Robert Moore wrote:After the internet chewed up and spit out the Lexus Sriracha IS, Lexus has to do something to stop the trolls from cannibalizing anything else with a crooked “L” badge on it. So what did it do? It took another Lexus IS and wrapped that sucker with 41,999 (don’t even try to ask why they didn’t just do 42,000) LEDs to make it one of the largest digital rolling distractions that we’ve ever seen. The car was designed in collaboration between Lexus and Vevo to “send a bold signal,” and is featured in Dua Lipa’s “Be the One” music video.
According to Lexus, each of the 41,999 LEDs were applied to the vehicle by hand and, when working together, can broadcast graphics and display animations in response to music and human gestures. When speaking of the car’s debut in Lipa’s music video, Brian Bolain – the General Manager of Product and Consumer Marketing for Lexus – said, “A car as visually striking as the LIT IS required an equally dramatic debut,” said Brian Bolain, Lexus general manager of product and consumer marketing. A music video was a perfect place to launch the LIT IS and working with Dua Lipa allowed the concept to come to life, putting a spotlight on the Lexus IS in an entirely new way.”
The entire car can produce a total of 175,000 lumens when full animated and the LED strips would stretch the length of a half mile, should they be laid out end to end. Say what you want about the Sriracha IS, but this is a far more interesting taking on the IS.
Why It Matters
At the end of the day, Lexus is trying to attract as much attention as it can to the new IS, and wrapping it with an excessive number of LEDs that produce as much as 175,000 lumens is certainly one way to draw attention. While the concept itself is worthless outside of that regard (who knows how many other music videos it might show up in) it’s actually a pretty cool idea of what you could potentially do to a show car. It’s really something you would expect to see as some crazy Japanese car gathering or something, but the possibilities of what you could display really are endless. Apparently, the gesture control functions are assisted by the use of a gaming console, so maybe someday we’ll get to see someone play Super Mario Bros on the side of a Lexus IS. Stranger things have happened, right?
