In Cars, International News, Lexus, Videos / By Jonathan Lee / 10 March 2020 11:55 am / 13 comments

We don’t usually cover regional TV commercials from other countries, but this one caught our eye. You may remember Lexus’ first ever advertisement in the United States, Balance, which featured a Lexus LS 400 driving at a simulated 145 mph (233 km/h) with a tower of champagne glasses stacked on top of the bonnet – without breaking a single one of them.

Thirty years on, a dealer in New Jersey, Lexus of Route 10, recreated that landmark ad with the help of an unlikely but rather fitting assistant. That assistant was none other than Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who balanced the glasses on the bonnet of a brand new LS 500, though – being slightly, ahem, vertically challenged himself – not without a blunder along the way.

With the car sitting on a rolling road on a slight incline (to compensate for the slope of the bonnet), Toyoda then fired up the car and drove it to the same speed as in the original commercial, before climbing out and celebrating with a sip of the bubbly. It should be noted that not once was the car shown at speed with the champagne tower, but you know what they say – never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Of course, it’s very difficult to keep the car anchored and still while it accelerates on a rolling road, especially on an incline, which perhaps was the reason why we never see the full shot. Lexus, however, did once recreate the original ad by revving the engine of both the then-new 2011 LS 460L and a 1990 LS 400, and both times the champagne tower stayed intact.