Visions in High Octane

Date: 6 Jan 2045, 10:05 am
From: danial3@unpluggedmotors.com
To: creative@ishtehari.com
Subject: New Brief: Project Vroom

Hey Team,
Appreciate the auto-reactionson my bot’s latest LinkedInpost. Of the 34,552 agenciesthat responded, my agentic AIranked you in the top five for‘human-first creative thinking’ – whatever that still means in2045. So here is your shot.

Quick intro: Danial IIIhere. Yes, from that family.Real estate, tech, mobility,blah, blah. But my vision isdrastically different from whatmy grandparents’ thoughtprocesses were.

Say hello to UnpluggedMotors, an internal combustionengine (ICE) car brand. The ideahit me during my last neuralaugmentation session in Beijing.Between all the sterilisedperfection and algorithmicallycurated experiences, I stumbledinto an illegal bunker cafewhere they brewed coffee over – wait for it – actual wood fire.Inefficient. Smoky. Glorious.

And it made me think: progresshas peaked. Time to regress.So we are launching Vroom,an unapologetic, gas-guzzling,smoke-belching ICE car.Real mechanical engine, nobatteries. Runs on the originaldinosaur juice – petrol. I know,we haven’t had functioningfuel pumps since the Saudi oilcrash of 2032, but I’m talkingto the new Crown Prince aboutusing some of the old stockand repurposing it for us herein Pakistan. Turns out they missthe old days too (who knew?).Now the brief:

1. Dual Audiences
Gen Alpha: Now in theirmid-30s. They grew up onzero-friction EVs, autopiloteverything, and have early onset midlife crises
because their childhoodTikTok feeds rewired theirdopamine thresholds.
Gen Beta: 18-25. Theyare financially independent(grandparent bitcoininheritance), born creators andhave never heard an engineroar unless it was on OpenAI’sYouTube archives.

We need to make bothcohorts desire what they neverknew they missed: chaos, noiseand machines that leak (fluidsand character).

2. Positioning
This is not transport.This is anti-progress. It’s astatement of rebellion againstseamlessness. Our cardemands attention, sweat – andyes, time. This is about feelingthe rumble, not letting your botplan your commute to the 12thVR therapy session.

3. Product Functional Attributes
This is not your standardpersonal transport vehicle.Vroom is deliberatelyanalogue. No touchscreens,no holograms, no neural sync.The cabin has zero screens.Instead? Dials. Gauges. Knobs.Things you turn and push andpull – with your hands. It has aminimal air filtration system, butno air conditioning. It will have‘handles’ that you rotate to rolldown the windows.

A point of surprise mightbe that the acceleration is notinstant. Drivers will experiencea tell-tale ‘lag’ because thismachine uses combustion, notzero-friction magnetic drives.And when you push the pedal, itmakes loud mechanical sounds – from an actual engine. We willneed to educate the audiencethat this is not a malfunction.They need to understand it ispart of the experience.

The engine is a repurposed2.4 litre four-cylinder. We havesecured a massive inventorythat was lying unused after a popular manufacturer wentbankrupt after the governmentabolished import taxes in 2025. Users will need tochange gears manually byengaging what is called a‘clutch’ – a process thatrequires synchronised arm andleg movement. So it will alsorequire mental attention whilstdriving. Steering? Manual.No autopilot. No lane-assist.If you hit something, that’son you (add a legal fine printsomewhere about this inyour pitch). And yes, it emitsexhaust. It’s going to be visibleand probably smelly. Again,intentional. It operates witha physical key (made out ofmetal), so no biometric ID ornear-field communication.

4. Tone and Voice
Old-money arrogancemeets 2020s Hollywood. Youmight want to go throughclassics such as Fast & Furious17.5 as a reference.

5. Creative Direction
Visuals should beauthentic and flawed. Showthe car tearing throughpost-apocalypse racetracks,abandoned Martian testingdomes and the occasionalrusted EV graveyard. Absolutelyno polished CGI. This is not apitch for another EV brand. Iwould advise you to find realdesigners, illustrators andcalligraphers to do this by handrather than using gen AI.

6. Media Strategy
Forget Apple Metaverse5.0. We want street cred.Think underground podcasts,retro graffiti tags, hand-typedmessages in forums. I want youto focus on making a physicalpresence with this campaign.Screen or hologram-based adswill not cut it.

7. Brand Guidelines
No words like eco, green, or carbon-neutral.
Do not place the car next to lush green environments unless it is ironically parked over an old recycling plant.
Hero shots to scream flawed luxury, not corporate perfection. Zero influencer partnerships. No ‘creator collabs.’ If any agencyteam member mentions user generated content, you’re off the pitch.

8. No-Go Areas:
No nostalgia for the20th century. Neither you norI remember it. Even our AIsystems had to deep-crawlobsolete databases to figureout what ‘Indus Corolla’ was.
No ‘safety-first’ angles. Ouraudience is not buying this tofeel safe.
No user journeys, noempathy maps. Assume theyhave outsourced emotions totheir AI therapists.
Do not refer to Elon Musk,his crash, or anything related toMars’ colonisation.

9. Submission Requirements
I expect the first round ofthinking tomorrow. Yes,tomorrow. Generous by mystandards. I am giving youmore time than usual becauseI know your AI systems maynot be calibrated for such a…retro case. Complete with keyvisuals, mock-ups, and at least60 executions that will makemy compliance systems flagthis. In short, looking forwardto seeing something out
of the box.

CheersDanial III, Founder & CMO,Unplugged Motors Pvt Ltd
Snap: teesra_danial

P.S. We are not paying thecustomary 0.001 btc to ourparticipating agencies forthis pitch. We are going all-inon the retro-first mantra, sothe pitches are going to becompensation-free like in theold days.

Umair Kazi is Partner, Ishtehari.