It’s the season to be jolly, and Lexus, the Japanese car company, certainly had some jolly good time with their latest marketing stunt, involving their Lexus NX model.
You see, most automakers would give a polite nod to the Winter Holidays by making a winter-themed add, or maybe adding some visual elements to some of their models, etc.
Not Lexus. They thought such things are a bit passé. So they took the bold and engineering-wise problematic decision to replace the wheels on one of their NX cars with ice wheels.
And no, that’s not some fancy euphemism, metaphor or plain exaggeration. They actually replaced the original wheels with ones made entirely of ice.
More so, the car was meant to be driven around on said wheels, which it was.
Now, granted, the driving itself took place in a controlled environment within a place warded off from the public and it wasn’t quite fast (more like parking speed). But that’s due to the fact that the wheels had to bear the 2 ton car on top of them, so it’s understandable why the company and driver weren’t really keen for any racing, despite the acrylics that were put inside the wheels to make them more solid and capable of bearing the load.
Anyway, the transition of the ice wheels Lexus NX from a nice concept to reality wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of 4 master ice sculptors which worked an average of 36 hours on each wheel. They are all part of a company with 35 years of specialized expertise in this field, the “Hamilton Ice Sculptors”.
The finished ice wheels resembled the original ones up to tiny details like the tread pattern, because they were built using laser scans previously taken of the original wheels. And the artists took it further, by inserting LEDs inside them so they light up in the darkness, for an extra cool visual effect.
The work required to make the ice wheels Lexus NX consisted of three months of research, design and testing. And the most creative and risky trick employed to keep it all together for its short drive was to chill the car at -30 degrees Celsius for five whole days prior to its run for glory.
As you might expect, there was a non-negligible chance that the car wouldn’t start after being frozen at such a temperature for 5 days. But, as the company proudly points out, it not only started but did so on the first try and drove as intended.
Of course, such confidence as manifested both in the marketing stunts it pulls (the ice wheels Lexus NX is just the latest) and its tone is polarizing people. Some like their brash courage. Others see it as pointless arrogance.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
Image source: 1.
