How They Made Those Toyota Tundra Super Bowl Ads

Yesterday, we posted a recap of the car commercials that aired during the Super Bowl. Overall they were pretty boring, with the best ones, promoting the Toyota Tundra, seemingly faked. We didn’t even notice the “actual demonstration” disclaimer at the beginning of each one. Come on, you didn’t think they were really going to drive straight off a cliff and trust the brakes, right? Well, umm … it looks like that’s just what they did.

On a company website, Toyota talks up the “actual demonstration” part of the ads and you can view both commercials in their entirety. There’s also a “making of” video for the seesaw ad which we thought would lead to the trailer flipping over. After seeing the “making of” video, you can guess the speed of the descent a lot more than you could in the finished commercial, which made everything seem a little faster. OK, one down.

Now, the speeding through a closing gate and braking before driving off a cliff commercial: How did they do that in an actual demonstration? According to Cindy Knight, marketing and communications PR manager for Toyota, the stuntmen did a lot of measuring and practicing before trying the real thing. The expert stunt driver also assured the company it could be done without incident. That doesn’t mean they weren’t a tad worried. Knight says she actually felt afraid watching them for the first time and she certainly wouldn’t have looked forward to fielding the press calls if anything had gone wrong.

In the end everything went right. Now we know how they did it.

Comments

[John]

I'd like to know how Lexus pulls off that commercial with the ES falling out of the sky as another ES speeds down the road. I've seen it enough times to know it's real. Pretty amazing.

[Carlos]

The Lexus commercial is fake...the disclaimer says "aerial sequence simulated", but that doesn't mean it's not plausible. There is just no way they could have done that for real, given the variables of making sure the car falls horizontally (required to justify their math) and perfectly on-target to avoid the other car.

[G]

I spoke with a person involved in the making of those videos (I would disclose more, but I don't know that the info should have been leaked to me). There was a crash barrier at the end of the cantilever that was edited out. The sides of the cantilever were open though, so there was certainly still a very great danger in the stunt. And the stunt did take place at a very steep cliff. I'm a bit surprised that the Toyota Rep neglected to mention this bit of info. I guess it loses a bit of magic, but you wouldn't have seen me trying that stunt.

[David]

I am dissatisfied with my 07 Tundra double cab 4x4. The dash rattles, there is a terrible squeeking noise coming from the front right side, the body must have soda can aluminum for sheet metal (already has two dents just from closing the rear doors)! I wish that I would have stayed with GM. I will be getting rid of this ride real soon!

[Zappatista]

Maybe you can help solve a friendly discussion. My buddy swears that the voice in the Tundra commercials is John Goodman, I am not so sure. I think it could be, but he is convinced. Can't find the info anywhere. Got a scoop on this?