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C-Max on "The Amazing Race"


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Just got through watching Friday night's episode of "The Amazing Race" and totally aside from it being my wife and my favorite reality show we had the fun of seeing our C-Max featured prominently on the episode.

 

They were in Sweden and given each an Energi to drive to Denmark and do it in an efficient manner or have time deducted from them.  Very few of them managed it, but they ALL commented on how nice the ride was.  And then, immediately after that segment, Ford ran a C-Max Hybrid ad (first one I've ever seen) which was very nicely done, having a woman who appreciated both the ride, comfort and size of the car as well as the efficiency.

 

And the winners of that leg of the race both got a C-Max Hybrid to take home -- so, again, a nice plug at the end of the show.

 

I've seen this done throughout the seasons with other Ford vehicles and, truth be told, I was always impressed by the Ford models they showed and felt it to be a very effective advertisement that I couldn't skip past (unlike all the rest of the ads which my wife and I Tivo through).  So it was doubly nice to finally see our own vehicle shown.

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Well, the Hybrid ad wasn't filmed there, to be sure.  But, yes, they had to have imported or somehow gotten at least, um, nine of the Energi models over there for the contestants to use.  Is it sold in Denmark?  Because that's where they ended up and where the "official" who monitored their gas consumption for the drive was stationed.

 

At first when the host, Phil, mentioned it was a Ford C-Max I thought it was going to be one of the European ones and not either an Energi or a Hybrid, so I was glad they specifically mentioned what it was.  And the winner each got a Hybrid, as that was both mentioned and the badge shown (leading into the commercial, naturally :>).

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I don't think it was the Energi they got, but perhaps -- I could take a look again (maybe I will -- TiVo hasn't deleted it yet).

 

Yeah, a lot of them went over the limit.  AFAIR only two went under (out of the nine pairs).  But a lot of them seemed confused by even what the challenge was (I remember one of them thought they had to go OVER that limit.  LOL).

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I don't normally watch these kinds of shows, but I saw that they were going to feature the C-MAX, and that got me to watch. Maybe I missed all of the good parts that featured the C-MAX. All I saw was a part where they mentioned driving a C-MAX, and they drove to catch a ferry in the C-MAX. From what I could see, they were driving Euro C-MAXes, not even a Hybrid. They were right hand side driven, and the wheels were the Euro style.

 

After seeing the two seconds of C-MAX, I lost all interest, and I changed to something else. Did I miss something? I must have, because I didn't see anything mentioned above.

Edited by ScubaDadMiami
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The C-Max segment lasted 7 minutes and 14 seconds.  As I thought I had recalled, only two teams were able to correctly run the challenge (making it under .1 a gallon of gas).  Six teams failed.  After it aired there was a commercial for the C-Max Hybrid (first one I have ever seen).

 

And the winners of the leg did win each an Energi, which Phil said "This is THE car to own if you love sustainability!"  (I'm not quite sure that's a great tag line, but I AM sure it was one he was fed by Ford :>).

 

(I went back and watched the Tivoed version).

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Well, if you aren't a fan of the show (the absolute best reality show in existence, and while some may see that as faint praise it really isn't -- my wife and I really love it and have been entertained by it for a decade now) I can see how you might not stick with it.  I'm not sure if it's an acquired taste or not, but the rhythms and manners make it something you really need to pay attention to.  And unlike a lot of reality shows, this is one you really need to watch from the very first episode (hard to come in the middle and make sense of anything).

 

They've used Ford vehicles throughout the run of the show and my wife and I have always joked that it's a way of getting people to watch commercials who, like ourselves, just fast forward through the real ones.  And over the years I have been impressed by how the technology was displayed, which is a big reason we leaned towards Ford in the first place.  So in that regard they were successful at least with us <g>.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went to the online video of the show and recorded the following results which show 3 contestants as meeting the challenge:

 

Time       Tot Dist  EV Dist  MPG    Gal    kWh  Tot Mi on car

42:45:00  19.3      18.9       973.2   0.01  5.4     244.6

1:12:52    21.3      18.3       133.6   0.15  5.4     5850.7

48:30:00  19.3      11.8       103.1   0.18  5        308.5

47:55:00  19.4      19          305      0.06  5.7     308.4

50:26:00  19.3      12.6       88.5     0.21  4.7     4747.7

48:34:00  19.3       11.8      103.1   0.18  5        308.5

36:41:00  19.6       13.7       121.6   0.16  5.2    5472.4

1:01:25     22.4      19.6       267.8   0.08  5.7    294.3

I guess this underscores the statement "your mileage may vary"

Edited by langle
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In watching it it was clear that some of the folks just didn't understand the challenge -- some thought it was a "speed" challenge (kind of the opposite of what they needed to do) and others just didn't get what was being displayed (IIRC one of them even thought they were supposed to use up as much gas as possible, sort of).  And, of course, this was undoubtedly the first time anyone of them had been in a C-Max.

 

But totally aside from that, I'm always amazed by how many people just don't understand the first thing about proper driving techniques, no matter *what* they are driving.  My friends (who own Priuses) are like this -- driving fast up to the stoplight, slamming on the brakes, etc. etc.  They boost about how great the mpg they are getting not even realizing they could easily be doubling their mileage (even in their non-hybrid vehicle).  

 

I was taught how to drive to conserve gas back in the 70's, during the "gas crisis" (gas rationing -- any of you youngsters remember that, the even/odd days you could buy and the long lines around any station?)  I can't say I *always* practiced those techniques, but in general throughout the decades I've done my best to get the most out of a gallon (and save the wear and tear on things like brakes as well).  My wife, OTOH...

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  • 1 year later...

I was watching back episodes of the Amazing Race on Amazon Prime last night (I believe it is also available through Hulu), and in season 23 of Episode 1 they feature the C-Max Energi. It starts about the 7 minute mark, when they are told they are to drive the C-Max to the Airport from the starting line. Once in the C-Max, they have to use voice commands to call a phone number, to find out where they are flying to.

 

The episode talked about above is from Season 25, Episode 4 (is also available on Amazon Prime and, I believe, Hulu) and starts at the 7 minute mark.

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Hmmm, interesting.  We have Prime and we do love The Race, so that's something we could revisit as well (not ALL the seasons, as some of them I wouldn't care to see again, but there were a couple that were great from start to finish).

 

Thanks for the heads up (I haven't even come close to looking at all the stuff available there -- just mostly the newly created Prime series).

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