10 Unique & Creative Flash Car Web Sites

Flash is the perfect multimedia vehicle, if you will excuse the pun, for car manufacturers. It affords video, photo galleries, audio, music, and 360-degree virtual views of both the interior and exterior of vehicles and reaches out to customers like never before. Knowing that customers prefer to take a a closer look at cars from the comfort of their own home without dealing with pushy sales people in the showroom is why car manufacturers invest so much time and money on their Web site productions. Make the sale before customers come into the showroom. Now that’s good business.

As the power of Flash and ActionScripting continues to grow, car manufacturers can always rely on Flash to deliver rich, immersive online experiences for customers. Furthermore, with the advent of faster download speeds and higher bandwidth allocations, high quality video is now allowing car companies to create not just Web sites, but video experiences that people are accustomed to on their TV sets but with added interactivity thrown in.

Here are 10 of quite possibly the most creative car Web sites currently online today, all primarily developed and delivered using Flash.

Toyota Prius

What Makes It Special: You have probably seen the popular TV adverts promoting the Toyota Prius, a full hybrid electric mid-size vehicle. Well, this Web site continues where the adverts left off with brightly colored and inviting aesthetics. Gorgeous 3D motion graphics entice the user to stay transfixed to the screen with brilliant animations and cut-scenes that act as segways to disseminating important information about the car to customers. If the clever, modeled graphics get too much for you, there’s also video highlights to underline the most important selling points of the Prius.

Ford Mustang

Download the FlashDen-branded Mustang wallpaper

What Makes It Special: They say that customization is king, and that’s very true for the Ford Mustang Web site. In what looks like console-quality game graphics recreated in Flash, the user can customize their own ride with bags of features. Smoke, decals, tires, colors, city backdrops and even the amount of burnout on the asphalt can be totally controlled via a brilliantly usable menu system. And just when you think the fun is over, your newly designed, dream Mustang can be downloaded as a wallpaper and placed with pride on your computer desktop.

Audi R8

What Makes It Special: The Audio R8 is one stunning car. But what I absolutely love about this particular Audi Web site is the minimalism and how subtle Flash is used. Instead of overwhelming the user with an intense fusion of Flash audio, imagery, and video, Flash is simply used to accentuate the Web site. Interior/exterior photography fades in and out a la Ken Burns with sexy video and photo interfaces. If Parker&Kent built car Web sites, this would probably be what it would look like.

Porsche Cayman

What Makes It Special: The video accordion at the beginning of this Web site catches the user’s attention. Rolling over each item in the accordion menu triggers an entirely different soundtrack. What I was really buzzed to see on this Web site was a really simple but highly effective audio mixer to choose background audio. Users drag the marker around a grid in order to create the perfect mix for their own customized city-street driving soundtrack.

Saab

What Makes It Special: As the URL suggest, “Change Perspective” flips the entire car Web site industry on its head by… wait for it… not featuring any cars! Totally bold and audacious, but extremely well thought-out and executed. It’s a rather refreshing and clever form of interactive media where the user interacts with objects on a desk in order to reveal information and content about the car. Fuel, Safety, Power, Driving, all beautifully explained without a single picture of a car in sight.

Volkswagen EOS

What Makes It Special: Volkswagen were one of the very first car manufacturers to realize that Flash was the perfect tool to market automobiles, and their latest offering for their Eos model is another dynamite presentation. Titled, “The Open Cage”, this is an immersive video experience where the user interacts with onscreen video by playing along with a game, tapping keys at the right time for example in order to steer the car away from the evil birds that following closely behind. Some beautifully shot and edited video accompanies classical music to create a very unique experience.

Toyota

What Makes It Special: The premise of this Web site is based around the fact that, “Every 5 seconds, one more Toyota car appears in the world.” Watch as the clock reflects your own time zone no matter where in the world you are, with a new Toyota car revealed right before your very eyes each and every 5 seconds. Transforming motion graphics are always a good way to catch the user’s attention, and it’s fun to see each Toyota appear with a nod to what Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg did with the Transformers franchise. What I loved most of all however was the interactive menu. Holding down the space bar, a circular menu appears which is accentuated through the use of effective sound effects.

Lexus RX350

What Makes It Special: Upon loading, the user is encouraged to put their computer’s system clock forward in order to see into the future. It’s a bizarre request that some users may not be willing to do, but it’s clever nonetheless, as the Flash-based application recognizes when the system clock is changed and then allows the user into the main site. Once inside, this site is entirely in Russian so you’re going to have to click around with trial-and-error in order to explore this Web site. There are some really nice 3D models of the car that you can drag to view 360-degree angles of the car. There is also a cool slideshow that allows the user to click and drag images left and right in order to navigate. Images and content are accentuated through voiceover audio and dramatic background music.

Renault Grand Scenic

What Makes It Special: Renault’s Web site uses humor in the form of funny, 3D-animated characters giving a tour of the Grand Scenic vehicle. As the characters test out all features of the car, always with hilarious consequences, potential customers are educated along the way about features such as the stereo system, safety and available cubic space. It’s interesting to note a social networking aspect within this Web site, with YouTube and Facebook functionality integrated into the presentation.

VW Golf GTI

What Makes It Special: Choose a car, then race it. Sounds simple, right? Don’t tell the developers that! ‘Golf GTi Tracks’ by Volkswagen allows the user to race a VW GTi around a three dimensional city. Flash developers will appreciate the time and effort that has obviously gone into coding this game as the user sits behind the wheel of the car in an attempt to get to the finish line before your opponent. The game is embellished with cut-scenes that give a back-story to the Flash-based game.