If those racing stripes on your car have failed to turn heads in the way you’d hoped, then here’s an idea that’ll guarantee people look your way as you motor around your neighborhood. Though setting it up may take a while.
Promoting its new 2017 IS sedan, Lexus has just unveiled a one-off creation that encases the car in 41,999 LED lights. It’s surely the ideal vehicle for road-based attention seekers, especially community-minded ones who’ll also be able to use it to illuminate the neighborhood in the event of a power outage.
The lights transform the car, called the “LIT” (what else?), into a screen capable of displaying an array of dazzling graphics and multi-colored animations.
Three different modes allow the lights to interact with nearby sounds and people. Attract mode, for example, features a loop of colorful graphics “that highlight the strong lines of the IS and play into its bold styling,” so the company says.
Music Viz mode, meanwhile, is designed to respond to music, with the LEDs creating custom, responsive displays that sync to the track blasting out of your speakers.
Finally, Gesture mode allows you to control the motion of the LED animations via a gaming console, allowing anyone in the car to create a dazzling light display at 70 mph. Or while you’re stuck in traffic.
Lexus’ marketing team clearly thought it was an awesome idea, even if the minions tasked with transforming the car quite possibly didn’t. That’s because each and every one of those 41,999 lights had to be applied by hand, lights which, “if placed end-to-end, would stretch half a mile in length.” So yes, it’s a lot of lights.
Music video
To take its new car to a wider audience, Toyota’s Lexus brand teamed up with British artist Dua Lipa to have the car star in a music video for her new Be the One track.
It’s not the first time Lexus has given the new IS a somewhat striking makeover. Just last month it unveiled a bright red Sriracha-themed version dubbed “the hottest Lexus IS ever.” It even came with “oven mits” for driving gloves and a trunkful of Sriracha bottles for “emergency condiment situations.” And how can we forget 2015’s remarkable origami design?
So, what do you make of the Lexus LIT IS? Absurdly cool? Or just absurd? Sound off in the comments below.
