[vinod332002]

Mercedes showed off (no pun intended) an invisible car. The car has an LED mat and uses a live feed from an SLR to achieve this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGzpi9lCck

More details: The 'invisible' car from Mercedes

[Rehaan]

If there's any car that screams "PLEASE T-BONE ME!!" its this one

Though from the video it seems like they have probably driven it on cordoned off pieces of road / lanes.

cya
R

[mukeshgoel]

Mercedes engineers must be huge fan of James Bond, Die Another Day (2002) in particular.

Must have got the inspiration from there.

[vinod332002]

The LED mat on the car opens up interesting ideas - such as colour changing cars, buses with ads on the outside that keep changing, hooking up a mifi dongle and having your car show your FB status
T-BHP may need to start a thread "Pics of weird and wacky car LED mats!" if this LED Mat thingy becomes affordable.

[Technocrat]

Nice advert, I remember that the new Knight Rider also mentioned the same principal for making the car invisible.

Btw in this ad they have used the mat only on one side

[deetjohn]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

If there's any car that screams "PLEASE T-BONE ME!!" its this one

And when it's T-boned, the LEDs will shatter and the car will become visible.

But its amazing how some James Bond gizmos of the past are coming alive.

[sohail99]

They're just using it for promoting/advertising their Hydrogen fuel cell technology and the car appears like that from only the left side. The right side, front back and roof are totally visible like that of a normal car!

Apparently they'll be doing a tour of Germany in that!

Its a great advert concept though.

More info - Invisible Mercedes: Scientists use LEDs and a camera to create an 'invisible' car | Mail Online

[seedyk]

Apart from the whole invisible car thing, its such an exceptional and brilliant marketing idea from MB with such an apt tagline. Truly impressed !

[GTO]

A genius of a campaign, and an absolutely brilliant way to get eyeballs. There couldn't have been a better way of getting the 0% emissions point across

BTW, you guys do realise that only 1 side of the car is "invisible"

[Rehaan]

Nice idea, but when seen in real life its not gonna be as believable as the video, due to parallax. Thats the problem with all the current "invisibility cloak" type projects too.

I really liked the opening still shots with the car appearing and disappearing.

Here's another Merc campaign i liked :



cya
R

[fine69]

A-W-E-S-O-M-E-!-!-!

BTW why wouldn't they place small bullet cameras in between the LED sheets and make all the sides invisible? I'm sure they have access to such technology.

[naveen.raju]

Something similar was shown in Richard Hammond's and James May's DVD Special. They fitted gain screens on one side of a RR. Stole their idea?

Here's a sample of that. You can see it in the show's trailer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_VYy6x4bHw

[Maverick1977]

I remember something similar where-in they had covered the car with mirrors so that light would reflect off it and it would appear as invisible. Guess it was done on some episode of TG quite some time back.

[iSpoke]

This one seems bit off-topic, the image of an invisible car! Come across this May 2009 news, - Artist Sara Watson turns her old Skoda Fabia into an 'invisible car'

The University of Central Lancashire artist made the incredible optical illusion by spray painting a battered Skoda Fabia to match the car park and entrance to her art studio.

Image courtesy: DailyMail