A spoof ad for a 1996 Honda Accord with more than 220,000km on the clock has gone viral. 

The one-minute YouTube commercial, complete with sweeping aerial shots, slick voiceover and ignition close-ups, is the work of Max Lanman. 

Mr Lanman's girlfriend wanted to sell her car, and when the couple were driving down the Californian coast, the budding filmmaker had an idea. 

"It dawned on me that it would be really funny to film a car commercial for a really crappy car against such a gorgeous backdrop," he told the BBC.

Mr Lanman hired an actress to play the part of his girlfriend and got to work. 

"You don't do it for appearances, you do it because it works," the ad's narrator says, as viewers see a woman slot a tape into the car radio, pour herself a cup out of a coffee machine strapped to the passenger seat and stroke her cat while driving. 

It ends with a deadpan tagline: "luxury is a state of mind."

The ad has already been viewed 1.4 million times since it was uploaded on Thursday, and Mr Lanman's creativity appears to have worked: bidders on ebay have pushed the car's price up from $499 (€430) to a scarcely-believable $100,000 (€86,000).