In preparation for the Clipsal 500 this weekend, Holden have had their blimp terrorising the heavens, enforcing advertisements both day & night. (It looks twice as cool at night by the way)

I raise the question - What ever happened to the Goodyear Blimp which was around quite a few years back?? Did it come from America & fly back or did it replicate the LZ 129 & vanish in a ball of flame? I'm guessing the former.

Airships are such a great idea in principle. Anything big & menacing in the sky is rather cool & there is definitely a novelty factor, hence me chasing it for a photo! As a marketing tool, hmmm, I'm not so sure. At no point has the screen on the side of the Holden Blimp made me want to buy a car or watch Channel Seven. The Goodyear Blimp was also cool, but I'm driving on Bridgestones. For a company such as Holden, which is already a household name, it doesn't really have the need to promote itself to get the Holden brand to the masses. An unknown company would profit from such advertising far more effectively but the cost of one of these things would prevent that. I guess that's the catch-22!

So I had to chase the blimp to get a photo & despite the size & dopey maneuverability, the speed it moves is very impressive. Somewhere in the realm of 80kph+ is not too shabby in something that big & after pulling over to take a couple of snaps, I dived back into my car to try & chase it somewhere else but it was too far gone by the time I made it back onto the street!

My mission is to get a couple of night time photos, but if I don't post a follow up in the next week, it will be pretty safe to say I couldn't get any!