For a few brief hours in the middle of the week this Salesforce Billboard revealed an original ad for an MKIV Toyota Supra.
If you drive by billboard ad changes at the right times you get to see the original ads lurking underneath. That’s what one Bay Area commuter, along with thousands of others, experienced earlier this Wednesday as they drove into the heart of San Francisco towards the East Bay Bridge.
Check out the rare glimpse of an original 1994 Toyota Supra ad thanks to Bay Area resident Gabe Ronquillo below.
According to Gabe, this Billboard is on Interstate 80 right after the Bay Bridge. It’s easy to narrow down who owns this billboard, its owner’s name right above it. Here’s what you’d normally see driving by, this shot taken in July thanks to Google Maps.
How appropriate that underneath is an MKIV Supra advertisement, 2020 being the first model year of the MKV Supra, its successor.
When the 1994 Toyota Supra was introduced, like the MKV Supra, it was a radical departure and a technological leap forward in every way from its predecessor. Priced well above its competitors like the fourth gen Corvette, MK2 MR2, and RX-7, the MKIV Supra had a mediocre sales start marred by its own MSRP. Only years later did tuners discover the potential of the 2JZ engine at which point the Supra garnered its cult-like following we know today.
They used this Supra shot in more than one advertisement. Check out this magazine shot showcasing the same Supra.
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And here’s a Supra Commercial voiced by Martin Sheen, an actor used by Toyota a lot in the 90s.
This is not the first original car advertisement on a billboard the Bay Area has enjoyed in 2019. Fans of TireMeetsRoad.com will remember when we blogged about the 1989 Ford Thunderbird SC ad appearing for the last time also on I-80.
Coming across old billboard ads are always a rare treat, it’s a peek back when large advertisements really had an impact on sales numbers.
If you live in a place with lots of billboards, it pays to keep your head on a swivel, you’ll never know when you’ll come across gems like this Toyota one.
