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Fully-Clothed Matthew McConaughey Drums on the Wheel of 2018 Lincoln Navigator in New Commercial

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Matthew McConaughey Lincoln Navigator

Sales of the 2018 Lincoln Navigator are underway, and thus far, they numbers have been red-hot: in December, Navigator took just six days to turn at dealerships, and around 75% of all models sold fell under the high-end Reserve and Black Label trims.

Naturally, Lincoln wants to keep that momentum going well into the New Year, and there may be no better way to ensure that people are keenly aware of the new Navigator than putting brand spokesman and Academy Award-winner Matthew McConaughey behind the wheel of one for a new ad campaign. And, hey, would you look at that? That’s exactly what Lincoln’s gone and done.

Watch: Matthew McConaughey and the 2018 Lincoln Navigator in “Perfect Rhythm”


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The first of two planned spots with McConaughey, “Perfect Rhythm,” debuted in late December on Twitter and YouTube before making its television debut during Monday’s College Football Playoff. Shot in the Pacific Northwest by Wally Pfister, who is perhaps best known for his work as Christopher Nolan’s cinematographer (and less well-known for the absolutely dreadful Johnny Depp-starrer Transcendence), the ad sees McConaughey pull up to a railroad crossing, where he wastes a bunch of time by anticipating a train and sits drumming on the Navigator’s wheel as it passes.

Given Matthew McConaughey’s somewhat scandalous history with bongos, it seems an odd or perhaps even willful choice to give him the task of drumming in this commercial. It’s fortunate that McConaughey is wearing all of his clothes in this particular instance, at least, though one has to wonder if having him driving around in a 2018 Navigator in the buff wouldn’t have actually helped sell one or two more.


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“This piece is all about energy,” said John Emmert, group marketing manager, The Lincoln Motor Company. “You see Matthew in control. He starts a rhythm and it builds, and he becomes the master of his experience. We’ve overlaid a complex sound design as a freight train enters the scene and rumbles by. There’s this wonderful crescendo of light and sound that builds and then ends as suddenly as it begins.”

That, too!

A second McConaughey-starring ad will air later this month. Here’s hoping that it doesn’t a callback to the actual most shameful thing from the actor’s past: pretty much every film he made from 2003-2009, least of all being, god help us, Tiptoes.

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