How This Magic Machine Tricks You Into Seeing Any Car It Wants

Science, Transportation

Persuading people to buy cars isn’t easy. More than spewing specs and prices, ad agencies have to sell an idea, a concept, a lifestyle. They have to convince you a particular car—more than any other—will make your life better. More often than not, they do that by taking the cars to exotic locations, making them look fabulous, and, they hope, making you imagine you would be fabulous behind the wheel, too.
You know the results. Convertibles by the coast, SUVs in the deep desert, city cars zipping through Rome. And you know that’s not really gonna be your life in the car, no matter how alluring the notion.
What you may not know is just how those ads are made, and that that car on the coast may be something entirely different. Those iconic locations are expensive. Getting cars there ranges from difficult to impossible. Sometimes automakers don’t want to risk exposing a secret design, or they don’t want to wait for the car to be built before filming the ad. But they need something to do the driving.
They need the Blackbird. The electric car doesn’t look like any ride you’ve seen during a commercial break. Instead of a roof on top, it’s got a pile of spinning lasers and cameras. It’s covered in white triangles. It has just one seat.
But it can take on the form of a nearly infinite number of cars. If you see an Audi, various Mercedes, an Aston Martin, a Corvette, a Mustang, even a Chevy Sonic, on TV—you might be looking at the Blackbird, under a digital disguise.

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