If you’ve ever sold a car you know what a hassle it can be. Between low ball offers, scam e-mails, and even some shady buyers, it’s not an experience most like. However, writer and director Max Lanman found a way to avoid all this with a simple commercial.
Lanman is from Los Angeles, California. He’s been in the film business for a number of years shooting everything from Microsoft commercials to segments on Sesame Street.
When it came time for his fiance, Carrie Hollenbeck, to sell her 1996 Honda Accord EX, Lanman put his skills to work.
Stemming from an idea he came up with a number of years ago, Lanman thought it would be cool to make a luxury car commercial using a really generic used car. When the opportunity to sell Hollenbeck’s car came up, he knew he had to put the project in motion.
To get the filming started, Lanman contacted his friend, actress Anna Marie Avery to play the role of his fiance. He also got ahold of his former college roommate, Christopher Ripley, to help with the actual filming of the commercial. Like Lanman, Ripley also has a nice film resume including commercials for Coke and several music videos including one from Schoolboy Q.
Avery also asked if she could bring her cat, Papa Puff Pants. Apparently, the cat is famous, but what cat isn’t famous on the internet?
Without any kind of budget or anything other than just an idea, the trio set off to drive around SoCal. They ended up putting a tripod in the passenger seat and mounting a camera to the hood of the car to get most of the shots. Once they hit the Pacific Coast Highway, they deployed Ripley’s drone.
Once the shooting wrapped up, Lanman began to piece the commercial together. To add even more pizzazz to the commercial, he asked his friend Andrew Johnson to compose an original musical score. Still feeling it needed something else, he then contacted a neighbor to do the voiceover.
Once finished, Lanman posted the video to Reddit where it took off — probably because of the Reddit obsession with cats.
The Accord is currently for sale on eBay. At the time of writing the article, the winning bid is up to $100,100. Yes, you read that right: a 1996 Honda Accord is currently selling for the price of a brand new Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
Bidding still has another four days to go before it wraps up on Thursday, November 9. No word on whether the extreme big is legitimate or not, but since the couple was asking just $499 for the car, they’ll probably be happy with anything.
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