Cadillac cars drive across a vast expanse of white, a featureless
void with no point of reference except distant mountains in
the background. A caravan of motor homes winds its way toward
a safe place in the movie Independence Day. Models
pose on a snowy plain under an impossibly blue sky. Telephone
companies demonstrate what it must be like to be on another
world. What do all these things have in common? They were
all photographed and choreographed at the same site, the world’s
most other-worldly place, the Bonneville Salt Flats of western
Utah.
Almost everyone who goes to a movie, reads a magazine, or
watches television has experienced the Bonneville Salt Flats,
but do they know what they’ve seen? The answer is, of
course, “it depends.”
Car fanciers are likely to recognize the place. After all,
it’s the place where, from 1935 to 1970, numerous drivers
set the Land Speed Record (LSR) – the fastest speed
in an automobile. It’s the place where various drivers
have set innumerable endurance records – 10 miles, 200
miles, 24 hours, and 48 hours. It’s also the place where,
three times a year, racers gather to compete for speed records
in a variety of classes. Because people who know cars recognize
the salt flats, companies that have anything to do with cars
– auto makers, the tire manufacturers, oil businesses,
service stations, parts builders and suppliers – all
use the salt to demonstrate their products. Those who deal
in aftermarket auto parts know that speed sells, and Bonneville
is the very essence of speed.
But what about those who have never followed automobile racing
and have no idea what the LSR is? The Bonneville Salt Flats
is still a place to advertise automobiles and their parts.
Why? The flats are a wide open space with no traffic and nothing
to get in the way. A car can drive down a safe surface in
a place where the focus is just on the car. There is nothing
else in the way except for a distant mountain. For a still
photograph, nothing takes away from the beauty of the car
(or the tire). Well, maybe not anything else. There are the
magnificent sunrises and sunsets that put the object in the
best possible light.
Others use the salt flats for the same reasons. Movies and
advertisements like the wide open space. They like the wonderful
shadows. They enjoy the mountain that seems to float and the
lake effect that the mirage creates. They do not need the
connection to the LSR. They want the viewer to focus on the
story or the product with an amazing backdrop. And occasionally
some people know the salt flats are in Utah and film there
to connect the story to the state. According to a Bureau of
Land Management pamphlet:
The Bonneville Salt Flats is the perfect backdrop for
artistic endeavors. From still shots to video, the salt
flats is seen by an international audience as the setting
for commercials, movies, music videos, and printed materials
such as advertisements and calendars. The flat white plain
of the salt flats appears to be snow, broken glass, or the
surface of the moon. The possibilities are limited only
by the imagination.
What Are the Bonneville Salt Flats?
First, some background information on the flats. The Bonneville
Salt Flats – an area along the Nevada/Utah border, about
100 miles west of Salt Lake City – is one of the largest
flat, desolate, empty, barren, eerily beautiful places on
earth. The area is so wide open that it’s one place
where viewers can see that the earth curves. The 30,000 acres
of salt stretch for miles of snowy white brilliance. The salt
is so hard that it’s almost impossible to drive a stake
in it. During most of the year, it’s completely dry,
yet one small rainstorm can turn it into a shallow lake that
remains for days because the water cannot be absorbed quickly
into the solid salt. In the summer, distant mountains seem
to float on a shimmer of heat haze. Nothing lives on it –
there are no insects, no plants. Not even the hardiest lizard
or desert thorn can find a living there.
During the latest Ice Age, a freshwater lake – now referred
to as Lake Bonneville – once covered western Utah. Glacial
melt fed the lake which then drained into the Snake River.
As the earth warmed and the glaciers disappeared, the lake
dropped below its outlet. The highly concentrated minerals
created the Great Salt Lake, one of the saltiest bodies of
water in the world, and a large flat salt bed further west.
The large salt bed is now known as the Bonneville Salt Flats.
What Are the Bonneville Salt Flats Used for?
