Cypress, Calif. — Clarion is teaming up with other automotive-oriented companies to restore iconic vehicles and promote the projects to get people to fall back in love with cars, the company said.
The car electronics company so far has teamed up with Toyo Tires, Koni, Ireland Engineering Motorsports, SiriusXM and parent Hitachi to launch the program, called Clarion Builds. Through a mix of social and traditional media, Clarion will promote the projects during different phases of completion.
“It feels that our collective world culture is falling out of love with the automobile and we’re more interested today in our smartphones and tablets, playing games and watching viral videos rather than enjoying what most of us enjoyed when we were growing up, such as cars, driving, motorsports and owning a piece of motoring art,” said Allen Gharapetian, marketing and product planning VP for Clarion Corp. of America.
“Once we remember the fun of owning, driving and caring for our cars, trucks or anything else that can move us from here to there, chances are that we’ll rediscover why they are such an important part of our culture and why we cannot simply treat them as just transportation devices,” he said.
The first project, getting underway this month, is a complete restoration of a 1974 BMW 2002, said by Clarion to have launched the Sport GT category and to have “fueled the sports sedan revolution.” With its partners, Clarion will restore the BMW to its original factory state while enhancing key components, such as new entertainment and connectivity technologies, “to bring it up to present day standards” while “keeping everything as close to their original theme as possible,” the company said.
Consumers can follow the projects at ClarionBuilds.com or follow Clarion on Facebook at Facebook.com/ClarionUSA.
Clarion is looking for additional partners to participate.
