Lexus recreates iconic Balance ad featuring LS to celebrate 35th anniversary, now with more glass

This year marks the 35th anniversary of Lexus, which launched its first car – the LS400 – in 1989. With hundreds of new patents, the LS400 was an instant hit and had 3,000 owners in its first month on the market.

To promote the ultimate speed and refinement of its first model designed to challenge BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, Lexus aired the award-winning Balance ad the same year the LS400 was launched.

In the video, a pyramid of five rows of champagne glasses is delicately balanced on the car’s hood before accelerating from a standstill to 233 km/h (145 mph) on a rolling road. The camera then pulls back to reveal that the glasses have remained in place throughout the experience, with a voiceover delivering the killer joke: “The Lexus LS is designed to stir the soul… and nothing more.”

Back a few years later, in 2020, Lexus recreated adThis time Akio Toyoda (now Toyota president) took on the job of balancing the glass and accelerating the fifth-generation LS 500.

For its 35th anniversary, Lexus is revisiting this landmark ad, but upping the ante by adding more glass to the hood instead of the original’s 15. As you can see in the video, the LS is still as fast and refined as the original, with the video ending with another clever line: “Same soul-stirring thinking, 20 more.”

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