Jock's car, the Southfork museum piece.

[Lastkidpicked]

I wonder what the history of Jock's Lincoln is? I assume it's been given to the Southfork business or on lease.

Good to see you back around here, @Mistletoe Stevens !

I'm a real geek about this stuff, so I'll jump in.

The studios and production companies used to keep a big fleet of cars on hand, and used the cars in different movies and TV shows. This is why you saw Boss Hogg's Cadillac show up at a Southfork BBQ.





Let's trace the probable history of Jock's Lincoln.

They get ready to film the miniseries.

The producer (or production assistant) would approach the press department for Lincoln-Mercury and ask for a loaner car. Most manufacturers had these cars in their "press fleet". We know that originally Jock's car was a loaner and not a purchase. How do we know? Because there were two different cars used, one with the turbine wheels and one with the wheel covers (hub caps).

Good news! The miniseries gets picked up to be a regular show, and contracts are signed for a one year commitment. Using this as leverage, the production assistant goes back to Lincoln and asks if they can keep Jock's car.

It's a win-win. Lorimar gets a free car, and Lincoln gets positive advertising. The car is signed over to Lorimar.

Time goes on, and when Jock passes there's little need for the car. There's no pressure to sell it because it really doesn't cost anything to keep it around. So it gets borrowed for one movie or another and just kind of knocks around in the studio fleet.

More time passes and Southfork becomes a tourist destination looking for things to display. They tumble to the fact that Lorimar still has Jock's car so they ask if they can display it. Here comes another win-win.

Lorimar would rather donate the car to the Southfork Museum than keep it in the fleet. This is because Lorimar receives royalties any time Dallas is replayed. If having the car on display at Southfork keeps a bit of interest alive in the show, then this is good for Lorimar. And a nice addition to Southfork.

On a side note, Lincoln never pushed for product placement in the show. General Motors did.

That's why J.R. drove a Caddy in the later years.





If you want to witness the power of product placement, ask anybody who was around for the original run.

Ray upgraded his family vehicle and GMC dealers sold out of their Suburbans the next week.

 

[Lastkidpicked]

If you're REALLY a geek like me, you'll appreciate a nice, juicy scandal for movie cars.

Chrysler had a fleet of press cars. They could be used for a lot of things, such as free loaners to executives, free loaners to the press, or product placement cars.

One difference is that the Chrysler Corporation kept ownership of these cars he entire time, knowing they would eventually come back home and be sold. So they disconnected the odometers when the cars shipped out. Those cars used in the movies, TV shows, or executive loaners came back with thousands of miles on them, but the odometer showed zero miles.

Chrysler cleaned up the cars, hooked up the odometers and sold those cars as if they were brand new cars with zero miles!

J.R. would have been proud!