Vault! Who Goes There?

Last May, the Coca-Cola Company lost a heart-breaker to PepsiCo here at You’re a Blog, when each company’s rival sodas squared off in match play, with the boys in blue taking the best-of-nine tourney 5 to 4. If you recall, it was all square in the final frame, when the battle of the citrus sodas was announced. And in a walk, Mountain Dew demolished Mello Yello despite the Days of Thunder product tie-in. A blowout ensued, and Coke was left dumbfounded after coming so close to greatness.

Sound familiar, Bode Miller?

As the Seattle Seahawks can now attest, when you lose the big one, the best thing you can do is put it behind you, rebuild and retool, and get ready for next year. Now I’m not YAB will host another Cola War in ’06 (Recycled Funny? Never!), but it’s nice to know Coke isn’t settling for second best.

Since the new Coke of the 80’s ended up being a disaster, they now know better than to tinker with already good products. Instead, they have decided to upgrade their bullpen, and sign a new closer (since Mt. Dew effectively connected on an inside-the-park grand slam against Mello Yello.) With spring training around the corner, it seems that they’ve got their rookie.

VAULT.

I found out about Vault when I went down to grab lunch this afternoon. Normally, I do not partake of the bottled soft drink cooler, but seeing that they were stocking yellow Gatorade for the first time in, oh, EVER, I headed over. And sure enough, there was Vault, a green bottle with what looks like tire treads around its midsection, boldly proclaiming “Drinks like a soda, Kicks like an energy drink.” Ah, it drinks AND kicks. Sounds like a donkey with a penchant for tequila shots.

Anyways, I passed on entering the Vault today, since I wanted to research it a bit first. But even before I could Google, something from my past shot to the forefront of my mind. Could this? Is this? Will this be?

A second coming of Surge??

For those not in the know, Surge was Coke’s mid-nineties response to Mountain Dew. It was green. It was sugar-laden. And it was actually pretty damn good. Freshmen year of college, Spud actually donated his entire supply of blood donated to the American Red Cross so that he could have this one soft drink pulsing through his veins. It disappeared for good in 2002, due to the fact that Coke decided that the only way to enter the new millennium is to add lemon, vanilla, or lime to every single product offering. And since a “Surge with Lime” had the potential to literally turn your skin green, the project was abandoned.

And yet, 4 years later, Vault has rolled onto the scene. According to Wikipedia (they amaze me more everyday), there has been a sweeping effort of “soda activism” online for the past quadrennial under the heading www.savesurge.org. And the reviews in the blogosphere have been raving. (But then again, most of the blogosphere is populated by raving lunatics, so that’s pretty much par for the course.) But the real reason that Vault is going to survive can be traced back to, yes, Days of Thunder.

Mello Yello had a stock car. It still exists today.
Surge did not have a stock car. It was deep sixed long ago.
Vault? Looks like the rumors mill is alive and well.