Champion Spark Plug was among a handful of Toledo’s lifeblood businesses for decades, until the automotive parts company shuttered its main Toledo plant in 1991 and later excised itself completely from the city in 2010.
As noted by Esquire and others, now the Champion Spark Plug brand is all the rage, on T-shirts no less, thanks to Hollywood — as in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and its costar Brad Pitt.
In filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s acclaimed and well-received revisionist period piece set in 1969 Tinseltown, Pitt plays a handsome and rugged stuntman named Cliff Booth, who spends much of his screen time sporting a yellow Hawaiian-style shirt, unbuttoned and opened wide, with a thin cotton T-shirt underneath emblazoned with a slightly faded Champion logo.
As with most Tarantino films, the attire not only makes the man but also serves as a quick reference point about the character to audiences. In this case, Cliff Booth is meant to be seen as a champion. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean… read more >
