GM Cars Picked By Bay, Influenced Movie

In an interview with GM VP of Global Design Ed Wellburn, MTV blog reveals that Michael Bay hand-picked the various Autobot alt modes from their concept designs and those designs influenced the movie.

"With the first movie, there wasn’t a whole lot of dialogue back and forth between Michael Bay and myself,” GM Vice President of Global Design Ed Wellburn told MTV News, reflecting on how GM’s relationship with Bay began. “We were building the concept in secret we didn’t want anyone to know, and he was building the movie in secret. He was looking for something special from us, and we showed him a couple of cars.”

“I didn’t want to share with him Camaro unless he told me more about the movie,” Wellburn said. “There was a little negotiating, and then there it was.” The success of the Camaro’s appearance, which helped GM by raising awareness of the newly redesigned car, literally opened some big doors for Bay in “Revenge of the Fallen.”

“When it comes to the sequel, it was different because the relationship had built quite a bit,” Wellburn explained. “Michael came to Detroit, and he and I just walked the studios. He was looking for one, maybe two new vehicles. He came here, and he pretty much had it in his head what the sequel would be. I’ll never forget it. One third of the way through the tour he said, ‘I need a notepad. There are just too many designs that we may want to use in the movie.’”

Some models, like the Beat and Trax, which will appear as the Autobots Skids and Mudflap for “Revenge of the Fallen,” even affected how the characters functioned.

“That day that he visited us and walked the halls of the studios, the movie developed and in some ways changed,” he revealed. “[Bay] was inspired by things like the two small cars that maybe could work together in some way. That’s all I can say right now.”

A question I have is how many concept models did Bay have to choose from? I wouldn't imagine there were not that many, near ready for market, models on the list limiting his options (may explain how Audi entered the picture).

Of note is that near last line "...two small cars that maybe could work together..." From what I have been reading, people have interpreted this to mean the twins might merge together. I guess that could be possible but so far none of the leaked toys and images shows it. However, the Devastator toy has shown that Hasbro is happy to step away from the norm and present merging and non-merging designs for the same character. I think "work together" means less "merge" and more "teamwork". I would think the Twins could work together better than the other Autobots making for some dynamic fight/chase sequences.