It says "closed centrifuge, do not attempt" at the botton of the screen which really bums me out as I really wanted to spin a silverado in there...

damn Ray, I'm glad your blogging this, I gave up TV a long time ago, so I would have missed this. I'm now wondering where this is, so we may swing trucks around as part of a regular road test. Wes - to the phones!

i don't get why all of the Ford stuff i've seen so far is advertising the old F-150... wouldn't this be the perfect time to show the nation the redesigned one?

and i too am annoyed with the whole "do not attempt" thing... i was already Googling places that sell giant centrifuge kits. you probably need some sort of license to operate one, anyway...

HEADLINES: Ford goes bankrupt due to falling sales of replacement F-Series tow hooks.

@Franzouse: I've got an open centrifuge in my back yard. The ad doesn't say anything about not doing it in an open centrifuge.

* All vehicles should have mandatory tow hooks BOTH FRONT + REAR!

Every vehicle must be towed on several occaisions during its lifetime. There is absolutely NO reason not to include them as standard safety equipment.

Effective ad though. I know of a few places like this but you gotta watch out for the Alpha, Beta & Gamma radiation rays ;)

So the truck was thinking..."Whee! This is the coolest thing a truck has ever done!" Or maybe "Gee, I hope this doesn't make me look like a sissy."
It reminded me of the serious terriers, like Pit Bulls, being swung around when they are holding onto the rope their owner is holding.
Then again, I wonder how long they swung it total? It might not blend, but I wonder whether the Ford would last longer than a Chevy?

Yup- steel has great tensile strength. It doesn't help me imagine how strong the rest of the car is...

They made it sound like a tow hook is the wimpiest part of a car. But still, neat idea.

i like the dropping the box ad...
with a chinook chopper

so Ford is expecting them to be towed????

In a related story Toby Kieth was admitted to a local hospital with wobbly leg syndrome

I know the F150 is tough, but will it blend?

@cgarison: if this counts as blending, then probably. [jalopnik.com]

It's good to know they have strong tow hook.. god knows i've towed enough of them out of the mud.
btw.. i'm a firm believer in open hooks.. easier to get a tow strap around.

Ford and Toyota should collaborate with their epic advertising creations and build the ULTIMATE CARNIVAL.

Hellz yeah, I'd pay good money to ride in the Ford! Then I'd try my luck at Toyota's "Pendulum Swings O'Death" after I shit myself on the Ford "Helicopter Cargo Drop of Terror", causing me to spill my Truck Nutz Trail Mix all over the QuietSteel interior.

Maybe I'll take a break and unwind on the "60-Foot Tall Seesaw Adventure", complete with butch announcer voice.

@WheatKing:
Yeah, they're also easier for the strap to get back around and come off mid-pull. If you can't hook a shackle to it, you shouldn't pull on it. J-hooks are stupid, and dangerous as a real means of recovery.

When will it end...

"Actual Demonstration" is about as reliable a term as "Natural Flavors" in my book. What a load of BS. Copying a competitor's marketing is cheap and lame, and smacks of desperation/weakness.

Whatever is real or fake in all these truck ads, they're doing ridiculous things you don't need to do in real life. Most of the trucks sold probably won't even do any friggin' work, for gosh sakes.

I can't help but see it as a stupid, pointless pissing contest - and what's being pissed is lots of Ford's non-existent cash (everyone on this blog made more than FoMoCo last year).

Going over the top without hollow claims of "actualness" is a far better way to go (i.e. an alien warship obliterating the earth, leaving nothing but the "indestructible" Tacoma remaining).

It's fitting that Mike Rowe's in these ads - I have nothing against him personally, but being a Ford spokesman is indeed a dirty job.

I want to see what happens if the truck were released - death by centrifuge surprisingly, err, deadly.

Does that count as one of his dirty jobs?

Whoopdeedoo. They're welded to the frame. Of course they're strong. Strap it to the steering wheel and get back to me.

There's gotta be an easier way to get that Ethanol out of the Gas.

I'm not so sure that's real-or at least the whole thing.

First, would an observation window be directly in the path of a test item were it to come loose? I am not a NASA employee, so I've never seen a BIG centrifuge like this.

Second, the platform Rowe is standing on look equally precarious...... and that's made worse by the fact that he is standing on it as 6K lbs. of metal death swing around pointlessly beneath him.

Oh, and ditto to all the comments about "so what?".

If they wanna sell me a truck, show me how well all the electronics work after 250K miles.

Oh, and just to note the safety subtitles: "Closed Centrifuge"

Was Toby Keith admitted to rehab?

@clinto: Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's not real.

@teargas: Alright, I watched the behind the scenes thing. Looks real enough.

ok so it looks "tough" but I bet mid spin the dash fell off and the seats sprang back.

@clinto: As far as the observation window and the shaky platform go, that's kinda the idea. Obviously these guys trust the truck enough to not come flying off and plow through the building. This commercial was high on the ...meh scale.

The reaction at my superbowl party was, "because we know you'll be towing your Ford often, we made the tow hooks our number one engineering priority."

Cool ad. It's done much better than the silly Toyota Tundra ones with the over-the-top voiceover guy finished with the lame smiling face tapping its head at the end.

Apparently, the largest construction projects in this country involve demos for trucks.

@tad49: My thoughts exactly. It seems that the point they're making here is "When your new F-150 is Found On Road Dead, Cooter will have no trouble winching her up on the flatbed."

That ad is preposterously stupid. If you want to sell a truck all you have to do is show that truck driving really fast through mud and dirt kicking up a storm, some heavy junk being dropped hard into the back, and it being swarmed by a bunch of scantily clad chicks. Thank you Ford you can send me the check whenever you like. What a waste of Super Bowl minutes.

I would have been more impressed if they mounted the truck via the side-view mirrors.

Now that would be strong!

Ok, so that gives me a rough idea more-or-less of the static strength of the tow-hooks. I propose a deeper investigation to test the dynamic shock strength of the hooks.

So tie it to a post and throw it off spider rock. Then I'll be impressed.