{"id":19194,"date":"2026-05-21T18:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/19194\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T18:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:54:08","slug":"how-brad-pitt-and-mercedes-created-a-german-autobahn-in-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/19194\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brad Pitt and Mercedes Created a German Autobahn in L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA tennis ball yellow car ripped across the Sixth Street Bridge in a cloud of tire smoke on Tuesday night. But unlike the traditional hot rods, drag racers, and lowriders that have long made this L.A. River crossing famed among Angeleno automotive enthusiasts, and as a filming location in movies like Grease and Terminator 2, it did so without a honking gasoline-powered engine. Additionally atypical, the span was closed to public traffic and outfitted with signage that suggested it was part of the German Autobahn. Also, when the car\u2019s occupants emerged, one was Brad Pitt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe star was reprising a role, of sorts, that of Sonny Hayes, the redemption-seeking racecar driver from 2025\u2019s smash hit F1<\/a>. This was based not just on the car\u2019s speed and attention-grabbing stunting, but because the company backing Pitt in both instances is the same: Mercedes<\/a>-Benz. The German luxury automaker was the in-movie sponsor of Hayes\u2019 fictional APXGP racing team. And its go-fast subsidiary, Mercedes-AMG, hosted the L.A. event to promote the global reveal of its latest vehicle, the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, a swoopy 1153 hp all-electric sports sedan, capable of sprinting from 0-60 mph in a Ferrari-besting 2 seconds.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrad Pitt at World Premiere of the all-new Mercedes-AMG GT 63 4-Door Coup\u00e9 in Los Angeles, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMercedes-Benz Group AG<\/p>\n

\n\tJoining Pitt at the event were a passel of other notables. Jacob Elordi, Kevin Hart, Kourtney Kardashian, Odell Beckham Jr., Gabriel Macht, and Finneas were all there, along with Olympic fencing medalist Miles Chamley-Watson, and Mercedes\u2019 Formula One drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Adding to the spectacle, pop-punk pioneers Blink 182 performed a live set after the crossing.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of these bold-face names show up just because they crave association with Mercedes\u2019 three-pointed star. \u201cA great example is Jacob Elordi, who found us,\u201d says the brand\u2019s chief marketing officer Melody Lee. But, she adds, the structure is different for every celebrity. \u201cSome come uncompensated because they just truly love the brand. Others, sure, they ask for compensation to show up, and sometimes we work it out with a car or a fee or both.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat about Mr. Pitt? \u201cThat\u2019s a paid partnership. I can be upfront about that,\u201d Lee says. \u201cHe is a really good driver after his training on \u2018F1,\u2019\u201d she says, though it\u2019s unclear how this is relevant since he didn\u2019t drive the new car across the span, but was a passenger, with a professional driver at the wheel. \u201cAnd because of the ties between the team, the movie, and the car debuting here, he seemed like a logical choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMore important, how did Mercedes manage to close an iconic public roadway in the heart of Los Angeles in order to introduce an electric hot rod? \u201cIt took many months of discussions, negotiations, petitions, permits,\u201d Lee says. \u201cYou obviously have to pay a price to shut down a major thoroughfare. But for the city of L.A, it\u2019s a really exciting moment. It\u2019s a lot of publicity for the city. But more than that, it\u2019s an absolute tribute to the place that Los Angeles plays in our culture. The city, and the Sixth Street Bridge, are not just production locations, they\u2019re iconic characters in movies and television.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tennis ball yellow car ripped across the Sixth Street Bridge in a cloud of tire smoke on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20951],"tags":[20952,20587,8365,3622],"class_list":["post-19194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mercedes-benz","tag-brad-pitt","tag-f1","tag-mercedes","tag-mercedes-benz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}