Well, is it fake?

[steve1]

 

What do you think?

 

steve

[frame69]

Fake.There would be sparks,dust and things if it was real.And the car would act differently.

Frame.

[bertiedog]

Quite feasible, centrifugal force would overcome gravity easily, same principle as the Wall of Death. But the advert is carefully edited, and several takes involved, Dust? I think they would have cleaned the tunnel spotless, and the Mercedes does not smoke, or spark!

 

 

Part of the reason I think it "real" is that I drove Wall of Death bikes!, and saw cars used as well, and have seen them driven through cyclone loops, very much the same conditions as the tunnel.

 

But I also know adverts very well, and filming, and the finished film does not really show the stunt as clean as it looks. To say the least CGI has been used in the edit.

 

Stephen.

[Robert]

I'd go for real.

 

It is the one stunt that Remy Julienne didn't manage to achieve in the Italian Job - although by all accounts he did manage to do it once in the rehearsal when the camera wasn't (unfortunately) rolling. If it is possible in a Mini Cooper, it should certainly be possible in an SLS! B)

[David Rickard]

 

Any anything you see on TV real?

[Robert]

Frightening isn't it? Who said the camera doesn't lie? Can we ever distinguish between fact and fiction again?

 

Theoretically, it would be possible for the news media to also feed us with anything that it was decided we should hear

 

Perhaps the moral in all of this should be, if you didn't see it with your own eyes, it didn't happen!

[David Rickard]

Theoretically, it would be possible for the news media to also feed us with anything that it was decided we should hear

 

 

Theoretically?! You mean, you don't think that's what they already do?!

 

 

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

There is no way that people and other vehicles would be in the tunnel under the point where the car is going inverted. Well, that's my opinion: just too silly to take such a risk. But the stunt is technically feasible, so long as the car is always on a helical path. Someone whose maths is less rusty can work out the required minimum angular velocity and translate that to road speeds that have to be maintained for a range of entry angles.

... Theoretically, it would be possible for the news media to also feed us with anything that it was decided we should hear ...

Philip K Dick wrote the best account of the full dystopian possibility in 'The Penultimate Truth' circa 1964; on the basis of what was then being achieved by filmed special effects. Goodness knows what he would have come up with if he had lived to see CGI. I think this may have been the first of his novellas I encountered, and it made me an instant fan. Just the thought of retrograde-scoopwise is enough to bring a smile to my lips.

[Guest Max Stafford]

Amazing. And this stuff is precisely why I am an empiricist...!

 

Dave.

[bertiedog]

Just been discussing this with a friend who has driven stunts and he says the ad is cleaned up with CGI as I thought, but it's no problem achieving the speed or accuracy needed. For the weigh of the Mercedes, a speed of about 80 would be enough, and 90+ for a margin of safety, and we both would expect the Merc to have been stripped and lightened allowing a lower speed. The driver would start the wall and floor it for a moment, making sure he did not lost traction to maintain a forward course, easing as you go over, again to keep control.

 

 

The forces required are about twice the Wall of Death requirement, which is about 40mph for a car, and about 25 for a bike,(of which I have experience!),and a little secret, it's easy to drive on the wall, but it's a bu**er to get on and off.........still got the bruises!. I spent a day on the pillion of an Indian before going solo, what got at you was the noise, and the wobbly wall, travelling type!! We used go-carts, and a Ford Anglia,(old type) was used on a permanent larger wall.

 

The cyclone track was built exactly like the toy hot wheels track, about 50 foot diameter, and a car would go around at about 60+.... it went over the top in firm contact, so the tunnel is in theory only a bit more difficult, accuracy on run up would be vital.

 

Stephen.

[Robert]

Theoretically?! You mean, you don't think that's what they already do?!

 

Well, to be honest they probably do!

 

 

There is no way that people and other vehicles would be in the tunnel under the point where the car is going inverted.

 

You are probably right there. Perhaps the people were added later, but the stunt itself was performed. After all, Remy Julienne put several Mini's on their roofs in the tunnel - and you wouldn't want to be under them!

[Pinkmouse]

I'm convinced this is physically possible, but I'm equally as convinced this add is a fake. Reasons - long shot of the tunnel shows lighting strips and wiring/ductwork along the top of the tunnel, both sides. Very easy to paint out digitally, but can you imagine the facilities manager's response if you told him you were going to rip out half his infrastructure? Another clue is again to do with the lighting, notice how where the car runs up the wall the lighting has been "removed", but the level of illumination doesn't change?

 

So, I think the ramp at the side of the tunnel is real, I think the car ran halfway up the wall, then CGI took over for the full rotation and the landing. But still a cracking ad.

[Mikkel]

 

Any anything you see on TV real?

 

Imagine what could be done with model railway videos using these techniques...

[DavidBelcher]

I'd go for real.

 

It is the one stunt that Remy Julienne didn't manage to achieve in the Italian Job - although by all accounts he did manage to do it once in the rehearsal when the camera wasn't (unfortunately) rolling. If it is possible in a Mini Cooper, it should certainly be possible in an SLS! B)

 

The Italian Job production team reckoned that if the concrete sewer [1] had been bone dry, rather than damp and covered with algae, it would've been a far, far easier stunt to pull off. As it was, traction was in short supply.

 

David

 

[1] In Coventry, rather than Turin. Not many people know that.

[Harbottle]

Whether it's fake or not ..... I want one!

[hollywoodfoundry]

Absolutely a fake IMO.

 

I don't believe there is enough curvature in the tunnel to produce the required centrifugal forces to 'stick' the car to either the wall or the tunnel. Look at the footage again, there is a slight curve coming into it, but along the section where the 'stunt' is performed, it is essentially straight. The car would fall off the wall or roof.

 

In any event, virtually every car manufacturer these days has a full animation build of their various models, and with CGI you can make them do anything. Apart from anything else, the ad agency would pay far less to get it done with CGI than in reality. About half of all car advertisements these days use CGI animation rather than shoot the real thing.