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Funky smart fortwo Ad Shrinks Cars To Demonstrate the Model's Practicality – Video

smart fortwo Parking 1 photo
Photo: Youtube Screenshot
At first, this commercial may look a bit too CGI-intensive, but it if you wait until about the 0:40 minute mark you'll see that is not the case. The ad makers actually went through all the trouble of building full-sized mockups of a Mercedes-Benz Citan and a C-Class Estate (T-Modell), both of which can shrink or enlarge at will.
It was probably not a very easy engineering job, especially since the two dummy cars looks the part from just about every angle.

In short, smart wants us to believe that it played a trick on some unsuspecting city dwellers who were trying to parallel park their cars between the two Mercedes-Benz models. We're not so sure they weren't in on the gag from the very beginning, but the resulting commercial is nothing short of amusing; even more so for fans of the “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” flick, in which the famous three-point turn of a luggage cart takes place.

The punch line is something along the likes of “This is how it feels to park a smart,” a pretty obvious take on the fortwo's lilliputian size and maneuverability in crowded spaces. As a refresher, the new smart fortwo only needs about two medium-sized lanes to turn around in one take, while the model's length is almost identical to that of its predecessor.

Measuring only 2,695 mm (106.1 in) in length and featuring a record turning circle of just 6.95 meters (22.8 feet) sure gives the little bugger a number of advantages compared to other cars in a busy city. In other words, the basic idea behind this commercial is not exactly groundbreaking or incredibly original, but it's a pretty cool medium to share the car's two main qualities.

That said, there's maybe a bit too much innuendo toward the end, when the shrinkage problem of the two Mercedes-Benz models reverses after a smart fortwo has parked between them. On the other hand, it may also be a subtle send-off to the also somewhat amusing Fiat 500X/Viagra commercial.

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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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