BMW M5 “Jet Car” banned commercial

By Horatiu Boeriu. Read Bio
January 2nd, 2009 | BMW M5 | 30 comments

I was browsing Youtube the other night and came across a BMW M5 commercial which apparently was banned from TV. It’s an older commercial since the M5 advertised is the previous generation model, codename E39.

I could also established from the video that the commercial was supposed to air in UK since the caption says: “The BMW M5. Fastest saloon car on the planet”. Saloon is the equivalent of sedan and it’s a very common word in the UK.

In my opinion, the commercial is very creative but I do see why TV stations would ban it.

P.S A reader just emailed me and said that some countries did air the commercial, for example South Africa.

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izzy

this was aired in the UK
Gragop

I used this ad when I was in college for a presentation in a marketing class, everyone loved it.
AUL

I don’t see why its banned
Gragop

Wasn’t there some controversy with this commercial implying that the M5 was much, much faster than it really is? Ahh damn lawyers ruin everything.
Giom

To confirm, it was aired in South Africa. To me it was just good old fashion advertizing fun.

Was this ad filmed in the US?
adood84

@Gragop: Yup that is the reason it was banned, beacuse it was implying that the M5 is faster than that jet thing so it was banned in some countries for being misleading
http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.

@adood84: But it is faster :)))
Lance

Yes, it was aired in SA. I do not see why they would ban it. They cannot just assume that the other vehicle was travelling at top speed, therefore emplying that the M5 is faster at top speed.
Gragop

@Lance:

Here in America you’re considered retarded until proven otherwise…9 out of 10 times the person is actually retarded.
The Lee

@Gragop:
Yup, pretty much. There are worse countries out there (I don’t think we’re quite as bad with the nanny laws as the UK or others), but generally speaking the legal system in the US is solely here to protect idiots.

“But I bought my factory-stock M5 under the impression that it could break the sound barrier.”

The response to this should be “You’re an idiot. Get the hell out of my court room before I have the bailiff shove his shiny black shoe up your ass.”

Instead we get “Awwww, you poor soul. Here, I awarded you a bunch of money. Try not to spend it all on shiny stuff and bouncy balls from the quarter machine in front of the grocery store.”
Gragop

@The Lee:

My question has always been: How does someone stupid enough to believe the commercial is real actually acquire enough cash to buy an M5?

Unless it was via a home equity line or a second mortgage on a house back in ’99 to ’03? Ohh too soon?
The Lee

@Gragop:
Trust fund? I’ve known quite a few people that came “from money” who had the common sense of a small mud puddle. Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of them were local BMW and Audi owners I met at car meets.
izzy

i acutally saw it recently on uk tv?
john

How was this commercial banned?

Anyone who was a BMW fan a few years ago knows this commercial very well. I guess BMWBlog needed something to make news out of and pulled this commercial out of the history books and made up some false facts about it being a banned commercial.

BMWBlog continues to simply make up news. I feel sad for the community that has built up over here, mostly people very new to BMW with no sense of the history of this company, and actually believe the junk that is published by this blog. So sad.
http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.

Welcome back anonymous John! Actually, the commercial was banned in certain countries.

The idea of the video is to show BMW’s creativity and to see an interesting video, nothing else. And yes, we sometimes do pull “news” from the past and relate them. It’s what we do instead of just focusing on latest news or spy photos.
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  @john Sorry we can’t post breaking news daily and unveiling of new models. But we’ll try harder….
  
  P.S All of you, new BMW fans, according to John you guys don’t count since you’re not old school and with no sense of the history of this company. :)
Retard-detection-bot

@john: Awww thanks for your pity John, and thanks for taking the time to enlighten us all with your stunning wisdom, for you are truly the king of all BMW fans, with boundless knowledge and really good social skills. I’d failed to see that everything on this Blog was actually just a tangled web of lies, made up to decieve those of us that are not quite as amazing as you. In fact I’m now pretty certain that BMW doesn’t exist at all, it’s just a figment of Horatiu’s imagination…

Thanks, no really.. from this day forth January the 2nd should be known as “john is amazing Day”! All Hail john.. King of the really important people with lots of friends!!!

Seriously though… well done, that really was some really good ‘false fact’ detection work. Everybody give john a round of applause!
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  Not worth it, this is not his first comment on here, he left about 4-5 before, pretty much the same. I guess a “friend” from New York that doesn’t like us. I don’t get insulted, but I wouldn’t let anyone talk bad about other readers. Not everyone owned a BMW 10-15 yrs ago, including myself, so in my opinion, we can all learn from the old school bimmer fans, which in fact I did, but that doesn’t make me or anyone less of a BMW fan.
  
  Anyway…we can move on :)
Gragop

@john:

What part of this post is false? I mean, since you’re obviously Tom Purves or someone like that – and you know who he must be since you’re plugged into BMW so well – please enlighten us.

What’s funny is you continue to claim BMWBlog makes news up and you apparently don’t like it, yet, like a jackass with too much time on his hands you continually come here and post about it with next to nothing to contribute or counter if all of this news is made up.

And for the record, the commercial was banned within certain markets due to concerns that BMW would be preceived as providing false advertising as an E39 M5 clearly couldn’t keep up with a land rocket. Go and google “Banned BMW M5 commercial” and you will find literally hundreds of sources outside of this site that confirm it was banned – I guess BMW Blog controls those too?
Gragop

@The Lee: I went to school with a lot of people like that…it’s amazing how fast an idiot can go through a trust fund.
Giom

I just remembered a few years back, there was a petrol ad on tv where the guy with his beatle filled up with this brand, and his beatle turned into Porshe. Then some idiot with a bug actually sued this petrolium company when his car didn’t turn into a Porshe. HE WON!

There should be laws against idiots too!
JSH

A lot of videos on youtube.com have the word “banned” in the title to attract more hits. I know of multiple of instances where the video in question was never banned, but was labeled as such to increase interest.
http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.

@JSH: You’re right, but I think the point of this article was just simply to see a cool video commercial
mary

Just felt the need to comment on The Lee’s comment about “here in America you’re considered retarded until proven otherwise…9 out of 10 times the person is actually retarded.”
Ugh. So frustrating to hear people speak like this. As the mom of a special needs child I just don’t get why anyone thinks it’s funny to joke about special needs and get away with it. The Lee, people with special needs are human beings with feelings. They can even read your sophmoric post! I thought this forum wasn’t for third graders, you know…the kind that think it’s okay to mock others. Slurs hurt anyway you look at it.
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  OK guys, let’s keep this civilized, let’s stick to constructive criticism and no insults. No need to turn this discussion into something else
alex

First of all, I am from New York and I don’t understand why you have to attack my home town.

Second of all, I agree with mary on the name calling, making fun of people less fortunate then you isn’t funny.

And what is with the anti-american sentiment on this site? Mr. Lee, if you don’t like our legal system, why not goto palestine and see how you like that legal system.
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  @alex, you didn’t understand, I have nothing against NYC, this person has been on here before attacking us and I kinda know why, all I said was that “our friend from NYC”, meaning we have heard from him before.
  
  Now guys, let’s stop this non-sense, I would have to moderate any comments, a thing which I never do.
Gord

The best BMW commercials are those short 10 minute movies. But they were for the pre bangle 5 and 7 series.

The Modanna one with the E39 M5 was funny.
http://xshort.wordpress.com/ tima

HI.
do you knows, what studio maked post production of this commercial?
http://www.marcburger.de Marc Burger

My answer is a little late, but I try to clear facts:
There were two reasons or baning this ad.

First reasson:

the BMW M5 Type E39 came out 1998. But in September 1996, the BRABUS E V12 set the Speed-Record for the fastest saloon-car with some 330,4km/h. BRABUS is not only a tuner – it’s a registered manufacturer. The E V12 is produced in a smalll series-production. You can order it by stock.

For all who say, that Brabus just “pimps” Mercs and isn’t a manufacturer like BMW: the M5 isn’t biult by BMW. It’s biult by the “M” ltd. which stands for “Motorsport GmbH”. But this are just details. Other sedans could go faster, as well at this time: for example the Lotus Carlton (1990-1992) could do 176mph, and the Alpina B10 Bi-turbo (1989-1994) could top 182mph. Alpina is also a manufacturer like Brabus is.

But changing or just leaving out the headline “fastest saloon car…” would have made this ad correct. So, there must be another reason.

Second reason:

Saying “saloon car” instead of “sedan” this was made for the U.K.
In the U.K. its forbidden to sell cars by aspects of speeding.
This is the reason, why this ad was shown in africa, for example, while it was banned in most all parts of europe.

Greetz,
Marc