Mercedes Benz has released its most recent instalment of its on-going top photographer photographer/supermodel collaborative video ads – a two minute 20 second short film shot by Ryan McGinley and featuring the star Karlie Kloss. The ads do not follow a pattern and are therefore quite unpredictable. Of late one has seen Lara Stone caught in a tornado for Alex Prager and Joan Smalls as a statue that suddenly awakens and comes to life for Mario Testino. But the newest release really takes the cake. In it McGinley has used KITT, the robotic car from Knight Rider – remember David Hasselhoff’s hit Eighties TV series? – but in Mercedes avatar – to play a sneaky prank on drama queen Karlie Kloss. This is how the storyline goes. Kloss is out on a mountain drive on a breezy day wearing a billowing white Chloe outfit when she spies a white stallion by the roadside. She pops out the car to take a closer look at the horse and the Mercedes magically comes to life and drives away without her. She has no recourse but to hitch up her skirt and chase the wayward car all the while waving her arms madly and throwing herself on the back windscreen.
The car is supremely untouched by her predicament and simply drives off into the blue beyond leaving her in solitary splendour on the dusty roadside. Aptly titled ‘Mind of its Own’, the film was art directed by Dazed & Confused maestro Jefferson Hack. Going by car ads generally this one is certainly an entertaining way to pass a couple of minutes.
