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6 Cool Stunts Orchestrated by Automakers
If you ever worry that you are crazy (or or that we’re crazy, for that matter), take comfort in the fact that people who promote cars can be even loonier than those who buy, fix, and race them. It’s in a promoter’s job description to be provocative and surprising, whether that’s ramming a Jeep through a glass wall, putting a Mustang on the Empire State Building, backflipping a Mini in the Alps, or making a car out of cake. (You’re forgiven for assuming the last was the British. It was the Czechs—Škoda, to be precise.)
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the coolest stunts done to promote cars—it’s simply some of the most daring and action-packed. (Hence why Lexus’ famous champagne glass stunt, in which the LS400 was going 155 mph on a dynamometer, is an honorable mention.)
Which automotive stunt made your jaw drop IRL, as the kids say? Let us know in the comments below, and share a link to YouTube, if applicable!
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No, Not That Sonic. The Chevy!
“The fact that it even worked is pretty remarkable,” says MTV-famous skateboarder Rob Dyrdek in this video, which must be the least exciting documentation of a stunt that, before the cameras rolled, they had never done successfully. The genesis of the trick was Chevrolet’s desire to market the new, 2012 Sonic to millennials, who liked newfangled things like DC shoes, MTV, and skateboarding and had short attention spans. Dyrdek had experience in stunt driving, actually; he worked with the late Ken Block in Gymkhana 2.1, driving a teeny tiny Subaru. The suited-up Dyrdek hit 43 mph in a stripped, caged Sonic that he then drove up a ramp, flew over the world’s largest skateboard, rolled in the air, and landed rear-axle-first on an angled platform at Six Flags: Magic Mountain in December of 2011.
MGs (And Fiats) Go Parachuting
There is “lore” behind this particular stunt from 1972, which Brendan McAleer details in this article. The lore is this: In the ’60s, Italian cars were notoriously fragile—or so everyone thought. (Not just then? Ouch.) Some bright person at Fiat decided that the best way to refute such a notion would be to put a person in a car, put the car on the plane, and drop car with driver out of the plane. After a nice parachute landing, they would then drive the car away, demonstrating its strength. And they … did exactly that.
British Leyland Motor’s U.S. advertising department did a throwback of sorts to that ad in 1972, desperate for a competitive edge in face of Japanese competition. (Unlike Italian cars, British cars had never been accused of being delicate … or wait. Nevermind.) Do yourself a favor, and, after watching the original Fiat stunt below, go back and read McAleer’s article—in which he interviewed one of the men who made it happen. Spoiler alert: A red MG was harmed in the making of the video below.
Hang … Tight?
Hang Tough, that was it. Honda’s hanging Passport stunt is the most recent one on this list, and it’s the one that got us thinking about the best ones of years past. Long the family hauler in Honda’s line of SUVs, the Passport has recently transformed from nondescript to not so bad indeed. This “glow up” has been accompanied by a new emphasis on off-roadability, and to emphasize the Passport’s ruggedness, Honda enlisted a crane with a 140-foot boom. From that boom, it hung a Passport by its “exposed and easily accessible heavy-duty front recovery points”—those red hooks in the front bumper. From that Passport it hung another, and from that, yet one more. The hook on the highest SUV is holding 14,000 pounds.
Semi Jumps Over F1 Car
If we hadn’t included a stunt with a semi-trailer in it, something would have been missing. This one is a race transporter, evidently of Renault design, that served the Lotus F1 Team. In November of 2014, the Lotus team was looking for a way to promote its partnership with digital storage giant EMC (purchased a year later by Dell), something that would illustrate the competitive advantage that such a partnership would give it on track. Why not set a world record for jumping a semi?
The stunt would have been even more interesting if one of the team’s drivers, Romain Grosjean or Pastor Maldonado, had been driving the F1 car, though that might have been a bit more risk than they were willing to take. Spoiler alert: It all went well, everyone survived, and it looked awesome. The stunt itself is embedded above, but here’s a “how it’s made” video if you’d like to watch that after.
The Split
If one semi makes for an awesome stunt, how about two—plus Jean-Claude Van Damme? The original plan was to shoot this commercial in multiple takes, but as the team practiced on the Spanish airstrip with a stunt person who wasn’t the famous Belgian martial artist, and a special pair of brackets that mounted on the wing mirrors, they realized they could do it in one. The day of the shoot, they had two possible time slots with Van Damme: Sunrise and sunset. They got the shot—in the morning, on take one! “It was the shortest day I’ve had on camera,” said the stunt coordinator in this YouTube interview.
Ski Jump!
All-wheel drive is everywhere in 2025, but in 1986, Audi’s Quattro-equipped cars were still hard at work trying to make inroads into the U.S. market. The benefits of four driven wheels might not have been obvious to consumers back then, but when an unmodified Audi 100 CS scampered up the 37.5-degree slope of Finland’s Pitkavouri ski jump, it certainly helped set Audi apart from its mostly rear-wheel drive competition.
Honorable Mentions:
We couldn’t end this list without mentioning some of our other favorites. “The Cog” is an absolute classic featuring a Rube Goldberg–style machine built of Honda Accord parts and a killer one-line script. And remember that one time BMW used a motorcycle to pull a tablecloth off a giant, set table? Last, but certainly not least, no one could forget the famous “champagne glass” commercial from Lexus, featuring the LS400. We like that one so much we’ll embed it here.
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The Daytona 500
I was thinking of the Toyota Tundra ads, the one with the trailer and see-saw ramp, and this one with the closing steel doors and the cliff. https://youtu.be/bzZsJiyuc2g?feature=shared
I always liked the Chevy truck towing a Boeing 747.
Are you thinking of the Tundra towing the space shuttle in Los Angeles.
The Tundra was copying the Chevy as from decades ago.
Launching a Tesla Roadster into space is one of my faves
Absolutely the best
Right! It is now he fastest car in the known universe.
Absolutely the best! They should check the sentry system for video!
This was and remains simply epic. The event said more about the car and the visionary car company without once referring to the specs and performance of the vehicle.
1967 Ford Galaxie going off the ski jump.
RIGHT!
That Lexus commercial set the tone for them to dominate the Asian Luxury segment from their inaugural year onward…they never looked back!
The Corvairs crossing the Darien Gap is pretty neat.
Probably 20 years ago Jeep parachuted one of their SUVs from an aircraft. The Jeep landed – parachutes taken off – and the Jeep drove away. I don’t think the ad ever made it to the TV. I knew the parachute rigger involved – who showed us the video.
Them – “Hey! You want a good deal on a slightly used semi?.. Me: ‘Nah, I’m good..’.
Michael Schumacher driving the SLS Mercedes upside down in the tunnel was a good one.
The Dodge Commericals where they dropped d100s, not really a stunt but still fun to watch
The put a Mustang on top of the Empire State Building in 1065 or 66
Must have been 1066, just after the Battle of Hastings. :^)
That semi truck jump was pretty cool. Never saw that one before. Just seeing air under a semi with trailer is pretty cool.
Stacked Volvo ad: “Will the new 740 uphold the Volvo tradition?”
This suite of Saab stunts is an all time great in my opinion.
https://youtu.be/_XepxWIFvNk?si=AdVb6SRdojkaXqIj