This new ad for the Peugeot 208 by Young & Rubicam Brasil is pretty amazing for any old bastards like myself who remember watching the Wacky Races (in reruns — I'm not that old) as a kid. They did a pretty amazing job of bringing the absurd cartoon cars to (presumably) CG-life, and for making me realize how terrifying they would be.
I don't remember ever giving the crashes and violence and explosions of the cartoon a second thought, but seeing them realized with modern CG realism is hilariously disturbing. As are the strange cavemen in their boulder-car, or that big goon from the Addams-family knockoff-mobile.
Still, that live-action Penelope Pitstop lives up to my boyhood imagination pretty well.
Here's an animated lineup of the cars for your comparing fun, as well as a nicely comprehensive site with a bunch of animated GIFs of the cars.
And, what the hell, here's some of those GIFs: