The Targa Truck project was the brainchild of Mark Bovey. He created a logo and a brand for this project and pitched me on it to be the co-diver/navigator. Using my contacts in the motorsport community, we created a pitch deck and began approaching new sponsors to contribute money to the project. Thousands of people started to follow the progression of the project, fuelled by the interest of how an old 70’s pickup truck with a race motor would fair against purpose built rally cars over the course of targa race through 1500kms of streets, roads and neighbourhoods throughout Newfoundland. We convinced GM and Scoggin Dickey to come on board as title sponsor, I sold the story to the Globe and Mail and Mark had secured coverage of our adventure through The Discovery Channel. We finished the race being followed by tens of thousands of fans and millions more through media coverage. Targa Truck is now the most famous 70’s pickup truck in the world according to Road & Track Magazine.
For the longest time, we tried to think of a good copy line to sum up this adventure and what it meant to us, but the right words just didn’t exist. On our first stage of the first day of competition, we were waiting for the start light to change to green. We both looked at each other just made the rock’n’roll devil horns with our fingers, stuck our arm out the window held held high and proud, then yelled at the top of our lungs, “TARGA TRUUUUCK!” This act summarized everything Mark wanted to prove from taking on this challenge and seeing this adventure through to its final day. By day 2, the devil fingered Targa Truck rallying cry caught on. At every start and every finish, in the pits, during our meals, fans and fellow racers started doing the horned Targa Truck solute. It became the symbol that said fuck the critics, fuck the haters. Through true sheer grit and determination Targa Truck defied the odds. She proudly finished 2nd in class, plated her first year out and Mark and I were awarded Rookie of the Year – all in a race that most thought we didn’t have a chance finish, much less do well. This is a social content creation success story. Lesson being that if you have a good story to tell, market it and sponsors will pay to be part of your story.
The Targa Truck salute became the rallying cry for everything Targa Truck represented.
After the event, the oil from the oil pan was drained and the dirty oil used to make these posters that were sold and given to diehard fans and sponsors.
This is the poster Mark made that eventually recruited me into his adventure.