Back in 2007 Shell sent chills up and down the spines of anyone with a soul who loves cars with the release of its amazing “Circuit” television commercial.
Celebrating 60 years of collaboration between Shell and Ferrari, the commercial featured five iconic Ferrari Formula One cars driving at speed on public roads across the globe and while the visuals were amazing, it was the sound that really made the advert a true legend.
One of the most expensive advertisements ever made at the time, it took a month to shoot (you can watch a ‘behind the scenes’ look at it here) and took place in seven different locations around the globe: London, Rome, Hong Kong, Rio, New York and Monte Carlo, with a brief cameo from Sydney's Sea Cliff Bridge in Australia.
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Kicking off in Rome with a Ferrari Tipo 500 that packed a 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder engine and was raced by Alberto Ascari and Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1952 and 1953 seasons, the ad tracks the evolution of Ferrari’s F1 cars showing a 3.0-litre V12-powered 1967/68 312 as driven by New Zealand’s own Chris Amon (the driver’s helmet in the ad resembles Amon’s famous design) in New York and a 3.0-litre flat-12-powered 1971 312B that was raced by Clay Regazzoni, Jacy Ickx and Mario Andretti on the streets of Hong Kong.
A pair of 3.0-litre V10-powered cars come next, in the form of a 1996/97 F310 as driven by Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine that features in Rio and a Schumacher/Rubens Barrichello F2003-GA around the familiar streets of Monaco, and finally a Kimi Raikkonen/Felipe Massa 2.4-litre V8-powered F2007 pulls into the petrol station back in Rome to finish things off.
With no music and no voiceover until the very end, the entire two-minute runtime is pure aural car-porn, with the transition from the V12-powered 312B to the V10-powered F310 in a tunnel being a particular spine-tingling highlight.
Shell would release a 60 second version with a full HD remaster for the 70th anniversary in 2017, awkwardly jamming in some footage of Charles Leclerc in his 066/7 on track and pulling in for a pitstop to replace the original ending, but the original still remains the best.
And one of the greatest commercials ever made.
