http://www.honda.co.uk/newcars/300k.swf

Direct link to the 300K version, so you can save it to your hard drive.

Amazing ad! Well done. They really ought to credit "The Way Things Go," the installation art piece video that obviously inspired it:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005UW7W

this meme was originally propagated from

http://torrez.org/archives/000537.php

which has further background on the movie "The Way Things Go"

I've got a copy of the way things go (der lauf der dinge) somewhere around here; had it since about '88. It's really
fun to watch, but oh too short (about 30-odd mins). It's good, I think, to see these guys getting work doing what they love (even if it is for a car that obviously isn't a hybrd).

They played Der Lauf der Dinge at the Tim North Benefit (blogged here) a couple of weeks ago, it was the best 30 minutes of the event for me. It didn't even occur to me that it would be available on DVD, definitely going to order a copy.

The best 5 minutes was when the front man for F-Space pounded an out of control woman's head into a wall when she tried to interrupt the band's performance.

I was showing this around at a clients' place last week. The most amazing thing was how many didn't have a clue who Rube Goldberg is/was...

It just premiered here, during the coverage of the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Being among geeks the question has to be: how much of it is CGI? I caught a couple of moments where the reflections looked a little too plastic, but is it all in-computer?

I thought that too, James. The physics of the tires rolling didn't look right.

The tires are counter weighted so they roll up hill.

This is just *REALLY* freakin' cool and very well done. Rube Goldberg stuff can either be trite and dead horse flagellation, or it can be totally engaging and captivating.
Why can't American agencies do stuff like this instead always riffing off "it'll get you laid!" in the most mediocre, sophomoric manner possible?

There's some artist guy who does this stuff (I can't recall his name), and this looks like his work -- a paid gig he did for Honda. I recognize the wood floors and walls from another contraption he did, which I saw video-projected at the San Fran Museum of Modern Art. It's all real, no CG. The 300K Flash version doesn't do this justice -- you'd have to see this on full-screen TV quality video to see the details.

Anybody know who the artist I'm describing, and who is probably the creator of this, is?

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/page.cfm...headline=TAKE%20606 as found on slashdot indicates there was only one CGI - that's linking two separate takes together with a bit of animation on the rolling muffler.