Some restorations take more than a few weekends in the garage. For Jeff and Molly Stockwell, bringing a battered 1966 Porsche back to life took two years and became part of their love story.
Porsche has turned that story into ‘The Long Way To “I Do”‘, an animated film that trades traditional car-advertising for something more personal: a road trip, a wedding and the relationship built along the way.
The film follows the couple’s restoration of a Porsche 912. With car parts scattered across the driveway and plenty of mechanical work ahead.
Once finished, the pair took the Porsche on a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, travelling from Los Angeles towards San Francisco. A stretch of road with the ocean alongside them and the restored engine finally running, became one of Jeff’s most treasured memories.
The car made another appearance at their wedding, where the couple arrived in the restored Porsche. They even had their wedding cake dyed to match its colour.
Rather than retelling the story through conventional footage, Porsche enlisted artist and animator Em Cooper to translate the couple’s memories into a hand-painted film.
Working in oil, Cooper painted each frame individually, with scenes blending into one another as the journey progresses. The result is an evolving visual that gives the film the feel of a moving painting, rather than an advertisement.
Produced by Tonic DNA, the film was developed through agencies adam&eve\TBWA and Lola USA.
While the 912 is central to the story, ‘The Long Way To “I Do”‘ is less concerned with horsepower or performance than the memories made around a car. Its central idea is that the best journeys are often defined not by where they end, but by who shares the drive and what it takes to get there.
For Jeff and Molly, the restoration was they built together, long before they made it down the aisle.
