CALIFORNIA – “You don’t need things. You’re happy with who you are,” a low, smoky voice utters, surrounded by an elegant classical backing track. “Luxury is a state of mind.”
It looks just like the car commercials we see on TV every day, except it’s hawking a used 1996 Honda Accord with over 141,000 miles on it.
The beautifully-shot spoof ad has it all – long trailing shots, aerial footage on a coastal road, and even a woman pouring coffee inside the car with a cat on her lap.
Already topping 3.8 million views on YouTube, the commercial pushed the eBay auction to reach $150,000. It was so vastly far beyond the initial asking price of $499 that eBay “canceled the original auction in error and has asked us to start the auction over,” according the filmmaker’s YouTube channel.
“We were told that someone from their fraud department, who was unaware of the commercial / story, could not believe that a 1996 Honda Accord was going for $150,000 and ended the auction. Per Ebay’s request, we have restarted the auction back at its original starting price of $499. We will have more updates later today,” reads a pinned comment from the channel.
By Tuesday morning, bidding has risen to over $4,200 and rising – still a far cry from 150 grand, but well over the estimated Kelley Blue Book value of roughly $1,200. Whether the auction will reach its previous heights remains to be seen.
Max Lanman, the filmmaker behind the video told BBC News, “It dawned on me that it would be really funny to film a car commercial for a really crappy car against such a gorgeous backdrop.”
The entire film looks and feels like a real commercial, but is sprinkled with cheeky lines like, “a car for people who have life figured out and just need a way to get somewhere.”
Lanman never expected it to generate the kind of buzz it’s seen in just the last few days.
