Cars & Music - A Honda Accord & The Sugar Hill Gang

A memorable car advert and and Sugar Hill Gang' s finest moment may seem like strange bedfellows, but all will become clear.
The Honda 'cog' advert is a favourite of mine; it may have slipped from the public consciousness, but that doesn't dilute it's grandeur. The advert was released in 2003, and while initially I was impressed by its cleverness, I wasn't quite aware of how clever it was. The concept is based on a Rube Goldberg machine, which includes various parts from the Accord with them all connecting and linking together in ingenious ways, all just to press a button on the car's key fob to close the Accord Tourer's tailgate, so that it can roll forward and pull a banner down with the cars name on it.

The advert flows so well and you are entranced right until the very end, but the choreography didn't just happen by accident; the whole process took multiple takes and months of designing, planning and filming to arrive at the end product. Thats right; no special effects, no computer-generated images, just human ingenuity and a crateload of patience. But don't take my word for it, watch the video below:



The music at the end of the advert adds the cherry on the bakewell; it seemingly wasn't picked because of some cryptic connection to the product being sold, but it just adds the right mood. For those of you who can't see past their Lil Wayne albums, Rappers Delight by The Sugarhill Gang can be rightfully described as one of the pillars of early Hip-Hop, although it was incredibly considered more of a disco track when it was first released. Thats not surprising though, when you consider that the song opens with Bernard Edwards' bass line from Chic's Good Times.
Now whether the seventh generation Accord is really as f-l-y as the song would suggest is unlikely, but with Honda's levels of build quality, no doubt they will keep going on and-an on and on-on and on, and won't stop til' the break of dawn.

- Amazosan