Despite the emptiness of the place, miners and racers found
a use for the salt flats. The miners came first. Shortly after
a railroad completed a track across the vast plain, entrepreneurs
wondered what they could do with all that salt. Straight mining
of salt wasn’t profitable, but enterprising men discovered
that the potassium chloride could be used to make potash,
an essential fertilizer for growing plants. The need was especially
great during World War I when the world lost the use of the
German markets – then the largest suppliers of potash.
But even after the war ended, companies continued and still
do find a market for the specialized salt. In fact, they have
expanded the market by also harvesting magnesium chloride,
which is used on roads to control ice in the winter and dust
in the summer.
The other major use of the salt flats is automobile racing
– actually cars racing the clock. From the first time
that motorized vehicles traveled on the salt flats, it was
obvious that this was an ideal venue for racers. At first,
no one took the salt flats seriously. But then three British
drivers – John Cobb, Sir Malcolm Campbell, and G. E.
T. Eyston – drove on the salt. In 1935, Campbell went
over 300 mph for the first time; during the remainer of the
decade, Cobb and Eyston increased the LSR. They also competed
with Utahn Ab Jenkins for endurance records. During the 1960s,
Americans drove jet cars faster and faster. Even when Richard
Noble returned the LSR to England in 1997, he initially wanted
to set the record at the salt flats because of its reputation
in Great Britain. Unfortunately, the track was too short,
and he went to Black Rock in Nevada.
Others also brought their cars to Bonneville. In 1949, the
Southern California Timing Association started Speed Week.
Amateurs brought cars of many shapes and sizes with various
sizes of engines to set records. Weather permitting, Speed
Week continued once a year. In the 1980s, the Utah Salt Flats
Racing Association started World of Speed. In addition to
setting time records, USFRA also allows individual car owners
to see how fast their cars and even their electric bar stools
will go on the salt. According to geographer Karl B. Raitz,
Bonneville is one of two racing venues (The other one is Indianapolis)
where “fans cannot conceive of this kind of race being
held anywhere else with a similar level of enjoyment.”
Another Use – Automobile Advertisements
Once drivers started setting records, the salt flats provided
another use – advertising the cars and the products
that were driving very fast. At first, the cars focused on
the racers – their cars and parts. But as the Bonneville
Salt Flats became known as the place to drive fast, the companies
no longer referred to the records. They used the venue as
a good place to show off cars. They expected those who knew
racing would also recognize the flats.
The Cars
It takes a special car, special tires, and special equipment
to set speed records. At the same time though, the technology
to create fast cars can make everyday cars safer. There is
an old adage among auto racers, taken from the horse-racing
fraternity: Racing improves the breed. In this case, it means
that equipment used to make cars go faster, stop quicker,
corner better, and survive crashes will eventually end up
on production cars. Disk brakes, for instance, were a race
car refinement that made their way into performance cars,
then into sedans. Now, every car has disk brakes at least
on the front wheels.
When the age of the automobile was yet new, automobile manufacturers
played up their cars’ abilities to go very fast. Ab
Jenkins drove a Pierce-Arrow car in the 1930s, and the company
bragged about his records. In 1933, it published a 15-page
pamphlet and produced a 40-minute motion picture entitled
“The Flight of the Arrow” which detailed Jenkins’
24-hour plus record setting drive on August 6, 1933. The pamphlet’s
opening paragraph focused on the car and Jenkins: “Emblazoned
in the zenith of the motor world today stand two names –
names inseparable in their sphere of service to man in his
never ending bid for a mastery of time and distance –
names inseparable – Ab Jenkins and Pierce-Arrow.”
But speed was not Pierce-Arrow and Jenkins’ main goal.
The company claimed that their engineering was moving toward
“ultimate perfection.” And Jenkins explained,
“I don’t want to drive an automobile 125 miles
an hour or even 100 miles an hour, and I doubt you do either.
But I do want to own a motor car that is built so perfectly,
and engineered so smoothly, that normal speeds are child’s
play for it.” The Bonneville Salt Flats provided a place
to test the cars – and show them off at the same time.
Jenkins went on to set other endurance records on the salt
flats, but not in a Pierce-Arrow. He is best known for his
Mormon Meteors, super-charged Dusenbergs designed, according
to Jenkins, with “my good friend, Augie Dusenberg.”
