, so the 208 just lets them vanish ahead, moving forward in a pretty civilized way (certainly within the speed limits).
It is no use: the Ant Hill Mob goes after the French hatchback and tries to explode it with TNT. Peugeot tries to demonstrate how quickly the paddle shifters are, and the 208 escapes the bomb attack. We wonder if the driver has ever heard of kickdown downshifting. The French carmaker charged for the paddle shifters, so it was probably not worried about explaining the buyers did not need them.
The commercial continues with the Peugeot 208 getting its next challenge with the Red Max. The 208 driver gets to see it through the panoramic roof, trying to overtake in the peculiar way the Crimson Haybaler allowed: through a short flight. Unfortunately for the Red Max, it all ends in a crash against a tunnel.
Peugeot tries to show how handy the infotainment screen with navigation is when the hatchback driver almost gets stuck in traffic due to a car crash involving Peter Perfect, the Slag Brothers, the Gruesome Twosome, and Private Meekly. The driver manages to avoid the confusion with an alternative route that is eventually interrupted by the one and only Dick Dastardly.
Typical of the character, he drops spiked steel balls right in front of the Peugeot. The 208 driver escapes them thanks to the agile steering the French carmaker wanted to highlight, and Dick Dastardly flies off a bridge in construction, ending up in a mud pool.
After all that trouble, the final reward is getting to help Penelope Pitstop: the Compact Pussicat’s engine faced overheating, and the Peugeot 208 meets her on the way. The romantic vibes get broken by a familiar laugh coming from the back seat: it is Mutley trying to hitch a hike. Sadly for the dog, he gets kicked out of the hatchback so that the driver can be alone with Penelope. If you are not familiar with Wacky Races, this commercial will assist you with that. If you are, you’ll get anxious to watch the classic cartoon again. For the record – as brilliant as the commercial was – Peugeot’s hatchback was never a success in Brazil.
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