Promote the launch of the MY16 Jaguar F-TYPE at the country's largest automotive expo and reposition Jaguar as a younger, more vibrant brand. The primary objective was to stimulate sales.

Jaguar invited the public at an automotive expo to experience a ‘next-level’ virtual reality simulation. The Jaguar stand featured an F-TYPE, elevated on, what looked like, a large motion simulator platform. Once the passengers were inside and helmeted (and distracted with a pre-ride video) the car lowered and rotated to face the back wall, which was then raised. A precision driver entered and the car was rolled across our purpose-built bridge to the track.

The transition to track was choreographed to match the pre-ride video, so there was an in-video reason for the slight bumps and wobbles they felt.

Once on the arena, hidden cameras inside the passengers’ helmet went live – they saw exactly what they would be looking at if they weren’t wearing the helmet - and they were taken on an adrenaline-pumping ride before being obliviously returned to the stand, where they were interviewed and the truth, revealed.

The primary design challenges were creating the illusion of a static brand installation (VR) with the capability of transforming into a surprisingly different brand experience (performance driving around a track). All while keeping it completely hidden from the passengers.

Key to this was a false-bottomed stage which allowed our purpose-built hydraulic stand to lower the car flush to the stage platform. Special lifting points were fabricated to inconspicuously raise and the lower the car without the public realising their true purpose (the car had to seem permanently fixed), these lowered into recesses built into the stage so there would be no tell-tale bumps for our passengers as the car drove off.

As the rear of the stand was opened, the car drove across a platform bridging the gap between back of stand and the adjoining arena. Again, to keep the passengers’ transition to the track as seamless as possible.