I have just read a release from Fiat gushing that the model Elle Macpherson is a big fan of the 500C. Fair enough. There are some nice pics of the lady and the car. No harm in that. She was also an attendee at the big Jaguar XJ party in London a few weeks ago, so it would seem that she perhaps is quite keen on endorsing automotive products. And if I were her, I probably would be, too.

But the celebrity endorsements on cars are just a bit predictable aren’t they? There’s a celeb list pecking order and different brands ally themselves with what they can get and what they consider best complements brand and product for the budget they have.

Myself, I am waiting for a link-up that is just a bit more edgy and imaginative. A ‘celebrity’ endorsement that really jumps off the page (or screen). Could militant ex-coal miners’ leader Arthur Scargill be persuaded to get in a cheap car for the proletariat? Banker Fred Goodwin in a luxury limo? Jeffrey Archer in something that is, somehow, a bit deceptive or that has a dodgy reputation? Or, better still, mix it up and play with people’s minds a bit. Scargill’s in the limo, Goodwin’s in the hairshirt econobox and Archer’s in the ‘honest’ motor, steeped in integrity.

Here are a few suggested TV advertising ideas off the top of my head.

Scargill, with car in a windswept location, his comb-over out of control: [shouting, jabbing his index finger at the camera] ‘Like me, this car will never surrender while it has a breath in its body.’ [But he doesn't get in the car, he walks up and puts a leaflet under the windscreen wipers that reads 'I told you so'; but as he walks away, the wipers engage and the leaflet blows away].

Goodwin, in a lavish location, south of France maybe: [well dressed, emerges from swanky restaurant, well-healed and attractive woman on his arm, turns to camera] ‘ Me? I watch my pennies, which is why this car [moves to open the door on incongruous small hatchback, parallel parked in the street next to luxobarges twice its size] meets my needs.’ [Drives off to sound of 'Fly me to the moon']

Jeffrey Archer is standing outside a prison gate: ‘Regrets? Yes, I have a few. But this isn’t one of them’ [grins madly, climbs into his car and then, a little perversely, drives into the prison as the big gate opens, to the tune of Louis Armstrong singing 'When you're smiling' - the suggestion is that Archer has turned his life around, is doing some good works in the prison and that his car is a part of his personal renaissance and a rejection of his previous, slightly less than wholesome, values...].