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Super Bowl commercials: Steven Tyler, Emerson Fittipaldi, Keanu Reeves and more

Sunday is Super Bowl LII, which means America will immerse itself in high-calorie potluck fare, garish halftime-show entertainment (Justin Timberlake, bringing sexy back, but not that kind), the most expensive and over-the-top TV ads of the year, and — oh yeah — a football game between two teams connected by Amtrak's Northeast Corridor line. What else you gonna do on the first Sunday of February? As usual, automakers plan big, splashy TV spots to reach all those gajillions of eyeballs glued to the teevee, though the list may be shorter than in previous years. Here's a roundup of what we know is coming. Hyundai Hyundai will test the football/futbol divide with a 60-second spot starring a youth-soccer ref who arrives for the game dramatically and just in time in his 2018 Kona. Only it's Super Bowl Sunday, so he — along with the two coaches, and apparently most of the parents — are eager to get on with their game-day plans. Advantage: football, being the message, we guess. The ad does make a quick plug for Hyundai's BlueLink nav system, but this is only nominally about the car. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Hyundai also plans a 60-second ad that recognizes people fighting pediatric cancers and highlights its own nonprofit organization that focuses on the cause, according to Reuters. Kia This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The Korean automaker will put Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler behind the wheel of its new Stinger on an abandoned racetrack. The former " American Idol" host promptly puts it into reverse, going back to his '70s heyday, courtesy of some CGI, to the strains of "Dream On" played backwards. Trotting out an almost-70-year-old to relive some classic rock glory fits the Super Bowl template to a T. Two-time Formula One and Indianapolis 500 champ Emerson Fittipaldi also makes a cameo. It airs in the third quarter. Lexus This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Lexus teams with Marvel Studios to preview its forthcoming movie "Black Panther," which arrives in theaters Feb. 16. In "Long Live The King," the Black Panther, a.k.a. King T'Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman, dispatches some bad guys to recover stolen Vibranium after clinging to the roof of a speeding 2018 LS 500 F Sport, driven by co-star Danai Gurira.

Junkyard Gem: 1990 Lexus LS 400

Imagine you're an American Mercedes-Benz salesman during the winter of 1989-1990, looking over your inventory of majestic W126-chassis 560 SELs… and then you glance across the street at that brand-new Lexus dealership and flinch at the sight of your rivals gloating over a lot full of futuristic-looking big luxury sedans priced at less than half the cost of your top-of-the-pyramid S-Class. This was how it looked when mighty Toyota, riding high just before the popping of the Japanese asset price bubble, instantly muscled its way into the American high-end luxury-car market, and the result of that six-year, 145-billion-yen development process was the original Lexus LS. Here's one of those first-year LS 400s, used up at age 32 and residing in a Denver self-service car graveyard. Toyota had been selling reasonably luxurious rear-wheel-drive Cressidas in North America since the 1978 model year (in fact, Cressida sales would continue here through 1992), and before that we got the plush Crown. Those well-built cars were very comfortable and may have swiped a few sales from Oldsmobile or even BMW, but car shoppers here had come to associate the Toyota brand with sensible small cars and Warlord Grade trucks. Honda did very well selling luxed-up Accords and Civics with Acura badges, starting in 1986, and Toyota followed up with the Lexus brand for the LS 400 (as well as the Camry-based ES 250). In Japan, where the Toyota badge went on everything from sewing machines to the Emperor's personal Century (actually, Emperor Akihito's everyday driver was a Honda Integra sedan), there was no need for a separate luxury marque and the LS 400 was sold as the Toyota Celsior. Once the Lexus brand took off globally, however, Toyota eventually began using it for home-market vehicles. You can even buy a new Lexus bicycle in Japan today! The Cressida had a big straight-six engine, but the LS had to have a proper twin-cam V8 to do battle with the S-Class, BMW 7-Series, and Audi V8 (yes, the 7-Series didn't get a V8 until later, but the 750i had a V12). Toyota had been building aluminum-block hemi-head V8s for the Crown Eight and the Century since the middle 1960s, but that was an old-fashioned pushrod design and clearly too outdated for the LS. The LS got a 4.0-liter DOHC V8, designed from scratch just for the occasion; it had six-bolt main bearing caps and made 256 horses in the 1990 version.

Google is hiring autonomous car testers in Arizona

If you're in Arizona, Google is hiring for a gig that could be a good alternative to doing Uber. The job entails test driving an autonomous car around the state for $20 an hour, six to eight hours a day. You'll still need to know how to actually drive to be able to take the wheel if needed. But since your role is testing out the big G's new technology, you're expected to provide the engineering team "concise written and oral feedback," submit daily reports and document any test or procedure performed. That's why even though Google isn't looking for any "particular type of person," it wants people with bachelor's degrees and excellent communication skills. If you're applying because you want to go on a road trip inside one of Google's compact cars, though, we're afraid you'd be sorely disappointed. You'll be testing the tech titan's self-driving technology on a Lexus like the one in the image above. Related Video: This article by Mariella Moon originally ran on Engadget, the definitive guide to this connected life.