The company wanted to work with Jenkins to test their products
but also to support a friend and be a part of a community.
The Successful Race Car Driver explains that good sponsors
are “closet racers.” Dusenberg matched exactly
what the modern book suggests every driver needs: someone
high up in the company with an excitement for driving fast.
Jenkins drove other cars as well. He drove a Pontiac, and
as a result, Pontiac named one of its cars Bonneville. According
to a 2001 press release, "The Bonneville is the only
American production car to earn, not be given, its racing
name." In 1956, 73-year-old Jenkins and his son Marvin
drove a Pontiac and broke the 24-hour endurance records for
a Class C stock car at 118.375 mph. In 2000, Pontiac "transformed
the Bonneville SSEi from a family sedan into a Salt Flats
record seeker." While the company hoped to go 210 mph,
it only got to 195.048 mph, still setting a record. According
to the press release, "Due to a limited preparation time,
and first race Gremlins, the Bonneville was not able to obtain
its 210 mph goal.” The next year Mike Cook, a member
of the 200 mph club, exceeded the 200 mph level, going 202.524
mph.
MG, according to the company, “the sports car Americans
loved first,” also used the salt flats to set records
and advertise their cars. MG has a long history of participating
in speed events and using them to promote their sporting image.
After World War II, MG sent several cars to the salt flats
for records. Lieutenant Colonel A. T. “Goldie”
Gardner was the first with his MG EX 135 (EX stands for experimental).
In the 1950s, George Eyston worked with MG to promote the
MG-A. The company built EX 179 and 181.
MG hired famous race car drivers from the United States and
Great Britain to drive the EX 179 at Bonneville, as much for
their fame as their driving ability. These included Ken Miles,
an American driver. According to a MG history, "Miles
was one of the most capable drivers to ever take the wheel
of an MG. His performance in specials as well as production
cars is legendary." MG built the EX 181 exclusive for
another supporter, Stirling Moss. In the racing world, Moss
is known as one of the best, if not the best driver, in Formula
One racing. Moss never won the Formula One Driver’s
Championship because he insisted on only driving British cars
and other companies produced faster automobiles. Phil Hill,
an American Formula One winner, also drove the car. Both Moss
and Hill set records for their engine class.
For years, MG did not try to change that record, arguing that
no other automobile companies were going for the records and
MG was just competing against itself. That changed in the
1990s though. Rover, now the owner of MG, sent “Project
EXF,” a specially designed MG-F to break Moss’s
record at the salt flats. Although the car did not set a record,
Rover was impressed (MG, “The 217 mph MGF”).
The company then asked Andy Green, an airplane pilot who drove
Richard Noble’s Thrust SSC faster than the speed of
sound, to drive MG EX255, named because the company hoped
it would break Hill’s 254.91 mph record. The car came
to Bonneville in 1998, but because of mechanical problems,
it did not set a new record. The attempt shows that MG’s
new owner sees the magic of the salt in promoting cars –
even a car that can no longer be sold in the United States.
To underscore their connection with Bonneville, Rover, now
called MG Rover, brought another MG to the salt flats in 2003.
This time, they brought a station wagon. There, they went
more than 225 mph and have applied to the Guinness Book
of World Records as the fastest station wagon in the
world.
Nor were the British the only Europeans who used the salt
flats as advertising. In September 1956, Road and Track
carried an article “New from Italy” that included
pictures of the latest Fiat, Boano, and Ferrari cars. There
was also a streamliner on the page with the note, “Although
rather remote from the other cars present, and not exactly
new, the remarkable Osca deserves a close up portrait. With
1491 cc engine and special aerodynamic body, it rewrote the
class F record book last fall at Bonneville.”
In an advertisement for Renault of France in June 1957, the
headline read, “Turbine engine for your car?”
