"[Toyota's] success has been to put the idea in consumers' minds that hybrids are the only solution, but that's wrong," says clean-diesel proponent Carlos Ghosn

Mercedes is furthest along. In the E 320 Blutec, a trap stores and purges smog-forming nitrogen oxides. A second filter captures particulate matter

Diesel-powered vehicles have long had a negative stereotype here in the United States, but the latest crop of European clean diesels – along with lower diesel prices – is starting to sway American buyers. Diesel sales have increased significantly so far this year, with more sales success expected.

Volkswagen’s Jetta TDI is leading the way with some impressive sales figures. Jetta TDI sales totaled 3,862 units last month, up from 2,253 sales in April. Moreover, about 36 percent of all Jetta sales are of the TDI clean diesel variety.

“We would expect equal or higher sales of diesels this month,” a VW spokesman told Autoweek.

The Jetta TDI SportWagen is seeing an even higher take rate, with about 50 percent of all buyers opting for the diesel option.

Mercedes-Benz is seeing similar success with its clean diesel SUV offerings. Through the first five months of the year, the diesel-powered ML has notched 8,242 sales, or about 16.5 percent of all ML sales. The diesel take rate on the larger GL SUV is even higher, with nearly 22 percent of buyers going for the diesel option.

While greater acceptance of clean diesel technology is likely a key factor in the sales increase, lower diesel prices is no doubt also a part of the mix. Last year when gas topped $4 a gallon, diesel fuel checked in with a wallet-busting price of $4.85 per gallon. However, diesel prices now average $2.60 per gallon, 7 cents less than regular gas. With diesel prices not expected to surpass gas prices for several more months, clean diesels might finally be able to get a foothold in the U.S. market.

View the debunking diesel videos and discover the results at www.vwtruthanddare.com.

Okay, it’s 8:43 a.m. Time to get something in the can—a carryover term from the days when film was king. Today it’s all digital, but it can still look like film. A production crew of 50-plus gathers at the intersection of two 10,000-foot runways on the decommissioned El Toro Marine Air Station in Irvine, California.

Today’s mission: document three concepts that debunk the myth of diesel engines as sluggish, unreliable and dirty. One involves a drag race and a skid pad test between a Jetta TDI® and a Toyota® Prius; one involves a Volkswagen Golf TDI in a meat-locker-deep-freeze-start-up test; and one determines which vehicle makes the cleanest coffee—a Touareg 2 TDI or a 1972 Mercedes-Benz® 240 Diesel.

“We decided to take these myths on directly,” said Brian Thomas, General Manager of Brand Marketing for Volkswagen. “If we were to decide to dispel the myth that clean diesel was dirty, what if we took a coffee filter and placed it over the exhaust of an old-school diesel and a clean diesel and compared the two? Which would be cleaner?”

What if? We’re not telling. This article offers a thin life slice of how Volkswagen and its advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), created them.

“We had 20 ideas and whittled them down to the ones we thought were most compelling for Volkswagen regarding clean diesel,” says Rob Rolfe of CP+B.

“We felt that showcasing the technology was the right approach, and it’s pretty incredible.

“The pillars of the Volkswagen Brand are innovation, value and responsibility,” says Thomas. “TDI technology supports those pillars. It’s right in line with our key brand message.”

The large plot of concrete has transformed into a miniature camp with tents, tables, chairs, electric cables, audio and video equipment, grip trucks, monitors and lights—too much to describe actually. They are close to first video and the frenetic activity of the last 30 minutes winds down. “Be cool if an F-14 buzzed us right now,” someone says, looking to the sky. A mission of bygone days.

The diesel decaf scenario is now imminent—two actors in lab coats stage next to the two running vehicles. Behind them is a vista of converging runways and mountains. In front of them, a discussion begins.

“We could use duct tape,” says the property master, suggesting a means to secure the filters to the pipes. This begins a conversation on what is presently the most critical aspect of the entire project. Some other detail will replace it in a minute. That’s the nature of film—all the grandiose ideas rest on the granular details, and a successful shoot resolves them quickly.

