- with the weeknd's "bright lights"—okay, a cover version—blaring, a guy selling his used 2010 ford focus puts the emphasis on how cool you are, not the car, in a clever homemade commercial.
- the seller told car and driver that despite over 30,000 youtube views and counting, the car's still for sale. well, the buyer pool in his town of grand forks, north dakota, isn't exactly deep.
- still, an obvious upside is that the seller has gotten offers to make more videos for other people's used cars.
we're come a long way from the days when a simple classified ad would sell your car. these days, people often share a full slate of glamour shots of the car they're trying to offload, and clever descriptions and stories aren't uncommon, either. but if you've got the time and a few friends, you can take things to the next level with a cinematic youtube entry.
that's the route taken by john thomas goerke, who lives in grand forks, north dakota, and describes himself as an old-school dodge viper fan. goerke is selling his 2010 ford focus se with 120,000 miles on it for $5999. that's roughly in line with the higher end of the kelley blue book prices for other used focus se models of that era available online, but those old focus models don't come with this cool two-minute video that was first spotted by our friends at motor1.
with more than 30,000 views so far, goerke's video has unquestionably managed to attract outsize attention for an old ford. according to the youtube comments, people around the world, including russia and australia, have been pointed toward the video by their local news outlets, but all of this attention hasn't helped actually make the sale. goerke told car and driver he still has the car, but that doesn't mean the time spent creating the commercial was wasted.
"more people have been interested in hiring me to make videos for them than in paying almost $6000 for a 10-year-old car," he said. "i'm not too surprised. the car is listed on the upward edge of the kelly blue book. and the actual number of people who could plausibly purchase it is pretty small, since i live in north dakota."
the plot of the ad is a bit confusing, with the main character driving riskily thanks to (simulated) drug and alcohol intoxication before stumbling out on a dirt road, but everything looks cool and the choice of song is fitting. it's a cover of the weeknd's "blinding lights," and the video for the original song, which inspired goerke's ad, also featured a car driving around at night since it was basically an advertising extravaganza promoting the mercedes-amg gt roadster.
for goerke's purposes, his ad's honest message is revealed in the one line of narration: "no matter what you think when you see it, remember that cool comes from what's inside the car." that, when you think about it, could really be the tagline for 90 percent of the used cars sold each year.