Video: Mercedes-Benz Stars in Transformers 3 Premiere

The third installment of the popular Transformers movies, "Dark of the Moon", directed by Michael Bay and produced by none other than Steven Spielberg, has made its premiere in Berlin.

Of course, all the stars including Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Torturo, Patrick Dempsey and the gorgeous Victoria’s Secret model-turned-actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, were present. But since the movie is about cars, and even though the franchise features a lot of Chevrolet models, Mercedes-Benz was also present with the E-Class playing an Autobot (the good guys) and the SLS AMG appearing on screen as Huntington-Whiteley’s car.

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New Transformers Movie Spawns 2012 Chevy Camaro Special Edition

General Motors is trying to squeeze every ounce of publicity out its association with the makers of the third Transformers movie, called Dark of the Moon, which opens exclusively in 3D Tuesday and worldwide Wednesday.

Aside from having an army of cars featured in the film, the Detroit automaker is also launching yet another limited edition Camaro model based on the Autobot “Bumblebee” character.

The 2012 Camaro Transformers Special Edition will be offered as a $3,000 package on 2LT and 2SS Camaro Coupes with Rally Yellow paint. Along with the content provided in the RS package, the Transformers edition adds bespoke black rally stripes that cover the hood, roof, decklid and the unique rear spoiler.

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Cake Boss Transforms Bumblebee into a 2,000-Pound Cookie Monster

VW may have made some headlines with the 2012 Beetle’s appearance on Britney Spears’ latest music video, but when it comes to product placement, the Germans are no match to General Motors.

The General’s say (or is that pay?) is so strong in the movie industry that the Detroit company was able to convince the makers of the Transformers franchise to have a 2011 Chevy Camaro play the role of Bumblebee instead of the original VW Beetle.

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The King of Overkill has Found his Queen in Toronto

And by “King of Overkill” we mean, of course, the….how should we put this delicately… excessively ornamented Porsche Cayenne SUV photographed outside a dollar store in Ontario, Canada, last week by Carscoop reader Jonathan Fernando.

This blonde Swedish diva [aka a previous generation Volvo S40 finished in a yellow hue] was spotted all dressed up and ready to meet the king of her dreams at a parking lot in Toronto, Canada, by another one of our readers, James Dong.

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Chevy Camaro Launch Site Fails on Many Levels

Chevy launched the new Camaro web site today. Unfortunately, the cost cutting at GM is crippling assets as the team had to recycle videos from the upcoming Transformers film so they would have more than one video in their gallery. The one original video for the launch also suffers from some poor computer graphics (CG) development. Too bad, because the Camaros are showing up on the roads here in Michigan and the car looks amazing.

There is also a link called "Global Development" that lets you see where in Japan the body seal testing occurred. What?! Huh? Yes, if you care, you can learn how the car is a global development effort. Seems like an odd thing to share when GM is doing its best to say it is an American car company that needs to be saved. Not that global manufacturing is any secret, it just seems very disconnected to the brand of the Camaro -- a classic American muscle car. I'm just going to assume the inclusion of this content was not strategic, but rather an attempt to get some content added when budget is scarce.

The best part of the site is the well executed Compare page. It gives you a list of various direct and indirect competitors and lets you see how the Camaro is a better choice. Of course, it is your typical compare from an OEM website. So, the 0-60 times compare the Camaro against a model with the less powerful engine (eg BMW 328i instead of the twin-turbo 335i.) Comparison cherry-picking aside, it is well executed and also continues Chevy's tradition of adding credibility to the compares by including the Polk Automotive (third-party) logo.

The biggest gap in the execution is a lack of sharing. There is no way to share photos, tell a friend, all types of content extension are missing from the site, which is very odd for a passion product like Camaro. Though I did, after looking at the site a third time, notice you can share the videos but it is not very intuitive.