I’ve never rented a Wicked Camper. I’ve never even been inside one. Still, I absolutely love them for their skating-the-edge-of-good-taste humor.
And now Wicked is coming to America, bringing its crude and irreverently painted rental vans and distinct Aussie sense of humor starting in April 2009. They’ll open in Los Angeles and San Francisco to enrich our continent with cheap vans and even cheaper laughs. Soon, you’ll be seeing vans emblazoned with “If only men were as satisfying as chocolate …” or Black Sabbath logos in the United States.
My first encounter with a Wicked Camper was in Australia. I spotted an oddly painted, rough-around-the-edges van covered with a funny mural. I thought some crazed hippie had just taken some brushes to an old van and slapped a URL on there for a personal Web site or something.
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| From New Zealand Volume 1 |
Then, I started seeing them just about everywhere – all with different murals, jokes and off-color messages (and often an unshaven/unshowered German at the wheel). And I realized this was actually a rental company. According to its Web site, Wicked has artistic volunteers paint the vans – well, some are artistic!
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| From Australia |
I was delighted to spot Wicked Campers in New Zealand … it was just a symbol that I was in a fun country, and it brought back great memories of Australia. It’s great to see a company that carves out an image that some will love, and others will hate – and embraces that. They even advertise that, if you book with them for 14 days and show up naked to collect the van, they’ll give you a day free. Obviously, Wicked Campers will never be all things to all people. But it will provide transportation to many, and fun to even more.
I can tell the model is working. I spotted more than a few imitators in New Zealand. But the original is still … well, the original.
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| From Australia |
Now that Wicked is coming to America, can flat whites, crocodile pizzas and Ozzy rules football be a far behind?
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Those are great! That’d be a fun little number to drive down the pacific coast highway in….
…I swear, I wrote the above paragraph BEFORE I visited their USA website and watched a video of them driving down….the pacific coast highway.
Interesting to see they have a depot in Vancouver as well.
We must just think a bit alike. If you’ve gotta have a camper, that’s the kind I’d want.
Nothing beats the original! The Wicked culture is so much fun to be a part of. check out my blog if you want to read some crazy stories about us.
Heck, yes, I’ll check out your blog! I don’t know if Wicked puts out press releases – if it does, I’d love to be on the distribution list. My e-mail address is jschmid.writes at gmail dot com. Thanks!