An article over at Forbes answers the question that many people may be wondering: Why does "Transformers" heavily tout General (GM) Motors products? The answer is simpler than you may think.

GM and Director Michael Bay are both represented by the same talent agency William Morris (an agency Hasbro, Inc. recently jumped ship to) and GM got to Mr. Bay first, and early.

Unlike other product placements, GM did not have to pay Paramount Pictures to have their cars featured prominently in "Transformers." Instead, they contributed approximately $1 Million in cars to the picture, and will most likely spend even more doing cross-promotional advertisements.

To entice Mr. Bay, GM took him to a "secret design center," as described by Forbes writer Dorothy Pomerantz, in 2005 and showed him over 100 cars that GM has in its arsenal. Apparently, Mr. Bay fell in love with the 2006 Chevrolet Camaro concept and picked it to portray Bumblebee.

GM seems to be quite pleased with the change to expose their cars to the younger moviegoers. "An opportunity like this isn't going to come around again," says Dino Bernacchi, head of branded entertainment for GM. "Unless there's a sequel."