“Coolest Car Ever”

I find it somewhat difficult to find commercials on YouTube, mostly because I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Thankfully, MetaCafe has a category devoted solely to “cool commercials,” which makes an appropriate commercial easy to find – from there, I simply look up the video on YouTube.

With this week’s topic in mind, this commercial about a series of Nissan vehicles was an obvious choice. To start, we see an SUV* driving along rather mountainous terrain, only to be confronted by what seems to be an insurmountable blockade of boulders. The vehicle stops briefly, as if contemplating how best to overcome the obstacle. Undeterred, the car presses on, suddenly transforming into an animal-like machine reminiscent of a mountain lion. We see the car continue its journey over a snowy peak, reverting back to its vehicular form. Soon, however, the car assumes another animal guise, this time a spider. After its descent over loose ground, it once more becomes a car. Upon reaching a river, it morphs once again to become a very crocodilian creature. It surges through the water, emerging unharmed on the opposite shore. Its final mutation is that of a snake, weaving through a serpentine (pun intended) pathway through a rock formation. After once more becoming a car, it ascends a hill onto a paved stretch of road and calmly continues its drive. The commercial ends with a brief showcase of the models featured in the commercial.

_{*Although the models are shown at the end, during the commercial I couldn’t identify which model was which.}

  

Really, if this commercial doesn’t positively SCREAM ”metaphor,” I don’t know what does. The advertisers have cleverly used various attributes of easily recognizable animals to represent qualities the vehicles possess. As I interpret them, power, stability, amphibiousness, and control, respectively.