Acura promotes movie role with secret-agent kit

Rarely do the lengths to which a carmaker will go in promoting a product raise eyebrows here at AutoWeek, but it still happens from time to time.

Case in point: Acura sent us a kit of secret-agent tests showcasing the role of its cars in the movie Thor.

Touting the carmaker’s first stint in a major motion picture, the so-called Acura S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Test Kit steers us to www.joinshield.com to “accept the challenge” to become an agent.

To help us prepare to serve, this kit offers several tests, including psychological fortitude, which appears to be a Rorschach sketch, and a so-called neurotoxins exam, which is a vial filled with blue liquid.

Test No. 3--reanimation--bestows us with a dead scorpion in one container and a sugar cube in another. The goal is to reanimate the scorpion using the sugar cube and water and then battle it until one of us is dead. Seriously.

Test No. 4--detonations--assumes we emerged victorious from test No. 3 and gives two sets of ignition and a key with which to turn one. Our razor-sharp instincts should enable us to detect and activate the one that is not set to blow us to pieces.

Test No. 5--automotive aviation--requires us to defy gravity. Enough said.

If you do all of this, you can go to www.joinshield.com, move through the ranks of the organization as a new recruit, and win prizes.

By Michelle Koueiter