Tajinder Bagga Shares 2005 Spoof as ‘Terrorist in Volkswagen Ad’

An advertisement showing a suicide bomber sitting inside Volkwagen Polo and trying to detonate a bomb has resurfaced on the internet with several people insinuating that car giant made fun of Muslims by showing that their cars are “bomb-proof”.

However, The Quint found that the advert is from 2005 and is a spoof which was never commissioned by Volkswagen.

CLAIM

The aforementioned commercial opens with a suicide bomber leaving his home in a Volkswagen vehicle. He then parks it near a busy restaurant and detonates the bomb. The blast is, however, contained within the car. The tagline at the end reads: ‘Polo. Small but tough’.

Among those who shared the spoof with a misleading claim is BJP leader Tajinder Bagga. He shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with a caption which reads: “Terrorist Commercial Ad by Volkswagen. Interesting?”

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Several other users shared the video claiming that Volkswagen commissioned the advert to ridicule the “peacefuls” (a derogatory term used for Muslims).

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WHAT WE FOUND

We fragmented the viral video into multiple keyframes using the InVid Google Chrome extension and ran a reverse image search on one of the frames. This directed us to a YouTube video uploaded by San Diego based news channel, ABC 10 News.

Uploaded in 2017, the video claimed that the commercial is a work of fiction and Volkwagon had nothing to do with it. The video further stated that the commercial was made a team called Lee and Dan who specialise in making fake ads or spoofs.

Taking a cue from here, we ran a keyword search on Google using “Lee and Dan suicide bomber spoof of Volkswagen Polo” and found a report by The Guardian.

Dated 23 January 2005, the report stated that the commercial was not made by the car giant. Further, it also said that Volkswagen was contemplating a legal action against the makers of the spoof.

The Guardian report mentioned that the ad was work of a duo experienced in spoof ads, known as Lee and Dan, who also make real commercials.

We also found another report by The Guardian dated 31 January 2005 which quoted a Volkswagen spokesperson and said that the spoofers have admitted that they created the commercial. The spokesperson further added that the makers of the spoof have agreed to issue an apology to the company.

Clearly, a 15-year-old spoof was shared by several people on social media to falsely claim that the German automaker commissioned an advertisement to ridicule Muslims.

(With inputs from SM HoaxSlayer)

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