AutoGuide Answers: Watch Our Favorite Car Commercials

While the best car commercials are usually the funny ones ( for example, I love this Audi/t-rex one), I recently saw this Toyota commercial that I had to pause because I needed a break to get some crying done. This commercial hits the right notes: released close to Father’s Day, it sends a powerful message, tells a good story about the product in a way that wasn’t too in your face (until the somewhat jarring ending), and was sentimental without being cheesy or forced.

While there are hundreds of car commercials out there that have made me laugh and cry and want to buy something (RIGHT NOW!), there is one that sticks in my mind above all others. As a dad, a Star Wars fan, and a child at heart, Volkswagen’s The Force works for me on so many levels. The iconic music, an amazing costume (I never had cool costume like that when I was a kid!), the child’s total immersion, the clever pose showing his disappointment that his mom would be SO obvious sliding the sandwich over, completely ignoring his dad’s expectation of a hug (I know that feeling), and the surprise when his Jedi trick actually works. I could watch this commercial a million times and never get sick of it. This isn’t the only VW commercial that sticks as one of the greatest, as the My Fast and Unpimp My Ride campaigns were both easily in my Top 10 along with Dodge’s Ron Burgundy series.

One of the best automotive commercials of all time, nay, one of the greatest advertisements ever conceived is Honda’s The Cog, a two-minute audio-visual masterpiece pushing the European Accord. This Rube Goldberg-inspired piece is simply awe inspiring.

And it was so good, the company’s Canadian arm evidently decided to follow up with a much shorter spot persuading owners to use genuine Honda parts. The result is hilarious.

BONUS: We can’t forget about this awful Mitsubishi Eclipse ad from a decade and a half ago with the woman having a seizure in the passenger seat.

My favorite car commercial is one that’s banned. The majority of the ad is just a toad discussion about froggy stuff like secretions and stuff. It somehow manages to segue into the toads talking about a vehicle that’s coming down the road in their direction. In the lovable Australian accent, one of them believes they should get off the road at which time the other says they have plenty of time because, “It’s only a four cylinder…four-cylinder, not powerful!”

And with that, those become famous last words for one of the toads. Ford’s point? Its EcoBoost engines offer six-cylinder performance from a four-cylinder engine.