Marvel retiree Robert Downey Jr. has a new present: Downey’s Dream Cars. It follows the millionaire as he seeks to reconcile two of his hobbies, traditional automotive accumulating and local weather change mitigation.
The Iron Man actor has led with this type of juxtaposition earlier than; when he kicked off his climate-focused enterprise agency Footprint Coalition in 2019, he reportedly contrasted his intentions with a colourful description of himself as a “one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus.”
We see extra of this in episode one in all Downey’s Dream Cars. The series facilities on Downey’s plan to work with consultants (resembling Rich Benoit of Electrified Garage) to retrofit his numerous traditional automobiles to allow them to run on lower-emission tech. Yet, the primary episode opens with a left-field shot of Downey marching right into a U.S. Army helicopter, introducing a stunt that appears at odds with the present’s emphasis on local weather change. Out of the gate, Downey acknowledges that this can be a bit complicated, saying one thing to the impact of, wait isn’t this a automotive present?
It is, and it’s a present that my Ztoog colleague Kirsten Korosec labored on as a contributing producer. That’s one of the best half, in my least goal opinion. It’s what initially piqued my curiosity sufficient to take a seat in for a screening at LA’s Petersen Automotive Museum final week. Dear reader, I’m glad I did, as a result of Kirsten (who additionally performs herself in the present) is an excellent particular person and now I get to make this as embarrassing as doable for her. Still, I wasn’t pleased with every little thing I took away from the night; it left me with the unsettling, however informative realization that I discover Dax Shepard, the night’s co-host, good-looking.
Image Credits: Harri Weber for Ztoog
Life’s sobering moments convey readability, similar to the present itself. The first episode goes to nice pains to speak how electrical automobiles are highly effective sufficient — actually, powerful sufficient — to switch their combustion-engine counterparts. In my day-to-day protection of electrical autos, I don’t personally spend a number of time speaking about what number of Americans merely aren’t bought on EVs. Their wariness limits the potential of lower-emission autos to chop down on air pollution, so I admire the implicit reminder in Downey’s Dream Cars that folk nonetheless want convincing, even when the supply is a bit clumsy for me. [Episode one and two spoilers ahead.]
The first car that Downey’s consultants overhaul is a 1972 Ok-10 pickup — a monster of a truck that the actor known as the Purple People Eater. The present walks viewers by way of the fragile, and actually fairly attention-grabbing course of of putting in a Tesla motor and batteries into the traditional beast, which additionally will get a wrap, a touchscreen and a new nickname (the Gray Ghost). At the tip of the episode, Benoit of Electrified Garage exhibits off the Ghost’s energy by utilizing it to tow a tank at Southern California’s Fort Irwin. The present additionally goes into the Army’s electrification efforts, however it neglects to say the army’s outsized carbon footprint.
I discovered on the screening that episode two focuses on retrofitting a 1969 Mercedes 280 SE to run on biofuels. According to a press assertion, the series goes on to discover solar energy, hydrogen gasoline cells, electrical bikes, sustainable manufacturing and leather-based options. Throughout, the series strives to convey Downey’s “beloved old cars into the future […] while keeping their souls intact,” per that very same press assertion. The present additionally explores the businesses that have been already doing work in these areas, together with Rimac Automobilii and Ecovative.
If you’d like, you may decide the series and the automobiles for your self when the primary few episodes drop on MAX, née HBO Max, on June 22. I plan to tune in, and that i’ll most likely achieve this by borrowing a login at no cost from my one in all my buddies.