Underneath was a picture of Renault’s experimental car,
“Shooting Star” which had gone 191.2 mph, 40 mph
faster than any other turbine-powered car. The ad explained,
“The Shooting Star is just one phase of the Renault
research program that also produced the most up-to-date cars
on the road today.” The remainder of the ad was for
the 1957 Daupine with a “Ventoux” internal combustion
rear engine. Although the ad did not mention the salt flats,
the drawing showed Floating Mountain and the familiar Bonneville
Salt Flats scenery.
But not all car companies were interested in records. Some
just wanted their cars to look good on the salt. It is difficult
to find out why the advertisement agencies use the salt. The
automobile companies hire the agencies that make the decisions
based on what the company requests. We asked both car companies
and advertisers why they chose the flats; none responded.
But companies like Cadillac have posters with their cars on
the salt. For car lovers, the backdrop represents speed, racing,
and excitement. And, of course, it’s a dynamite photographic
backdrop.
All these advertisements referred to records and still photography.
In the 1950s, television brought a new dimension to use of
the salt flats – movement. A study of post-World War
II television argued that companies wanted to convince Americans
that they needed the newest gadgets; they were essential for
the American Dream. One way to convince people that they needed
cars was to show them in motion. Bonneville was the perfect
place to watch a car move. First, it was a place where other
cars had driven fast. Then, it was a place where the car could
go fast. In addition, the wide open space was a perfect place
to show off the car's beauty. And finally, most men and many
women thrilled at the possibility of speed even if they could
only watch. A 2003 television commercial showed a GM car on
the salt flats and bragged of speed.
The Products
But cars are made of parts that wear out and need to be replaced.
So automobile accessories also used the salt for advertisement.
The British drivers – Campbell, Cobb, and Eyston –
had sponsors who used their records to promote their products.
All three used Dunlop tires, and the company created a poster
with pictures of the drivers and their tires. Campbell and
Eyston worked with Castrol Oil. In fact, Castrol Oil was a
long time sponsor of land speed racing. Campbell and Sir Henry
Seagrave exchanged the record at Daytona Beach. Both used
Castrol, and the company made posters with pictures of the
cars and the speeds. Eyston used Castrol Oil and then worked
for the company after World War II.
Craig Breedlove, who set the LSR in the 1960s, depended on
sponsors to build his cars. He started as a drag racer, building
his cars in his backyard and then later in a shop. But he
needed more help, especially with tires. Only Goodyear and
Firestone had any experience with tires that would go as fast
as Breedlove hoped to drive. Since Firestone sponsored a competitor,
Nathan Ostich’s jet car, Breedlove decided to go to
Goodyear. That company worked with Mickey Thompson, but since
Thompson’s was not a jet car, Breedlove did not see
a conflict. At first, Goodyear agreed to give tires, but refused
to give additional support. Then the company backed out of
even giving tires, explaining it wanted to cut back on racing.
But after Shell Oil agreed to sponsor Breedlove, Goodyear
reversed its decision. When Breedlove set the LSR, both companies
issued press releases describing their products used on the
car.
Firestone also used records set at the salt flats to promote
its products. In 1957, for example, it ran a magazine ad that
bragged that “only Firestone” could stand up at
261 mph, a record set by Kenz and Leslie Streamliner on the
salt flats that year and the fastest for an American-built
car. After describing the engines, the ad explained, “When
they came to pick the tires they had no real choice. They
had to run on Firestones, because no one else can match Firestone’s
years of experience in experimental tire development.”
The ad continued to say that if Bonneville Salt Flat racers
along with those at the Indianapolis 500 and Daytona Beach
used their tires so should the average driver. While many
automobile advertisements appeared in car magazines, this
Firestone ad appeared in Time and other mainstream
American magazines.
Sometimes just being on the salt was enough. A Goodyear ad
shot at the Salt Flats about speed tests of two custom cars
did not mention the tire company, but it showed tires and
shirts that said Goodyear. A 1962 article in the Saturday
Review called this "The Hidden Sell." American
Oil bragged about “our new Amoco, . . . the world’s
first radial oval tire.” The advertisement talked about
the “six plies between you and the road,” the
“2 million miles of road testing,” and “its
versatile beauty . . . . red stripe on one side, dual white
on the other.” American’s slogan at the time was
“you expect more from American, and you get it.”
