A yellow, tennis-ball-shaped car crashed across the Sixth Street Bridge in a cloud of tire smoke Tuesday night. But unlike the traditional hot rods, drag racers, and lowriders that have made this Los Angeles river crossing long popular among Angeleno car enthusiasts, and as a filming location in movies like fat and Terminator 2It did so without a gasoline engine. In addition, the road was closed to public traffic and was equipped with signs indicating that it was part of the German Autobahn. When the car’s passengers also showed up, one of them was Brad Pitt.
The star was reprising his role as Sonny Hayes, a race car driver looking for redemption from the 2025 hit film. F1. This wasn’t just based on the car’s speed and attention-grabbing stunting, but because the company backing Pitt in both cases is the same: Mercedes-Benz. The German luxury automaker was the in-film sponsor of Hayes’ fictional APXGP racing team. Its subsidiary, Mercedes-AMG, hosted the Los Angeles event to promote the global unveiling of its latest car, the AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, an all-electric sports sedan with 1,153 horsepower, capable of running from 0 to 60 miles per hour in two seconds that rivals the best Ferraris.
Pitt was joined at the event by a host of other notable figures. Jacob Elordi, Kevin Hart, Kourtney Kardashian, Odell Beckham Jr., Gabriel Macht and Finneas were there, along with Olympic fencing medalist Miles Chamley Watson and Mercedes Formula 1 drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Adding to the spectacle, pop punk pioneers Blink 182 performed a live set after the show.
Some of these bold-faced names appear only because they long to be associated with the three-pointed Mercedes star. “A great example is Jacob Elordi, who we found,” says Melody Lee, the brand’s chief marketing officer. But she adds that the structure varies from person to person. “Some come without compensation because they really like the brand. Others, of course, ask to be compensated to come, and sometimes we settle it with a car, a drawing, or both.”
What about Mr. Pitt? “It’s a paid partnership,” he tells me, “and I can be honest about that.” “He’s a really good driver with his Formula 1 training,” she says, although it’s unclear how much that matters as he did not drive the new car over the distance, but was a passenger, with a professional driver behind the wheel. “And because of the connections between the team, the film and the car that debuted here, it seemed like a logical choice.”
More importantly, how did Mercedes manage to shut down an iconic highway in the heart of Los Angeles in order to introduce an electric hot rod? “It took several months of discussions, negotiations, petitions and permits,” Lee says. “Obviously you have to pay the price of closing a major road. But for the city of Los Angeles, it’s a really exciting moment. It’s great publicity for the city. But more than that, it’s an absolute tribute to the place that Los Angeles plays in our culture. The city and the Sixth Street Bridge, they’re not just production sites, they’re iconic characters in movies and television.”
