At TI Group in Ann Arbor (1980-89), we had to learn automotive work on-the-fly. Larry Bell got us in on the ground floor with GM Accessory catalog production. Soon we got the chance to replace outdated product photos with my really outdated 4 x 5 Graflex and hot lights in the kitchen of the old house on North Main we called our headquarters. Aside from travel in the British Isles, it was the most fun I’ve ever had with a camera.
American cars had always been shot on negative film, heavily airbrushed and never in motion. (Photoshop was a thing of the future.) For the Firenza GT we had to work with a dye transfer print from Olds’ agency or record and do it the old way. 
But when Oldsmobile wanted to introduce their “ES” (Euro Styled) cars for 1985, they looked to our Ann Arbor agency for the sophistication they wanted.
We checked out Mercedes and BMW brochures. They used color transparency film for sharper images. Instead of retouching, they shot them right in the first place. "That’s the look,” we told Oldsmobile. I specified available light for realism. And to save huge indoor-studio rental cost.

 For the big eight-page ES intro poster/brochure, we needed to get a lot of “European” location shots. I scouted every elegant stone building in Ann Arbor. We used the Law Quadrangle, Clements Library and Inglis House at the University of Michigan.

The ES brochure cover shot taken at the Gandy Dancer Restaurant (former Ann Arbor Railroad station) was quite a challenge. Nearly got run over in the dark getting a five-second exposure of the three cars and six models. Then, later, Oldsmobile said “Kill the white letters on those tires.” I had to learn how to retouch color transparencies with special E-6 dyes. It was also needed to darken the sky. They still valet-park right there.

That led to other new-car introduction photography (left and the Olds Calais below) and paid for more up-to-date cameras and gear.

Unlike any American car company at the time, BMW brochures showed their cars in motion. We had no idea how to get this effect, but the photographers at Car and Driver magazine, just across town, had it nailed. We hired one of them between C&D shoots. Their trick was hair-raising: shooting from the passing lane of a two-lane road, dodging oncoming cars! “Sit on a load of rocks (for stability) in the back of a station wagon with a motor drive on your 35mm camera. Shoot with Polaroid Transparency film and develop it on the road to see when you’ve got the shot (maybe one out of 30 frames).”
The next time we needed a shot, he was in LA, so we tried it ourselves (left). 
But we changed one thing: we used a four-lane parkway.