“That’ll melt to the tailpipe,” says the assistant director (AD). His main job is to keep the shoot moving and to eliminate obstacles to its progress, so he has a vested interest in quickly arriving at a solution.

“Zip ties? Rusty wire? Rubber bands?” offers the prop master. He’s wearing this brown baseball hat with a flat bill.

Other grips adjust a giant, stretched patch of silk tied to a metal frame connected to a pair of heavy rolling stands. It filters and softens the sunlight that is the sole source of illumination for this shot. The actors pace and mutter lines. Presently, thin cloud cover helps the silk manage the sun. That’s rare, and always, always employed. Just in case, several massive arc-lamps that toss light in increments of tens of thousands of watts stand ready. If the clouds clear, they'll have to overpower the intensity of the sun, and the same giant silk will act as a diffuser for the 18,000-watt lamps, the brightness of which cannot be appreciated without searing your retinas. A quiet-running, large generator that runs on clean diesel fuel supplies all the electricity.

“Rubber bands,” says the AD. “Let’s try rubber bands.”

“Okay, but you have to take off the filter with the cars running, or else the filter will suck into the tailpipe,” says the prop master. If that detail gets missed, the shoot stops, because the engine does. That cannot happen.

Suddenly, it all gels. The AD barks: “Rolling sound, cell phones on vibrate, walkies down…and we have speed!” Speed is the director’s cue to call “Action!” He’s Neil Tardio, a veteran of comedic television commercials, race car enthusiast—and one of 60 directors considered.

“Neil hired all his car-racing buddies,” says CP+B producer Julie Vosburgh. To be clear, they are all highly proficient at their respective jobs in the film industry. You cannot fake your way through an assignment like this —so much of what is accomplished happens without instructions.

“We found the people who were most passionate about working on this project,” adds
Vosburgh.

The two actors, selected from a pool of 187 who auditioned for the part, bring to life what hundreds of people behind the lens have planned and organized for months.

“I’m after heightened reality,” says Tardio. “I want it to feel real—like a film that a real Volkswagen enthusiast would go out and make. It’s their film on steroids, basically.”

So, it’s a little “loose” in look. The camera wobbles when the actors exchange words, as if an amateur is at the helm. “The audience should relate to them and think, ‘If this was me, this is the film I’d make,’” says Tardio. “You want the actors to be funny and you want them to feel real. The audience should feel like they helped make this film.”

With the first setup underway, there's still much heavy lifting left. There's the afternoon drag race and the early-evening lateral acceleration test, where the AD will announce, "We really got to go!" as the sun rushes to touch the western horizon. The deep-freeze start-up is scheduled for the next day.

Right now, the focus of the shoot switches to a table with two coffee-makers, where two actors will compare the robustness of their respective café au diesels. The buzzing urgency returns. When you are outside for a daytime shoot, the sun sets the schedule.

On another plot of the six-square-mile airbase, a second-unit crew captures some eye-popping car-to-car footage of a Jetta TDI playing bumper tag with a chase vehicle rigged to exceed 110 mph while recording rock-still moving images.

"We're trying to keep that footage loose, too," says Tardio. "It's not going to look like a super-polished car spot, but more like a rowdy little film that an enthusiast made."

The chase vehicle is painted flat black to eliminate the possibility of reflecting its own image in the metal of the vehicle it’s shooting. A 20-foot jib arm extends from a mount on the reinforced roof, and the camera can come within inches of the subject car, driven by Jetta TDI Cup champion, Josh Hurley. Everyone on the A Team is here today.

Hurley is making his debut as a stunt driver. It’s not the same as racing. “Race-car driving is a little more neat and tidy,” says Hurley. “Here, you’re trying to position the car for the camera, and it’s a lot more aggressive, sideways and more action-looking than what’s fast. It’s a little against my instincts, but it’s great—instead of driving for the stopwatch, I’m driving for the camera lens.”

Josh offers an interesting insight after an hour or so of precision driving.

“It’s amazing how similar racing and film-making is,” says Hurley. “I was shocked at the attention to detail. It’s so many stages beyond what you would expect, and race driving is the same way.”