The Wildest Car Reveals of All Time: Cattle, Rockets and Smashed Glass

Most car reveals go like this: lights dim, music thumps, a silk sheet slides off, an executive says "bold." Then everyone forgets it.

These didn't. We've collected the stunts, spectacles and live-on-stage faceplants that made car unveilings unforgettable, sometimes on purpose. Everything here is checked against the sources at the bottom, and where an official video exists on a manufacturer's own channel, we link to it.

1. Ford Mustang on the Empire State Building (1965 and 2014)

The Empire State Building's general manager pitched it: put a Mustang on the 86th-floor observation deck. Helicopters were out, so Ford cut a white Mustang convertible into four main sections that fit the building's seven-foot elevators, after three dry runs in Dearborn.

What went wrong: On the night of October 20, 1965, the crew found that part of the car was a quarter-inch too tall for the elevator. They tipped the cart and squeezed it in. The car was reassembled outdoors by 4:30 a.m. for a helicopter photo, taken apart again, and rebuilt inside, where it stayed until March 16, 1966.

The sequel: For the Mustang's 50th birthday in 2014, Ford did it again with a 2015 Mustang convertible, cut into six pieces and carried up a freight elevator and two passenger elevators. The crew had six hours overnight to assemble it.

2. Jeep Grand Cherokee through the window (Detroit, 1992)

Chrysler president Bob Lutz drove the new Grand Cherokee from the Jefferson North plant to Cobo Hall with Detroit Mayor Coleman Young in the passenger seat. Then he drove it up the front steps and through a plate-glass window into the auto show.

The absurd part: It was very carefully planned recklessness. In his own telling, the real window had been swapped for tempered glass, and tiny charges around the frame were triggered by an "inside man" with a remote. The mayor's reaction on the climb isn't printable here, but Lutz quotes it in Road & Track. Both men climbed out covered in glass crumbs. Jeep did a sequel in 2006, driving a 2007 Wrangler off its stand and out through Cobo's glass.

3. The Pontiac Aztek joins Survivor (2000)

The Aztek concept was well received in 1999. The production version launched in 2000 with the tagline "Quite possibly the most versatile vehicle on the planet," tied in with CBS's hit reality show Survivor.

What went wrong: The public saw it. The Aztek went on to top a 2008 Daily Telegraph poll of the 100 ugliest cars. Its redemption arc came later via Breaking Bad. There's more in our Pontiac Aztek Quirk Database entry.

4. Dodge Ram and 120 longhorns (Detroit, 2008)

To launch the 2009 Ram, Chrysler had cowboys on horseback herd 120 Texas longhorns down Washington Boulevard outside Cobo Center, with the new trucks bringing up the rear. Spectators got Dodge-branded beef jerky.

What went wrong: The cattle stole the show, specifically when one bull mounted another mid-presentation. Chrysler president Jim Press kept going, as reported by AP: "Oh, look at that... Well, let's not watch that." AP also noted Chrysler's earlier stunts, including a simulated indoor snowstorm for the Chrysler Aspen.

5. The Tesla Roadster that rolled out of a Semi (2017)

At the end of the Tesla Semi event on November 16, 2017, a prototype second-generation Roadster drove out of the back of one of the trucks' trailers to the song "Sabotage." It was teased for 2020 at $200,000.

The absurd part: The "one more thing" took a while. 2020 came and went. Tesla finally unveiled a redesigned Roadster on October 15, 2026, at SpaceX's test site in McGregor, Texas.

6. A Roadster in space (2018)

For the first Falcon Heavy test flight on February 6, 2018, SpaceX needed a dummy payload and chose Elon Musk's own first-generation Tesla Roadster. In the driver's seat was a mannequin in a SpaceX pressure suit named "Starman," with David Bowie's "Space Oddity" set to loop on the stereo.

The absurd part: It worked. The car went into an elliptical orbit around the sun that crosses Mars's orbit, making it the first standard roadworthy car sent into space. SpaceX's official Falcon Heavy webcast is still on its YouTube channel.

7. The Cybertruck's "Armor Glass" (2019)

On November 21, 2019, Tesla showed off the Cybertruck's stainless-steel body with a sledgehammer, then its supposedly near-unbreakable "Armor Glass." Chief designer Franz von Holzhausen threw a metal ball at the driver's window.

What went wrong: The window cracked. They tried the rear window, and it cracked too. Musk later said an earlier sledgehammer blow to the door had cracked the base of the glass. Tesla's own Cybertruck Reveal clip is on its YouTube channel. In 2023, von Holzhausen got a rematch at the Petersen Museum with a baseball, and the glass held. There's more in our Cybertruck Quirk Database entry.

8. Mercedes-Benz VISION AVTR, with James Cameron (CES 2020)

Mercedes chairman Ola Källenius unveiled a concept co-developed with the Avatar films at CES in Las Vegas, on stage with James Cameron in front of about 2,000 people.

The absurd part: It's a car that wants to be a creature. Mercedes said it has 33 "bionic flaps" on its back, a graphene-based organic battery that's compostable, and a menu projected onto your palm. It's less a car than a Na'vi pet.

9. BMW iX Flow, the car that changes color (CES 2022)

BMW brought an iX wrapped in E Ink, the same type of technology used in e-readers. At the push of a button, the body switched from black to white and back.

The absurd part: Millions of microcapsules, each about as wide as a human hair, are full of charged black and white pigments, and they only need power during the change. BMW called it an advanced research and design project. Your Kindle, meanwhile, is jealous.

10. Bonus disaster: everything that's ever refused to start

Every auto-show regular has a story about a car that wouldn't fire up on cue. But we couldn't find solidly documented versions of those stories, so we're not printing rumors. If you've got a source, send it to our tip line.

What we left off

We checked several other famous moments but dropped them for this list: the Volvo "Epic Split" (an ad, not a reveal), Honda's ASIMO appearances, the Bugatti Veyron's long run of concept shows and Lamborghini's launch parties (we found nothing absurd enough that was well documented), and the Rimac fire, which we couldn't tie to an unveiling with a solid source. No video stills are reproduced here. The photo is a freely licensed shot of a production Cybertruck.

For more gloriously bad decisions, head to Glorious Mistakes, or see the cars that never needed a stunt in our wildest bedroom-poster cars roundup.