This year marks the 35th anniversary of Lexus, which launched its first car – the LS400 – back in 1989. Incorporating hundreds of new patents, the LS400 impressed upon its debut and found 3,000 owners within the first month of its launch.
To promote the speed and ultimate refinement of its first model that is meant to challenge BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, Lexus aired the award-winning Balance commercial the same year of the LS400’s release.
In the video, a five-row pyramid of champagne glasses is delicately balanced on the bonnet of the car before it accelerates from a standstill to 233 km/h (145 mph) on a rolling road. The camera later pulls back to reveal that the glasses remained as they were throughout the experience, with a voiceover delivering the killer punchline: “The Lexus LS is designed to stir the soul… and not much else.”
Fast forward several years later to 2020, Lexus recreated the advertisement, this time with Akio Toyoda (now a chairman of Toyota) doing the work of balancing glasses and accelerating a fifth-generation LS 500.
For its 35th anniversary, Lexus is once again revisiting the landmark advertisement but is upping the ante by adding more glasses to the bonnet instead of the 15 used in past. As you can tell by the video, the LS remains as speedy and refined as the original, with the video ending with another crafty line: “Same soul-stirring mindset, 20 more glasses.”
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