Lexus Owner Recreates Epic LS400 “Champagne Glass” Ad from the 1980s

In one of the cleverest ads from the 1980s, Lexus stacked fifteen champagne glasses on the hood of its (then new) LS400 sedan...and then placed it on a dynamometer. Taking the LS400 up to a simulated 145 mph (233 km/h), the viewer marvels as the glasses remain exactly where they should be. The ad ends with the Lexus logo and the words, “The Lexus LS400 is designed to stir the soul...and not much else.”

It’s a great bit of advertising and holds up pretty well even today. There is one question that many would-be Lexus owners may be asking themselves today: are the cars still as good as they were back then? Has engineering perfection über alles survived twenty years of market reinvention and product development?

One Lexus owner has decided to find out, by (sort of) recreating the experiment with his own Lexus LS460 sedan, some champagne glasses half filled with water and an ordinary suburban driveway. The first test with wineglasses and 5800 rpm works well, but can this same feat be performed with nine glasses and 7500 rpm?

I guess you’ll just have to watch the video to find out.

By Tristan Hankins

Via Lexusenthusiast

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VIDEO: Lexus Sets the Bar High, Chains Four Cars on LS in New TV Ad

In another sign that luxury automakers in the U.S. are raising the stakes -or so to speak- with their latest commercials, following Audi's recent A8 ad, Lexus has released a new TV spot as part of an advertising campaign to demonstrate how far the company goes to achieve perfection.

This particular broadcast ad is titled “Chain” and it shows a crane slowly lifting the front end of a LS, which is attached to four more Lexus models (RX, GS, ES and IS) using nothing more than cables and stretch bars. At the end of the spot, a $375,000 LFA comes into the shot and parks directly below the chain of vehicles weighing a total 21,000 pounds.

The key point here is that the commercial is real and that no special effects were used for its creation as Lexus proves in the 'Behind the Scenes" video.

“It isn’t enough to just say that we pursue perfection, we want to demonstrate the great lengths we go to in our pursuit,” states Dave Nordstrom, vice president of marketing for Lexus.

“The new broadcast spot allows us to focus on the foundation of our vehicles, the chassis, and show its almost unbelievable strength. In fact, we feared that it would be so unbelievable, we invited a physicist and structural engineer to witness the shoot, to prove that it did, in fact, occur without the use of special effects or computer generated-imagery.”

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