Two tires standing on their own, using the “perfect
backdrop” illustrated the ad which appeared in, among
other magazines, the Mormon Church’s Improvement
Era.
While companies used the salt flats to show off their products,
sometimes they needed to “doctor” their films.
Lloyd Brown, who worked for the Utah highway department smoothing
out the salt flats and then for the potash plant, recalled
a spark plug company that was shooting a commercial at Bonneville.
He didn’t give the name of the company although he probably
remembered it. Brown recalled, “They put these two Chevrolet
convertibles together. They had them all hooked up so that
they would just take off.” The competitor’s spark
plug kept doing better, so someone suggested that they “put
some weight on the other car.” Finally the advertised
spark plug was more successful. The company was so pleased
that the representatives offered the men samples of their
spark plugs. The workers laughed and said, “We don’t
want your spark plugs. We want the others.”
Other Advertisements
The Bonneville Salt Flats became famous because of the racing.
But automobiles are not the only companies that use the salt
to advertise. Companies and advertisement agencies do not
refer to Bonneville’s tradition of speed. Instead, they
just want a wide open place. For example, an advertising agency,
Size, Inc., shot an album cover for a Japanese band, Mr. Children.
The agency’s representative Mayumi Nagata explained
that the band saw a photo of the salt flats in a book and
wanted to use the same venue. The film crew came from Japan
in August 2000, and the crew took a picture of the flats with
people. Later they superposed a man and an airplane onto the
shot.
Stilson and Stilson, a Utah based firm, made a music video
to sell exercise equipment at the salt flats because it was
a unique, vast environment that they couldn’t create
in a studio. The firm wanted an abstract look that the flats
provided. Harper's Bazaar shot models there in 1999.
The article entitled "Brave New Light" explained,
"This fall, some of the most out-of-the-world evening
wear are uncommon flights of fantasy.”
In addition to a neutral background, some photographers use
the salt flats because they want a setting that people recognize
as Utah. A Salt Lake City dance company, Ririe Woodbury took
its dancers throughout the state for still and TV commercials.
Joan Woodbury, one of the principal owners, explained that
the dance company had taken pictures at the Great Salt Lake
and hoped to go to the red rocks of southern Utah. Bonneville
was another Utah example. A local TV station, Channel 4, was
already doing a shoot, so the dance company went along. For
Woodbury, the nature and the ability to see forever made a
beautiful shot no matter what way the model was facing. The
dance company used the still photo on the home page of its
website and video in a television commercial.
Beyond Advertising – Movies and Photography
The Bonneville Salt Flats are not only the perfect backdrop
for ad agencies they also provide a wide open space that motion
picture studios and photographers love. Janna Bushman, a BYU
geography student, and her professor James Davis examined
some of the uses in a 1997 Journal of Cultural Geography
article. Using the BLM records between 1990 and 1997, they
found ten movies, twenty television programs, and more than
thirty commercials that used the salt flats.
They also examined motion media in which the producers tried
to create an imagined place. They discovered the salt flats
represented a “surreal world, a land of destruction
and desolation, a playground, and a land of human triumph.”
Some fit into more than one category. The TV show Touched
by an Angel (which was filmed in Utah) used the salt
to show a place between heaven and earth, another world.
One of the most famous movies filmed at the salt flats is
Independence Day. The movie is about Americans defending
the earth from an alien attack. It uses the salt flats to
create three locations: El Toro, California, Area 51 in the
Nevada desert, and an Iraqi desert. The Bonneville Salt Flats
are most easily recognized in the scene in which RVs cross
a blank desert. Those who know the salt flats recognize the
Floating Mountain and the broad open space.
The 2000 movie Slow Burn wanted a desert setting,
so it used a cave and the open salt at Bonneville for some
scenes. Most of the movie, however, was shot in California
where there was some plant life. The opening lines of the
movie describe the salt flats the same way that everyone from
explorers and pioneers to racers saw the area: "In all
the ways that the desert tests you, the most dangerous is
the mirage. In those shimmering sparkling depths you see whatever
you want – water, wealth, dreams. That is the promise
and that is the curse."
