This Year’s Super Bowl LX Car Commercials Really Spoke To Me—And Cracked Me Up
While you're watching the Seahawks-Patriots brawl, we were watching the Super Bowl commercials—specifically, the car ones.
I’m what I like to call a “fair-weather” fan when it comes to football. I don’t watch a single game throughout the year—only the Super Bowl. Even if my local team isn’t participating (sorry, San Francisco 49ers). My husband doesn’t watch any other games, either. But we treat it like a national holiday: I make an assembly of finger foods or themed snacks, and we live for the commercials.
Given my profession, I’m particularly fond of the car or truck commercials because they’re not the run-of-the-mill car commercials, with a “stomp, hey” song in the background, a myriad of rolling shots, a man with a grumbly voice talking about horsepower, or a list of seemingly prolific awards. Super Bowl commercials for cars tell a fun story and can be funny or heartfelt.
For 2026, there are three car Super Bowl commercials (last year there were only two): one for the new Jeep Cherokee hybrid, VW’s lineup, and for Toyota. I watched all three before the game (sinful, I know) so I could talk about how each made me feel as a car enthusiast, a parent, and a woman.
This story is 100% human researched and written based on actual first-person knowledge, extensive experience and expertise on the subject of cars and trucks.
The Jeep Cherokee Hybrid Commercial is Equally as Scarring as it is Funny
The Jeep Cherokee hybrid Super Bowl commercial begins innocently with a family in a cozy home. A boy convinces his dad to take his Billy Bass singing fish toy to the river, believing the toy’s rendition of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” means it wants to be free. Amazingly, the fish comes to life and swims upstream, waving goodbye. However, a grizzly bear immediately grabs Billy Bass and violently tears it apart, exposing wires instead of guts. The bear, realizing the lack of nutrition, tosses the toy aside, only for a bald eagle to snatch it up. Throughout its ordeal, Billy screams in agony, blaming the boy for setting it free.
As a Jeep owner myself and knowing a handful of other Jeep owners, the setup to that grizzly scene—pun intended—was the perfect yet subtle nod to why people buy Jeeps in the first place: to get to remote places, to access otherwise difficult places (they used a dirt road to get to the stream), and because the brand appeals to the outdoorsy type. So, naturally, an adventurous family would have a Jeep and a Billy Bass toy, because fishing is part of that lifestyle. Growing up, my Eagle Scout father took me fishing and camping regularly, so it makes sense that I have a Jeep. I, my father, and three of my Jeep friends, found the commercial hilarious. See where I’m going with this?
However, as a parent, I’d be horrified that my child witnessed something so violent and then was blamed for the violence against the fish. Yes, it’s nature—there’s a real possibility that a fish recently released into a stream might be torn apart by a bear and then swooped up by an eagle—but if a fish could talk and point the finger at either one of my daughters for what happened to it, that could be especially traumatizing to witness as a young, altruistic child. But, since it’s not real and meant for adult audiences and not meant to be overanalyzed, I won’t say this is a “bad” commercial for that reason. Otherwise, I enjoyed the commercial.
VW Rebranded Themselves With a Fun Nod to Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millenials And Gen Z
This commercial was less about telling a story and more about appealing to a vibe or a feeling. I say that because instead of dialogue or being spoonfed a bunch of marketing jargon, I watched as a bunch of snappy, social media-worthy videos of young people dressed in typical Gen Z fashion. In the background, you could hear Jump Around by House of Pain, and the footage looks like it was shot through a lens from the 1970s—meaning it has a soft, retro-feeling to it.
The Super Bowl commercial is called “Drivers Wanted,” and there are a few times that’s subminially added to the video. The retro feel of the footage, the way the young drivers are dressed, and the use of the song made me feel like VW was advertising their cars to drivers of all ages (or generations). The song was very Gen X. The footage could bring Baby Boomers back to the good old days. The age of most of the drivers was Gen Z, and the way the video was edited felt very Millennial. Every generation was served in this commercial, and very tastefully.
I’m a millennial myself, and I thought it was a very clever way to say, “Hey, there’s a VW for everyone, no matter the age or interest.” It showed families in an Atlas, a teacher passing a basketball to a group of teens while getting into a Jetta, a young, fun person climbing into a Golf, and a group of fashionable young folks smiling while driving an ID.Buzz. Again, all ages were happy in a VW product.
Toyota’s RAV4 Super Bowl Commercial Was Just Plain Sweet
This one felt very similar to a Subaru Forester commercial a few years back, where a father drove his newborn daughter home from the hospital in a second-generation Forester (2003), and when his daughter became a teen, she was shown putting on her seatbelt and driving away while the father was seen climbing into a 2018-ish Forester. The message was simple: Subaru stays in the family (the actual message was Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru—but you get the idea).
Toyota’s Super Bowl commercial follows a similar pattern: a grandfather turns to his grandson and says, “Hey! Let’s go for a ride,” and straps his grandson into his 1994 (or first-generation) RAV4 with a “Superhero Belt”. The grandson is smiling and happy. Then the camera fades to black, and the grandson—now an adult—turns to his grandfather and says, “Come on, Grandpa, let’s go for a drive,” and they pull away in a 2026 RAV4. I thought it was neat when I realized that the 2026 model means it’s been more than 30 years since the first generation, so decades have passed since his grandpa helped strap him in with a “Superhero belt.” The loop closes with the grandson telling the grandpa to secure his superhero belt before driving away.
Personally, I feel like the commercial would have hit so much harder if the 1996 RAV4 was shown in the grandpa’s driveway to reinforce Toyota’s famous reliability—but a voice chimes in to say, “Returning the favor is a gift,” and then a text overlay reads, “People are the destination.” A very cute, short, and sweet, sentimental commercial.
Part of me wishes there were more car commercials in this year’s Super Bowl, but also, I appreciate the ability to see them set apart, to focus on just the few and let them resonate. While I loved the Jeep ad—despite my friend’s horror at the dramatic turn—and the Toyota spot tugged at all the heart strings, the VW ad made me want to get up and dance. That’s a pretty nice feeling to get from a car company.
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