I’ve posted about this great Rube Goldberg commercial before, but didn’t have this backstory to go with it. Besides, it’s well worth looking at again.
The coolest Honda commercial of all time.
I got a link to this from a good buddy. I wish we got commercials like this here in the US. It’s truly amazing to watch the cleverness of this “Rube Goldberg machine” idea — especially when you know the back story. (requires Flash)
Honda Commercial in the U.K that’s very cool!
Supposedly there are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn’t work. Each time the crew would have to set the whole thing up again. They supposedly spent weeks shooting it.
There are six and only six handmade Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film. Everything you see in the film are parts from those two cars. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real and that two of their handmade cars had been disassembled.
Oh! And about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet. It does look a bit weird in the commercial. Just one second of computer generation is used to link the two halves when an exhaust pipe rolls across the floor. At one point, three tires roll uphill because inside they are weighted with bolts and screws.
Thanks Michael!