The British Broadcasting Company used the salt to film a documentary
on dinosaurs. BBC explained in a letter to the BLM, "We
do not use computers . . . to create our backgrounds and landscapes
that the animals will live – they are filmed for real
and in order to make the programmes (sic) as scientifically
accurate as possible we have been very careful to select locations
where the right kind of prehistoric plants and habitats still
exist. We believe that Bonneville Salt Flats offer an ideal
combination of these elements for our purpose." To create
that effect, the BBC planned to bring large plastic models
and plant their feet in the salt. After contacting the BLM
office, the BBC decided not to use the salt flats.
Brigham Young University’s College of Family Life used
the salt flats because they wanted a neutral, empty environment
that showed that children cannot be left "alone in this
world without moral, social and emotional guidance."
To emphasis that point, the producer put a baby in a crib
all alone on the salt flats. The baby was crying, even though
the parents were close by. The shot in the video (about fifteen
seconds in a sixteen minute fund raising show) shows the baby
in the crib up close with the salt and Floating Mountain in
the background.
Still photographers find the same benefits as movies. Val
Brinkerhoff, a Brigham Young University photography professor,
takes class members to the salt flats each year either in
the fall or spring. Fall works out well since it is at the
beginning of the semester, and he can use the salt flats in
teaching lessons on light. Spring provides an opportunity
to take photos with reflections in the water. He likes the
flats because they are like an empty stage, a neutral area
with texture. He finds a peace and a beauty to the desert.
Some photographs use the salt flats to illustrate articles
on Utah. For example, a New York based photographer, Norman
Jean Roy, working for Vogue magazine went to the
salt for a shoot. The magazine planned an article on the Elizabeth
Smart kidnapping and argued that one of the reasons that this
teenage girl was willing to go with Brian Mitchell, a former
handyman for the family, and stay with him was because of
her Mormon background which included a belief in prophets
and polygamy.
Rebecca Johnson, the article’s author, spoke with Jeff
and Joanne Hanks, a couple living in Salt Lake City who had
joined Jim Harmston’s current polygamous church in Manti,
Utah. Jeff married Amandah, a seventeen-year-old from a polygamous
family, as a plural wife, but she left him because he had
had surgery and could not father a child. Eventually, the
Hanks decided that they disagreed with Harmston and returned
to Salt Lake City, leaving not only polygamy but also The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which they believed
had led them along this path. The Hanks were willing to talk
about their experience. Others who continued to accept polygamy
did not see the connection and refused.
At first glance, this story has nothing to with the salt flats,
and in fact it should not. But Roy and the setting editor
Alexandra Kotur were so taken with the beauty of the salt
and its connection with Utah that they drove the family out
to salt flats for a picture. The photograph showed the Hanks
and their three children hanging on each other and almost
pleading to be rescued from the bleak situation. The vastness
of the salt flats added to the misery of the photograph.
Summary
Advertisers started using the Bonneville Salt Flats as soon
as the English racers discovered the area as a place to drive
fast. But there are no records to confirm all those uses.
It is easier to document more recent uses because those who
go to the area must get approval from the Bureau of Land Management.
Jessie Embry visited the BLM Offices and counted twenty-two
advertising companies’ requested use of the salt flats
to do video or still photographs of automobiles between 1999
and 2002. In addition, twelve asked to make commercials for
other products, three asked to do photo shoots, seven wanted
to make a documentary, four wanted to do a movie or television
show, and one wanted to run a car on the flat.
These numbers are small given the enormous amount of commercials
that Americans view every year on television, in magazines,
on billboards, etc. But they show that the Bonneville Salt
Flats – a place completely avoided by Native Americans
– create a desirable image. Even though the LSR has
not been set at the salt flats since 1970, automobile companies,
advertisement agencies, and owners are still attracted to
the place. And others have caught on as well.
It is, after all, “the perfect backdrop.”
January 2006
From guest contributors Jessie Embry and Ron Shook
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